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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/wikioasis/mw-config/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Once a wiki is live, its administrators control almost every aspect of its behaviour through Special:ManageWiki — the self-service configuration portal provided by the ManageWiki extension. WikiOasis enables all five ManageWiki modules, giving bureaucrats granular control over core settings, extensions, custom namespaces, user-group permissions, and advanced configuration variables. Under the hood, each change a wiki admin saves is written into a per-wiki PHP cache file at /srv/mediawiki/cw_cache/{dbname}.php, which MirahezeFunctions reads and merges into MediaWiki’s SiteConfiguration ($wgConf) on every request. This design means configuration changes take effect without any server restart and without touching shared configuration files.

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ManageWiki Modules

All five modules are enabled via wgManageWikiModulesEnabled in LocalSettings.php:
Controls the wiki’s primary domain, MediaWiki version (requires managewiki-restricted), language code, and other foundational parameters. Version and domain changes are handled by the onManageWikiCoreAddFormFields and onManageWikiCoreFormSubmission hooks in MirahezeFunctions, which also update wikiVersions.php atomically for immediate effect.
Allows wiki administrators to enable or disable any extension listed in wgManageWikiExtensions. The farm maintains a version-specific extension-list.php cache under cw_cache/{version}/ to avoid re-scanning the filesystem on every request. Extensions in MirahezeFunctions::$disabledExtensions are globally locked and display a reason message; they require managewiki-restricted to re-enable.
Exposes controls for creating, renaming, and configuring custom namespaces — including subpage support, content model, search-default status, protection level, and namespace aliases. Namespace configuration is stored in the wiki’s cache array under the namespaces key and merged into $wgConf->settings by getManageWikiConfigCache().
Enables wiki admins to configure wgGroupPermissions, wgAddGroups, wgRemoveGroups, wgGroupsAddToSelf, wgGroupsRemoveFromSelf, wgAutopromote, and wgAutopromoteOnce for custom user groups — subject to the farm-wide disallowed rights and disallowed groups lists.
Exposes a curated list of $wg* configuration variables (defined in ManageWikiSettings.php) that wiki admins can adjust per-wiki. Values are stored in the settings key of the wiki cache and resolved by getSettingValue().

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Per-Wiki Configuration Resolution

MirahezeFunctions resolves per-wiki settings through a layered cache system.

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getManageWikiConfigCache()

public static function getManageWikiConfigCache(): array
Reads the per-wiki PHP cache from cw_cache/{dbname}.php and expands it into a full $wgConf->settings-compatible array. It processes:
  • Core settings — e.g. wgLanguageCode from $cacheArray['core']
  • States — maps cwPrivate, cwClosed, cwLocked, cwDeleted, cwInactive, cwExperimental booleans from $cacheArray['states']
  • Settings — iterates $cacheArray['settings'] and sets each variable under the default key
  • Namespaces — builds wgExtraNamespaces, wgNamespacesWithSubpages, wgContentNamespaces, wgNamespaceProtection, wgNamespaceAliases, and related globals
  • Permissions — builds wgGroupPermissions, wgAddGroups, wgRemoveGroups, wgGroupsAddToSelf, wgGroupsRemoveFromSelf, wgAutopromote, and wgAutopromoteOnce

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getSettingValue()

public function getSettingValue(string $setting, string $wiki = 'default'): mixed
Returns a single setting value for the current wiki. It first checks the in-memory cache array ($cacheArray['settings'][$setting]); if the key is absent, it falls back to $wgConf->get($setting, $wiki), which traverses the full SiteConfiguration hierarchy including farm-wide defaults.

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getConfigGlobals()

public static function getConfigGlobals(): array
The main entry point called during LocalSettings.php bootstrap. It:
  1. Computes the maximum mtime across LocalSettings.php, ManageWikiExtensions.php, ManageWikiNamespaces.php, ManageWikiSettings.php, Defines.php, and the wiki’s own cache file.
  2. Attempts to read a pre-built globals array from cw_cache/config-{dbname}.php.
  3. On a cache miss or mtime mismatch, calls getManageWikiConfigCache() to merge ManageWiki data into $wgConf->settings, resolves all config values via getConfigForCaching(), and writes a new cache shard atomically using writeToCache().
The resulting array is extracted into PHP globals via extract($globals) in LocalSettings.php, making every per-wiki setting available as a first-class global variable.

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Extension State Helpers

Three instance methods on MirahezeFunctions provide a clean API for conditionally applying config based on whether specific extensions are active on the current wiki. 
public function isExtensionActive(string $extension): bool
Returns true if the named extension appears in the resolved active-extensions list for the current wiki. 
public function isAnyOfExtensionsActive(string ...$extensions): bool
Returns true if at least one of the supplied extension names is active. Useful for guarding settings shared by a family of related extensions. 
public function isAllOfExtensionsActive(string ...$extensions): bool
Returns true only if every supplied extension name is active. Use this when a setting only makes sense when multiple cooperating extensions are all enabled together. All three methods share a static $activeExtensions cache populated by getActiveExtensions(), so repeated calls within a single request incur no extra I/O.

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handleDisabledExtensions()

public static function handleDisabledExtensions(): void
Iterates MirahezeFunctions::$disabledExtensions — a key-value map of extension slug to human-readable reason — and for each entry:
  • Injects a bold “Note” help text into $wgManageWikiExtensions[$name]['help'] explaining that the extension is globally disabled.
  • Sets $wgManageWikiExtensions[$name]['requires']['permissions'] to ['managewiki-restricted'], effectively locking the toggle for regular wiki admins.
Currently disabled extensions include drafts, score, wikiforum, lingo, chameleon, snapwikiskin, hawelcome, and semanticscribunto.

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Disallowed Rights and Groups

WikiOasis configures wgManageWikiPermissionsDisallowedRights and wgManageWikiPermissionsDisallowedGroups to prevent wiki administrators from granting sensitive rights that must remain under steward or tech-team control.

Globally disallowed rights (any group)

Rights that no wiki admin may grant to any group include: all CheckUser rights, all CentralAuth management rights, all global blocking/grouping rights, managewiki-restricted, hideuser, suppressrevision, viewsuppressed, suppressionlog, userrights, createwiki, and many others covering oversight, OAuth management, and PII handling.

Disallowed from the user group

The user group may not be granted: autoconfirmed, noratelimit, skipcaptcha, all managewiki-* rights, globalblock-whitelist, ipblock-exempt, or interwiki.

Disallowed from anonymous (*)

Anonymous users (*) may not be granted read, skipcaptcha, editsitecss/js/json, edituserjs/css/json, managewiki-* rights, noratelimit, autoconfirmed, interwiki, ipblock-exempt, or viewmyprivateinfo, among others.

Disallowed user groups

Wiki admins may not create or configure the following groups: checkuser, smwadministrator, oversight, steward, suppress, tech, and safety. These are reserved for the global rights infrastructure.
The managewiki-restricted right itself is listed under wgManageWikiPermissionsDisallowedRights for all groups. Only stewards and tech team members — who receive this right via global group membership on metawiki — can perform restricted ManageWiki actions such as changing a wiki’s MediaWiki version, primary domain, or enabling globally-disabled extensions.

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