https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51782
Web browser: ---
Bug ID: 51782
Summary: Provide a web interface for customizing an MediaWiki
instance and provisioning it in the cloud or locally
Product: Tools
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: All
Status: NEW
Severity: enhancement
Priority: Unprioritized
Component: MediaWiki-Vagrant
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Classification: Unclassified
Mobile Platform: ---
The basic idea is to have a clear and pleasant-to-use web-based interface for
generating a MediaWiki instance manifest. The interface should allow you to
tick off the extensions you want, for example, and it would automate the
configuration of supporting software like Apache and memcached. There's an
attractive example of such an interface at <https://puphpet.com/>.
MediaWiki-Vagrant already implements the bulk of the work in that it provides a
set of parametrized, MediaWiki-oriented Puppet modules and resource types. In
plain English: MediaWiki-Vagrant can take a configuration file that says "give
me a MediaWiki instance with Scribunto and VisualEditor that is set up for
development work" and configure a machine to match these specifications.
A number of cloud computing platforms provide hooks for uploading Puppet code
to automate the creation and customization of servers. Some are event
implemented as Vagrant 'providers', which means that you can run 'vagrant up'
and Vagrant will create a cloud instance rather than a VirtualBox VM. Examples
include vagrant-rackspace for Rackspace Cloud
(<https://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant-rackspace>) and vagrant-aws
(<https://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant-aws>) for Amazon AWS. A
vagrant-openstack provider (<https://github.com/aodn/vagrant-openstack>) also
exists; I don't know how much work it would take to make it work with Labs.
The major work-item would be to build the web interface (or adapting the source
code of <https://puphpet.com/> or some other project -- there are several),
ideally as a MediaWiki extension so that we can offer the ability to provision
a virtual server (either local or cloud-based) right on MediaWiki.org.
I think that this could considerably broaden the appeal of MediaWiki to a new
generation of internet users. The success of Wikia shows that there exists
considerable demand for point-and-click wiki creation. It could also help drive
third-party usage of VisualEditor / parsoid, if it is true that adoption is
held back by anxiety over having to configure and maintain an additional
software component.
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