296085 - Multiwiki user handling

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(developer.mozilla.org Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[victory <[e-mail]>]

http://developer-test.mozilla.org/docs/ requires login to see wiki source.
wikis on developer-test.mozilla.org uses same cookie PATH.

this causes confusion(browsers), inconvenient(frequent re-login) to editors.

Comment 1

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Alex was looking into this and discovered MediaWiki doesn't support setting a
cookie path (without hacking the code).

Mediawiki does, however, support specifying the same table for login info on
each one, which would effectively give us a single-signon within the domain. 
This might be a better option anyway.

Comment 2

[Axel Hecht]

I have looked at the mediawiki pages regarding SUL (single user login), 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/SUL, and they don't have any merging code yet, 
AFAICT.

On the other hand, there's the wikimania in Frankfurt, June 4th-8th. Or gandalf
can look at merging code.

Comment 3

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Ok. We had a chat with Dria and Pike on #devmo.
Pike found a var in MediaWiki that could save us. 

# Shared database for multiple wikis.
# Presently used for storing a user table for single sign-on
# The server for this database must be the same as for the main
# database.
# EXPERIMENTAL
$wgSharedDB = null;

Unfortunately, after checking that code... it sucks. It's absolutely useless
because it fails to deal with different server, different table names (for
example all tables in polish devmo has pl_ prefix and this pref tries to find
table pl_users in userwiki database instead of users) and has some other bugs
that will require patching.
I'll do this.

My plan is to:

1) Patch MediaWiki so it's able to get user data from different
server/db/tables. It's quite easy to fix. 
2) Write a script that will merge userlists from two databases to another. It
will require human interaction on collisions. I want to give ability to rename
one account, merge two to one, remove one.

Test, test, test, test, test, test.
Once I'm ready, I'll provide a bits. Justdave, polvi - any comments?

Comment 4

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

In our case, the different able prefixes are the only thing you need to worry
about.  They are all on the same server and database already, just different
table prefixes.

Comment 5

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Attachment: patch for mediawiki 1.4.5

It's a very trivial fix. It works for me with many wikis using their own tables
for everything beside user* tables which are stored in different, common
database.

The only big problem I found is that we can't store User pages :(

If you like this solution, I'll start writing a script to merge databases
without loosing user_id.

Comment 6

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Attachment: patch v2

same patch - do not share access rights.

Comment 7

[Axel Hecht]

(In reply to comment #5)
> The only big problem I found is that we can't store User pages :(

As said on irc, we store user pages per wiki, which is somewhere between OK and
good. So folks can put different emphasise in their user page or just translate
them, or, #REDIRECT if they don't want to.

We may want to evangelize them doing so for the talk page.

Comment 8

[Axel Hecht]

There is http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2396 with a patch, too.
Slightly different, but only slightly, AFAICT. And only some 10 days old.
Do we have a way to push stuff into 1.5? That would be good, I guess.

Comment 9

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Their patch still does not fix prefixes in user tables.

Comment 10

[Alex Polvi]

Applied the patch and it did do single sign-on. However, it did break the user
access rights because mediawiki uses the user_id instead of user_name. Also when
a new user is created a new entry with a corresponding user_id is put into the
prefix_user_rights table. If we ended up not making it centralized, we would at
least need to sync that table initially.

Deb also encountered a bug while trying to give someone a different access level
after the patch has been applied.

We are waiting a fix on this before we move from -test.

Comment 11

[Jeff Walden [:Waldo]]

Changing QA contact to the default QA so interested parties can watch bugs filed
before the default QA was changed.  Only bugs in an unfixed state have been
changed; fixed bugs are unlikely to be reopened, and more bugspam is always a
bad thing.  Sorry for the bugspam - filter it into your Junk folder by searching
for 'WhyDoesMediaWikiHaveToBeEvilAndNotAcceptArbitraryCharactersInTitlesAndLinks'.

Comment 12

[Alex Polvi]

gandalf - any updates on this?

Comment 13

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Applied the patch and it did do single sign-on. However, it did break the user
> access rights because mediawiki uses the user_id instead of user_name.

Yes. It's a feature, not a bug. 
Let's take two wikis: wiki1 and wiki2. We have some users in wiki1 and wiki2, we
want to use wiki1 users in wiki2.
Now, with this patch and after pointing it in wiki2, you can log in on wiki1
account in wiki2. From this moment all wiki2 users are not avaible.
From this moment you can also setup user_rights for User1 in wiki1 and,
independly in wiki2.

> Deb also encountered a bug while trying to give someone a different access level
> after the patch has been applied.

Investigating.

Comment 14

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Attachment: patch v3

omg... it was so trivial and it took me nearly 3 hours.
I only had to add '`' signs around table name in tableName function.

Comment 15

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Attachment: script

Ok. Here comes the script.

It alows you to manage users in wiki (change user name, user rights, remove
user) and you can migrate users from another wiki to yours.
After this, you can switch database in that another wiki to use your wiki and
everything should be synced.

Comment 16

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Attachment: script v2

updated script. Fixes a problem with moveing user to new database with existing
ID.

Comment 17

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

the fix was checked in

Comment 18

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Attachment: patch v4

patch against 1.6.5

Comment 19

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Attachment: emm, this is patch v4

the prvious one was v3. This is v4.

Comment 20

[Justin Wood (:Callek)]

REOPEN due to Bug 336474

Comment 21

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Attachment: updated patch

previous one had a flaw introduced during merging patch with trunk. This one is a proper one

Comment 22

[Zibi Braniecki [:zbraniecki][:gandalf]]

Attachment: updated patch

This patch updates the script to Mediawiki tip (~1.10.0)

Comment 23

[Benoit]

This seems broken on MDC since the last upgrade.

Before the MediaWiki upgrade, the cookies had a "wiki_mdc" prefix (e.g. wiki_mdcUserID).

After the upgrade, it seems that the prefix is "wiki_mdc_mediawiki" on the English pages (e.g. wiki_mdc_mediawikiUserID), and "wiki_mdc_fr" on the French pages (e.g. wiki_mdc_frUserID). Other settings (theme, interface language, ...) aren't shared between locales anymore.

Comment 24

[Benoit]

Looks like it was a side effect of bug #381080, which has been fixed. I now stay logged in across all locales again.

Comment 25

[Mike Shaver (:shaver emeritus)]

Fixed, but never marked as such.