Debian-MediaWiki

Revamping my previous work with Alpine to using Debian as the base operating system for generating custom Docker containers for deploying a MediaWiki instance.

Required Packages on Host

Install Docker and docker-compose according to the official installation guide.

Building Image

Example: building image for MediaWiki v1.36.0.

$ docker build --tag=debian-mediawiki:1_36 --file=Dockerfiles/v1_36 .

Deploying a MediaWiki Instance

Locate the docker-compose.yml then run the following command in the same directory.

# Run, spit endlessly to terminal
$ docker-compose up

# Run daemonized
$ docker-compose up -d

At the end of setting up, download LocalSettings.php from the MediaWiki web installer (you won't miss it because it will ask), then place it inside the same directory as the docker-compose.yml, and add the following directive under volumes: for the mediawiki container.

-  ./LocalSettings.php:/var/www/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php

Then, stop the container (ctrl + c if not daemonized, see below if daemonize) then start the containers again through docker-compose. This time, the MediaWiki application would read the content of the LocalSettings.php and it should run as configured.

To stop running, run:

# Bring down compose
$ docker-compose down
$ docker-compose rm

# Hard reset, first list volumes, then prune them all
$ docker volume ls 
$ docker volume prune

Troubleshoting

Enter into an already-running container with the following Docker command:

$ docker exec -it <container ID> bash

To stop and delete all containers (not container images!)

# Stop them all
$ docker stop $(docker ps -a q)

# Delete them all
$ docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)

Upgrading the Mediawiki

Because I run my Mediawiki with docker-compose, here are the steps: