Extension:CirrusSearch

1. Extension:CirrusSearch – A Beginner's Guide

CirrusSearch is a powerful, full-text search extension for MediaWiki that significantly enhances the default search functionality. While the built-in search is adequate for small wikis, CirrusSearch provides a robust, scalable, and feature-rich alternative, particularly suited for large wikis with extensive content. This article provides a comprehensive guide to understanding, installing, configuring, and using CirrusSearch, geared towards beginners.

== What is CirrusSearch?

At its core, CirrusSearch replaces the standard MediaWiki search with a search powered by Elasticsearch. Elasticsearch is a distributed, RESTful search and analytics engine capable of solving a growing number of use cases. This means CirrusSearch doesn't just find pages containing your search terms; it *understands* the content better, offering more relevant results, advanced search options, and faster performance.

Here's a breakdown of the key benefits:

• **Relevance:** CirrusSearch employs sophisticated ranking algorithms to prioritize results based on relevance, considering factors like term frequency, proximity, and page importance. This is a significant improvement over the default search which often returns pages with minimal relevance. Think of it like the difference between a simple keyword match and a nuanced understanding of the query, like analyzing candlestick patterns to predict market movement.
• **Speed:** Elasticsearch is designed for speed. Even on wikis with millions of pages, CirrusSearch delivers results quickly, offering a much more responsive user experience. This responsiveness is crucial, especially for wikis dealing with time-sensitive information, similar to how a trader needs real-time market data to make informed decisions.
• **Advanced Search Features:** CirrusSearch supports a wide range of advanced search operators, including phrase search, wildcard search, boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT), and fuzzy search. It also allows searching within specific namespaces or categories. This is akin to using specific technical indicators like the Relative Strength Index (RSI) or Moving Averages to refine your search criteria.
• **Highlighting:** Search terms are highlighted within the search results, making it easy to identify why a particular page was returned. This is analogous to highlighting key levels of support and resistance on a price chart.
• **Scalability:** Elasticsearch is designed to scale horizontally, meaning you can add more servers to handle increasing search load as your wiki grows. This is critical for large wikis that anticipate significant growth, like a trading strategy that needs to adapt to changing market trends.
• **Faceting:** CirrusSearch can display facets, which are counts of values for specific fields (e.g., categories, namespaces). This allows users to refine their search results by filtering based on these facets. Consider this like filtering trading signals based on risk tolerance.
• **Integration with VisualEditor:** Works seamlessly with the VisualEditor, providing a consistent search experience across the wiki.

== Prerequisites

Before installing CirrusSearch, ensure you have the following:

• **A running MediaWiki instance:** This guide assumes you have a working MediaWiki installation. Ensure it’s at least version 1.31, but 1.40 is recommended for the latest features and security updates.
• **Access to server administration:** Installing CirrusSearch requires server access to install and configure Elasticsearch and the CirrusSearch extension itself.
• **Elasticsearch Server:** You need a running Elasticsearch server. This can be installed on the same server as MediaWiki (not recommended for production) or on a separate server. Refer to the official Elasticsearch documentation for installation instructions: [1]. A minimum of 2GB RAM is recommended for Elasticsearch. Consider using a dedicated server or virtual machine for Elasticsearch to ensure optimal performance. This is similar to performing backtesting on a dedicated environment to avoid influencing live trading results.
• **Java Runtime Environment (JRE):** Elasticsearch requires a JRE. Ensure you have a compatible version installed.

== Installation

The installation process involves several steps:

1. **Download CirrusSearch:** Download the latest release of CirrusSearch from the MediaWiki Extensions repository: [2].

2. **Extract the Extension:** Extract the downloaded archive to your MediaWiki extensions directory (usually `extensions/`).

3. **Configure LocalSettings.php:** Open your `LocalSettings.php` file and add the following lines:

```php wfLoadExtension( 'CirrusSearch' );

$wgCirrusSearchServers = array(

   'default' => array(
       'host' => 'localhost', // Replace with your Elasticsearch host
       'port' => 9200,        // Replace with your Elasticsearch port
       'scheme' => 'http',     // Use 'https' if Elasticsearch is secured
       'index' => 'mw',       // The index to use in Elasticsearch.  Important!
   ),

);

$wgCirrusSearchIndexSettings = array(

   'analysis' => array(
       'analyzer' => array(
           'mediawiki' => array(
               'type' => 'custom',
               'tokenizer' => 'standard',
               'filter' => array(
                   'lowercase',
                   'stop',
                   'mediawiki'
               )
           )
       ),
       'filter' => array(
           'mediawiki' => array(
               'type' => 'synonym',
               'synonyms' => array(
                   'apple' => 'fruit,red'
               )
           )
       )
   )

); ```

  *   **`wfLoadExtension( 'CirrusSearch' );`**: This line loads the CirrusSearch extension.
  *   **`$wgCirrusSearchServers`**: This array defines the connection details for your Elasticsearch server(s).  Replace `localhost`, `9200`, and `mw` with your actual values.  You can define multiple servers for redundancy and scalability.
  *   **`$wgCirrusSearchIndexSettings`**: This array allows you to customize the Elasticsearch index settings.  The example above defines a custom analyzer called 'mediawiki' that uses the standard tokenizer and filters for lowercase conversion, stop word removal, and synonym handling.  This is where you can fine-tune the search behavior.  Adjusting these settings is like optimizing the parameters of a trading algorithm for maximum profitability.

4. **Update `index.php` (Optional):** If you have customized your `index.php` file, you might need to ensure that it includes the necessary CirrusSearch initialization code. This is usually handled automatically by `wfLoadExtension()`, but it's worth checking.

5. **Run the Update Script:** Navigate to your MediaWiki installation in your web browser and run the update script: `https://yourwiki.com/index.php?title=Special:CirrusSearch/RebuildIndex`. This script creates the Elasticsearch index and populates it with data from your wiki. This process can take a significant amount of time, especially for large wikis. Monitor the progress in your web browser. This is similar to performing a comprehensive fundamental analysis of a company before investing.

6. **Configure Cron Job (Important):** Set up a cron job to periodically rebuild the index. This ensures that new and updated content is included in the search index. A typical cron job entry might look like this:

``` 0 0 * * * php /path/to/your/mediawiki/index.php --with-main-namespace --title=Special:CirrusSearch/RebuildIndex >/dev/null 2>&1 ```

This will run the rebuild index script every day at midnight. Adjust the schedule as needed based on the frequency of content updates. Regular index rebuilding is analogous to regularly rebalancing a portfolio to maintain the desired asset allocation.

== Configuration

CirrusSearch offers a wide range of configuration options. Here are some key settings:

• **`$wgCirrusSearchMaxResults`**: Controls the maximum number of search results displayed per page.
• **`$wgCirrusSearchSnippetLength`**: Sets the length of the snippets displayed in the search results.
• **`$wgCirrusSearchHighlightTerms`**: Enables or disables highlighting of search terms in the search results.
• **`$wgCirrusSearchUseFuzzySearch`**: Enables or disables fuzzy search, which allows for matches even with spelling errors.
• **`$wgCirrusSearchAdvancedSearch`**: Enables or disables the advanced search form.
• **`$wgCirrusSearchNamespaces`**: Specifies which namespaces should be included in the search index.
• **`$wgCirrusSearchCategoryNamespaces`**: Specifies which category namespaces should be included in the search index.

You can find a complete list of configuration options in the CirrusSearch documentation: [3]. Experimenting with these settings is like fine-tuning the parameters of a machine learning model to optimize its performance.

== Usage

Once CirrusSearch is installed and configured, the search functionality will be automatically replaced. Users can now benefit from the improved speed, relevance, and advanced search features.

• **Basic Search:** Simply enter your search terms in the search box.
• **Advanced Search:** If enabled, the advanced search form allows you to specify more complex search criteria, such as phrase search, wildcard search, boolean operators, and namespace filtering.
• **Facets:** Use the facets to refine your search results by filtering based on categories, namespaces, or other fields.

== Troubleshooting

• **Index Rebuild Failures:** If the index rebuild script fails, check the MediaWiki error logs and the Elasticsearch logs for error messages. Common causes include incorrect Elasticsearch connection details, insufficient memory allocated to Elasticsearch, or issues with the index mapping.
• **Slow Search Performance:** If search performance is slow, ensure that Elasticsearch has enough resources (CPU, memory, disk I/O). Also, check the Elasticsearch logs for performance bottlenecks. Consider increasing the number of Elasticsearch shards and replicas for improved scalability. This is akin to optimizing the execution speed of a trading bot.
• **Irrelevant Search Results:** If the search results are not relevant, review your Elasticsearch index settings and consider adjusting the analyzer and filters. Experiment with different weighting schemes to prioritize specific fields. This is similar to adjusting the weights of different economic indicators in a trading strategy.
• **Connection Errors:** Verify that the Elasticsearch server is running and accessible from your MediaWiki server. Check the firewall settings to ensure that communication is allowed.

== Further Resources

• **CirrusSearch Documentation:** [4]
• **Elasticsearch Documentation:** [5]
• **MediaWiki Extension Repository:** [6]
• **Stack Overflow (CirrusSearch Tag):** [7]

Understanding and mastering CirrusSearch can dramatically improve the usability and accessibility of your MediaWiki wiki. By leveraging the power of Elasticsearch, you can provide your users with a fast, relevant, and feature-rich search experience. This is analogous to utilizing advanced analytics and tools to gain a competitive edge in the financial markets.

MediaWiki Elasticsearch Configuration Installation Troubleshooting Search Advanced Search Indexing Namespaces Facets Scalability

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