HOWTO: Setup MediaWiki as a Single-user CMS

Chris Rebert — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:31:23 +0000

If, like me, you’re abusing MediaWiki as a content management system for your personal website, here are some suggested options to set in your LocalSettings.php:

#Stricter than normal settings:

#prevent anonymous users from registering
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = false;

#prevent anonymous users from editing
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['edit'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['*']['createpage'] = false;

#disable section edit links for anonymous viewers
$wgDefaultUserOptions['editsection'] = false;

#remove userpage & usertalk links for anonymous
$wgShowIPinHeader = false;

#disable bot API
$wgEnableAPI = false;
$wgEnableWriteAPI = false;

#disable RSS/atom change feeds
$wgFeed = false;

#Looser than normal settings:

#disable 'nofollow' on external links
$wgNoFollowLinks = false;

#allow uploading of non-images
$wgStrictFileExtensions = false;
$wgCheckFileExtensions = false;
$wgVerifyMimeType = false;

#disable copyright checks on upload
$wgCheckCopyrightUpload = false;

#disable anti-vandalism patrols
$wgUseNPPatrol = false;
$wgUseRCPatrol = false;

#allow raw HTML in ... blocks
$wgRawHtml = true;

#allow more liberal redirecting
$wgMaxRedirects = 42;
$wgFixDoubleRedirects = true;

#Other:

#unless your site is multilingual..
$wgHideInterlanguageLinks = true;

#unless you use the Universal Edit Button..
$wgUniversalEditButton = false;

And if you’re using the Monobook skin, add the following to /skins/monobook/main.css to hide the “talk” and “view source” tabs:

li#ca-talk {
display: none;
}
li#ca-viewsource {
display: none;
}

Note that this merely hides the links from view; they’re still in the HTML and are still accessible by anyone who knows how override your CSS or construct the URLs manually (i.e. mere security thru obscurity; I mainly do it to improve the wiki’s aesthetics).

Also, I’ve now finished switching hosting providers! (You may have noticed the site being flaky for a bit.) Rebertia is now proud to be hosted by prgmr.com. Their pricing for VPSes is quite good; I’m now paying less than I was for shared hosting at my previous provider. (Protip: Install Fail2ban and setup its SSH rule to avoid being 0wn3d; I’ve safely observed a surprising number of random SSH login attack attempts on my VPS)

Please Pardon Our Dust

Chris Rebert — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 05:48:19 +0000

Just finished moving the blog off of WordPress.com and onto my own servers, hence why the theme suddenly changed. I’m still finishing up the setup, so don’t be alarmed if things suddenly change over the next day or so.

You may be wondering why I’m going through all the trouble to move things. Basically, WordPress.com quite frankly has a lousy theme selection. Also, using my own server gives me more control. I will applaud them on making moving one’s blog quite easy, with nice import-export wizards and making it simple to delete one’s blog. No service provider lock-in.

Anyway, thanks for reading! New posts are planned and will be on their way Real Soon (TM)!

The Rebertian Times » meta

HOWTO: Setup MediaWiki as a Single-user CMS

Please Pardon Our Dust