Wikibase is a data repository for Mediawiki.

There are two main methods of installation

• As a Mediawiki extension
• As a Wikibase docker deployment

Visit the download page and fetch the correct version.

This guide details the steps required to install the extension which is also outlined below with Mediawiki 1.43.

Enter the mediawiki installation directory and extract the archive into the extensions directory

cd /var/www/htdocs/www.examle.com/w
tar zxvf ~/Wikibase-REL1_43-XXXXXXX.tar.gz -C extensions
chown -R www-data:www-data extensions/Wikibase

From the mediawiki directory run composer. Composer ought to have been installed setting up Mediawiki.

rm -f composer.lock
composer install --no-dev

Update the LocalSettings.php file to enable the extension.

wfLoadExtension('WikibaseRepository', "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/extension-repo.json");
require_once "$IP/extensions/Wikibase/repo/ExampleSettings.php";

Run the initial maintenance scripts to build the database tables to prepare the site.

php maintenance/run.php update
php maintenance/run.php ./extensions/Wikibase/lib/maintenance/populateSitesTable.php
php maintenance/run.php ./extensions/Wikibase/repo/maintenance/rebuildItemsPerSite.php
php maintenance/run.php populateInterwiki

Github

This setup requires a modern version of docker to be installed and was tested on Debian bookworm on a dual core VM with 12GB of RAM.

git clone https://github.com/wmde/wikibase-release-pipeline

ln -s wikibase-release-pipeline/deploy
cd deploy
cp template.env .env

vi .env

METADATA_CALLBACK=false

# Public hostname configuration.

WIKIBASE_PUBLIC_HOST=wikibase.example.com
WDQS_PUBLIC_HOST=query.example.com

# MediaWiki / Wikibase user configuration.

MW_ADMIN_NAME=username
MW_ADMIN_EMAIL=email@example.com
MW_ADMIN_PASS=changemetoatleast10chars

# MediaWiki / Wikibase database configuration.

DB_NAME=dbname
DB_USER=dbuser
DB_PASS=changemetoatleast10chars

All the following are executed within the deploy directory.

Foreground

First run in foreground.

docker compose up

Wait until install process is complete and press d to detach.

Close down the deployment.

docker compose down

Closing is needed to allow us to fix the configuration and is absolutely necessary if you have configure IPv6 (see below).

Fix

A recent bug will write config files as the root user.

sudo chown -R $USER:$GROUP config/

Restart

Restart the docker and everything should work as normal with LocalSettings and IPv6 if required.

docker compose up

Apply the wdqs fix below.

Update

docker compose up --pull always

Background

docker compose up --detach

Stop

docker compose down

Example

PREFIX wd: <https://wikibase.example.com/entity/>
SELECT * WHERE {
  wd:Q1 ?p ?o
}

BUG

After inserting data into an empty instance the query engine will need to be synchronised due to a bug, the following script has been provided.

#! /bin/sh

# Stop the stock updater
docker compose stop wdqs-updater

# Start an updater with force sync settings
docker compose run --rm wdqs-updater /wdqs/runUpdate.sh -h http://\$WDQS_HOST:\$WDQS_PORT -- --wikibaseUrl \$WIKIBASE_SCHEME://\$WIKIBASE_HOST --conceptUri \$WIKIBASE_CONCEPT_URI --entityNamespaces \$WDQS_ENTITY_NAMESPACES --init --start $(date +%Y%m%d000000)

# As soon as you see "Sleeping for 10 secs" in the logs, press CTRL-C to stop it again

# Start the stock updater again
docker compose start wdqs-updater

Special:Nuke

vi LocalSettings.php

Eg.

# Disable reading by anonymous users
#$wgGroupPermissions['*']['read'] = false;
# Disable anonymous editing
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;
# Prevent new user registrations except by sysops
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;

The entrypoint copies the settings file in config into the working directory at start up.

Restart proxy if it fails to connect to Wikibase

docker compose restart traefik

docker compose down --volumes
rm -vf config/{LocalSettings.php,wikibase-php.ini,wdqs-frontend-config.json}

Setting up wikibase with IPv6 is undocumented, but the following works:

/etc/docker/daemon.json

{
  "ipv6": true,
  "fixed-cidr-v6": "fd00:db8:1::/64",
  "ip6tables": true,
  "experimental": false,
  "registry-mirrors": ["https://registry.ipv6.docker.com"],
  "dns": ["2001:4860:4860::8888", "2001:4860:4860::8844"]
}

docker-compose.yml.diff-

--- docker-compose.yml.orig     2026-03-02 06:51:41.443108398 +0000
+++ docker-compose.yml  2026-03-02 06:04:51.862305459 +0000
@@ -165,9 +165,9 @@
       # enable accesslog
       - "--accesslog.format=common"
       # http endpoint
-      - "--entrypoints.web.address=:80"
+      - "--entrypoints.web.address=[::]:80"
       # https endpoint
-      - "--entrypoints.websecure.address=:443"
+      - "--entrypoints.websecure.address=[::]:443"
       - "--entrypoints.websecure.asdefault"
       - "--entrypoints.websecure.http.tls.certresolver=letsencrypt"
       # http to https redirect
@@ -189,8 +189,8 @@
       # - "--log.level=DEBUG"
     restart: unless-stopped
     ports:
-      - 80:80
-      - 443:443
+      - "[::]:80:80"
+      - "[::]:443:443"
       # traefik dashboard
       # - 8080:8080
     volumes:
@@ -210,3 +210,11 @@
   quickstatements-data:
   # C. REVERSE PROXY AND SSL SERVICES DATA
   traefik-letsencrypt-data:
+
+networks:
+  default:
+    enable_ipv6: true
+    ipam:
+      driver: default
+      config:
+        - subnet: "fd00:db8:2::/64"

docker-compose.override.yml

services:
  mysql:
    healthcheck:
      interval: 24h
      start_interval: 20s
      start_period: 1m

  wikibase:
    links:
      - mysql
    healthcheck:
      interval: 24h
      start_interval: 10s
      start_period: 5m

  elasticsearch:
    healthcheck:
      interval: 24h
      start_interval: 10s
      start_period: 2m

  wdqs:
    healthcheck:
      start_interval: 10s
      start_period: 2m

  wikibase-jobrunner:
    healthcheck:
      interval: 24h
      start_interval: 10s
      start_period: 5m

  quickstatements:
    healthcheck:
      interval: 24h
      start_interval: 10s
      start_period: 2m

networks:
  default:
    enable_ipv6: true
    ipam:
      driver: default
      config:
        - subnet: "fd42:0002:0002::/64"
    driver_opts:
      com.docker.network.bridge.name: "wikibase"
      com.docker.network.bridge.enable_icc: "true"

Wikibase home page

Wikibase tutorial

Data import

WikibaseIntegrator

quickstatements