Migrating mediawiki from mysql to sqlite

To migrate a mediawiki from MySQL to SQLite there are two basic approaches:

• start with a new database and worry about
  • dumping all pages but the Main Page with the dumpBackup command and restoring them with the importDump command
  • copying the Main Page from the old wiki to the new
  • copying the users and privileges from the old wiki to the new
  • copying the wiki statistics (like page visits) from the old wiki to the new
  • copying images and other files from the old wiki to the new
  • re-doing things like mediawiki extensions on the new wiki
  • re-doing your settings e.g. from LocalSettings.php on the new wiki
• just migrate the database below your wiki

I tried to migrate my mediawiki installation from mysql to sqlite. To do this I wanted to just convert the database below it, change LocalSettings.php and be good with it. Parts went surprisingly well, but other parts not. This is not a ready tutorial, but here to give you some ideas.

• backup LocalSettings.php
• use https://gist.github.com/esperlu/943776/ to get a file wikidb.sqlite

# ./mysql2sqlite.sh -u wikiuser -pyourpassword wikidb | sqlite3 wikidb.sqlite

• change LocalSettings.php to reflect

$wgDBtype = "sqlite";
$wgDBserver = "";
$wgDBname = "mywiki";
$wgDBuser = "";
$wgDBpassword = "";
$wgSQLiteDataDir = "/srv/www/htdocs";

Then name your .sqlite file /srv/www/htdocs/mywiki.sqlite.

• chown your .sqlite file
• run maintenance/update.php

See also

• Migrating_a_database_from_mysql_to_sqlite