# Mediawiki upgrade notes (Bullseye to Bookworm)
**URL:** https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/mediawiki-upgrade-notes-bullseye-to-bookworm/2609
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [June 11, 2023, 7:59pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/mediawiki-upgrade-notes-bullseye-to-bookworm/2609 "2023-06-11T19:59:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@baltakatei](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/baltakatei)
#### Post date: [June 11, 2023, 7:59pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/mediawiki-upgrade-notes-bullseye-to-bookworm/2609/1 "2023-06-11T19:59:00Z")
I noticed several issues regarding [Mediawiki](https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/MediaWiki) during the upgrade from Bullseye to Bookworm on one of my FreedomBoxes. The FreedomBox has a Mediawiki installation that was upgraded from version `1.35.8` to `1.39.2`; the upgrade also advanced the PHP version from `7.4.33 (fpm-fcgi)` to `8.2.5 (fpm-fcgi)`, SQLite from `3.34.1` to `3.40.1`, and ICU `67.1` to `72.1`.
## Need to run `php update.php`
I dug into these version details because following the upgrade, the Main Page displayed an ominous “There is currently no text in this page”. After reading some [Mediawiki documentation regarding upgrades](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Upgrading), I saw that the process requires running an update script: `php update.php`. In my case, this was `# php /var/lib/mediawiki/maintenance/update.php`. Running the script started a process that reported various modifications took place involving table stuff. For me, the process took 1m26s and resulted, as far as a I can tell, all pages being restored.
## Mediawiki:Sidebar not updating
There is an issue with my `MediaWiki:Sidebar` content not being displayed. I fixed the issue after a peek at [this](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Rxfkskl0fzxaqlu7) forum thread, which suggested simply making an edit to the `MediaWiki:Sidebar` page; this seems to force a cache update; the upgraded Mediawiki instance seems to have cached the default sidebar that temporarily existed prior to running `php update.php` as described earlier. I believe this issue may have resolved itself after some cache time limit expired.
## Extension updates
If you installed any custom extensions by manually copying a downloaded archive’s contents into the `/var/lib/extensions/` directory, a new archive containing an updated version of the extension appropriate to Mediawiki 1.39.2 will need to be downloaded. You can see which extension versions are loaded at `Special:Version`. There’s a tool called [`composer`](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Composer/For_extensions) that appears to automatically update default extensions, but I haven’t explored using it for custom extensions.
## Backup
It’s probably a bit too late for you if you’re here because the Bullseye to Bookworm upgrade already happened, but these details are fresh in my mind as I’ve been working through Mediawiki details, so I thought I’d include them here.
If you want to make or restore backups, you should read the official Mediawiki documentation about [backing up](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Backing_up_a_wiki#SQLite) a wiki and [restoring](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Restoring_a_wiki_from_backup) a wiki. If your wiki is simple enough (no images), you can probably get away with just exporting the wikicode of pages via [Special:Export](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Export#Using_'Special:Export').
Note that FreedomBox uses an sqlite3 database instead of the default MySQL/MariaDB database; although this doesn’t affect most `php` maintenance scripts (e.g. the aforementioned `update.sh` is run regardless of database type), it does mean you won’t be using `mysqldump` but instead [`SqliteMaintenance.php`](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:SqliteMaintenance.php) to create a backup file. For me, the command was `# php /var/lib/mediawiki/maintenance/SqliteMaintenance.php --backup-to $HOME/20230611..mw_backup`. I’m fairly certain that FreedomBox didn’t perform such a Mediawiki-specific backup command. It’s also unclear to me what exactly the Backup settings on the Plinth Settings page save.
That said, since a database backup does not include images (i.e. the content of `/var/lib/mediawiki/images/`) or configuration files (e.g. the target of the `/var/lib/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php` symbolic link), commands such as the following can save such Mediawiki data from a Freedombox installation. Some care will need to be taken to make sure file owner and groups are properly restored if they’re imported into a new operation system:
```
# dirBackup="$HOME/20230611..mw_backup_files"
# mkdir "$dirBackup";
# cd "$dirBackup"
# rsync -avu --progress /var/lib/mediawiki/ ./var/lib/mediawiki/
# rsync -avu --progress /usr/share/mediawiki/ ./usr/share/mediawiki/
# rsync -avu --progress /etc/mediawiki/ ./etc/mediawiki/
# rsync -avu --progress /var/lib/mediawiki/mediawiki-db/ ./mediawiki-db/
# ls -alhR . > 20230611..mw_backup_files.txt
# php /var/lib/mediawiki/maintenance/SqliteMaintenance.php --backup-to ./sqlite3_db
```
In this example, the image files should be backed up to: `$HOME/20230611..mw_backup_files/var/lib/mediawiki/images/`. I’ve included directories such as `/usr/share/mediawiki/` and `/etc/mediawiki` since FreedomBox uses symbolic links to reference them; ideally they shouldn’t need to be backed up, but I’ve made some changes here and there (e.g. sourcing `/etc/mediawiki/mySettings.php` files from `LocalSettings.php` via a line resembling:
```
include dirname( __FILE__ )."/mySettings.php";
```
* * *
If I run into any further issues, I’ll post them here.
edit(2023-06-13T19:31+00): Added extension to `ls` command to clarify you’re saving a file list, not doing anything to the `$dirBackup` directory itself.
---
### Author:  [@Ged](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/Ged)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2023, 8:06pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/mediawiki-upgrade-notes-bullseye-to-bookworm/2609/2 "2023-06-13T20:06:57Z")
For updating your database, Mediawiki also has a [pointer](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Upgrading#Web_updater) to add `/mw-config/` to the end of your URL (i.e. `https://myfreedombox.com/mediawiki/mw-config/`)
This will take you to an installation page that will automatically update your database. On the road, for security reasons, the page will ask for an “upgrade key.” You may reach this key with `sudo cat /etc/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php | grep wgUpgradeKey`