GuildWiki:Transition to Curse

The new server at Curse will be ready for us on Monday, at which point we will begin migrating the wiki. This page documents the transition process.

FAQ

 * What do I need to do during this transition?
 * Sit tight. Try to keep editing to a minimum until the move is complete.  (While we should be able to capture everything with the "catch-up" run of the backup scripts, the less there is to catch-up on, the better.)


 * Will I need to move my own userpage or any files I've uploaded?
 * No. We will be using a suite of Perl scripts that interface with the wiki's API in order to migrate all pages and files.  The new wiki will be a complete copy of this one.


 * How will I know when the new site is ready?
 * We will post a message to your talkpage when the move is complete. If you have provided an email address in your preferences (and confirmed it), you will receive an email notification.  If you have not provided your email, or do not have an account, we will also be posting an announcement to the Main Page.


 * How do I reclaim my username at the new site?
 * To reclaim your account, go to the Special:UserMigration page (on the new site) and enter your username and a "new" password. You will be given a 12-character code.  To confirm your username, you will need to edit your userpage (on GuildWars@Wikia) and enter that code as the edit summary.


 * What's going to happen to the Wikia site? Can we recruit vandals from random message boards to trash it?
 * Unlike other communities that have left Wikia, we are not abandoning this wiki. In fact, the future of GuildWars@Wikia is currently being discussed.  Feel free to join in with your own ideas!
 * And no, you will not recruit vandals, nor will you yourself vandalize the wiki. Anyone who does so will be permanently banned from both the Wikia and Curse wikis.

Timeline of administrative functions

 * Starting Friday evening, a dump of all article revisions will be performed. This will take approximately 40 hours, by far the longest portion of the migration process, but starting it on Friday means that it should be complete by the time the server is ready.
 * During this time, the "move" feature will be disabled on this wiki. This is because moving a page causes all of that page's revisions to be reassigned to a new page ID, and this would invalidate the backup.  Although this could be corrected by updating the page ID within the backup, that isn't exactly easy to do when you have to parse 1.5 million revisions, so it's simpler to just prevent any problems in the first place.
 * This will be accomplished by editing MediaWiki:Movepagetext to the following:

The move feature has been temporarily disabled while a full backup of the wiki is performed.

For details, see Project:Transition to Curse. Thank you for your patience.


 * Then add the following to MediaWiki:Common.css and MediaWiki:Wikia.css:

body.page-Special_MovePage form { display:none; }


 * When complete, the backup file (which will be close to 10 GB) will be split and compressed to facilitate uploading to the Curse server. (gzip compression of text files usually results in a ratio of around 7%, meaning the actual upload will be significantly less than 1 GB.)


 * On Monday, after we have access to the server, a number of processes will run in parallel:
 * The rest of the backup scripts will be run from the new server. This should take less than an hour, at which point we can begin loading the data into the database.
 * The file backup script will run. This will take around 6-8 hours.  While this runs, we will disable the file upload form (using a similar method to that for the move form above).
 * The text backup files will be uploaded to Curse and decompressed. The backup script will be run once more to "catch-up" any edits that occurred since Friday, then everything will be loaded to the database.
 * Extensions for the wiki will be installed, and other general wiki configuration will be performed.


 * After all data is loaded, a script will be run to populate the users table with all usernames that had ever edited the wiki. This will also migrate all block and group settings for each user.  The UserMigration extension will be installed to allow users to "reclaim" their accounts.


 * The maintenance scripts rebuildall.php, SMW_setup.php, and SMW_refreshData.php will be run to build all utility tables. Note for whoever does this: must set  in LocalSettings.php before setting up SMW (The default is 100, and Wikia changed this because they were already using 110 for the Forum: namespace).


 * Assuming everything goes according to plan, we will announce that the new site is ready!