Storage reports
- Storage Reports
Storage reports in MediaWiki are crucial tools for administrators and maintainers responsible for keeping a wiki running smoothly. They provide detailed information about the space consumed by various components of the wiki, helping identify potential bottlenecks, manage disk usage, and optimize performance. This article provides a comprehensive overview of storage reports in MediaWiki 1.40, covering their purpose, how to access them, interpreting the data, troubleshooting common issues, and best practices for maintaining a healthy wiki.
== What are Storage Reports?
At its core, a MediaWiki installation relies on storage – typically a database and a file system – to house all its content. This includes:
- Wiki Text: The actual text of articles, talk pages, and other wiki content.
- Revision History: Every saved version of a page, allowing for rollback and comparison. This is a significant contributor to storage usage.
- Uploaded Files: Images, documents, and other media files uploaded by users.
- Thumbnails: Reduced-size versions of images, generated for faster loading.
- Database Data: Metadata about pages, users, categories, templates, and other wiki elements, stored in the database.
- Log Files: Records of actions performed on the wiki (edits, user registrations, etc.).
- Search Index: Data used to facilitate fast and efficient searching of the wiki.
- Caches: Temporary data stored to improve performance.
As a wiki grows, the amount of storage required increases. Without monitoring and management, this can lead to performance degradation, errors, and even the inability to make changes to the wiki. Storage reports provide the necessary visibility into these storage components, enabling proactive management. Understanding Database administration is key to interpreting and acting on this data.
== Accessing Storage Reports
MediaWiki 1.40 provides access to storage reports through the Special:Statistics page. There are two main ways to access this page:
1. Direct URL: Navigate to `https://yourwiki.com/wiki/Special:Statistics` (replace `yourwiki.com` with your wiki's domain). 2. Admin Menu: If you have administrator privileges, you may find a link to "Statistics" or "Storage Reports" in the administration menu (the exact location depends on your skin and installed extensions).
The Special:Statistics page is divided into several sections, each providing different types of storage information.
== Interpreting the Data
The Special:Statistics page presents a wealth of information. Here's a breakdown of the key sections and how to interpret the data:
- Database Size: This section displays the total size of the wiki's database, broken down by table. Pay close attention to tables like `revision`, `text`, `image`, and `log`. Large sizes in these tables indicate significant amounts of wiki text, revision history, uploaded files, and log data, respectively. Database optimization is crucial here. Consider using tools like `mysqltuner.pl` for MySQL databases.
- File Statistics: This section provides details about the files stored in the wiki’s upload directory. It shows the total number of files, the total size of all files, and a breakdown by file type (e.g., images, PDFs, videos). Identifying large, unused files is a key optimization strategy. Consider implementing an Image policy to avoid unnecessary uploads.
- Revision Statistics: This is often the largest contributor to database size. It shows the total number of revisions across all pages, the average revision size, and the total size of all revisions. A high number of revisions per page suggests frequent editing, which is normal for active pages. However, very large pages with a huge revision history may benefit from Page splitting. Understanding Version control principles is helpful here.
- Thumbnails: Displays the number of thumbnails and their total size. While thumbnails are essential for performance, excessive or outdated thumbnails can consume significant space. Review your thumbnail settings and consider using a more efficient thumbnail generation method. Explore using ImageMagick for thumbnail generation.
- Log Files: Shows the size of the log files. While logs are important for auditing and troubleshooting, they can grow rapidly. Configure log rotation to automatically archive and delete old log files. Consider Log management best practices.
- Recent Changes: While not directly storage related, monitoring recent changes can give you an idea of activity levels affecting storage.
Understanding these metrics is the first step towards effective storage management. Regular monitoring (e.g., weekly or monthly) is essential to identify trends and potential problems. Tools like Prometheus and Grafana can be integrated for more advanced monitoring and visualization.
== Identifying Storage Hogs
Once you have access to the storage reports, the next step is to identify what's consuming the most space. Here are some common culprits:
- Large Images and Videos: High-resolution images and videos can quickly fill up storage. Optimize images for web use (e.g., using tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim) and consider using video hosting platforms like YouTube or Vimeo instead of directly uploading videos to the wiki. Techniques like Lossy compression and Lossless compression can be used judiciously.
- Excessive Revision History: Pages with a long revision history can consume a lot of space. Consider using the `DELETE` revision functionality (available in newer MediaWiki versions) to remove older, unnecessary revisions. Be cautious when deleting revisions, as this can affect the ability to revert to previous versions. Understand the implications of Revision deletion.
- Unused Files: Files that are no longer used by any pages on the wiki are wasting space. Identify and delete these files. Tools like the Orphaned files report can help you find unused files.
- Large Database Tables: As mentioned earlier, large database tables like `revision` and `text` can indicate problems. Investigate the contents of these tables to identify the source of the bloat. Database indexing can improve query performance and potentially reduce storage requirements.
- Spam Edits: Spam bots can create numerous revisions and pages, consuming storage. Implement anti-spam measures like CAPTCHA and abuse filters to prevent spam. Consider using tools like ClueBot N to automatically revert spam edits.
== Troubleshooting Common Storage Issues
- Database Full: If the database is full, the wiki will become unusable. The first step is to identify the largest tables and take steps to reduce their size (e.g., deleting revisions, archiving log files). If necessary, you may need to upgrade the database server or increase the disk space allocated to the database. Techniques like Database sharding can be used for very large wikis.
- Upload Directory Full: If the upload directory is full, users will be unable to upload new files. Identify and delete unused files, and consider increasing the disk space allocated to the upload directory. Consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to offload file storage.
- Slow Wiki Performance: High storage usage can lead to slow wiki performance. Optimize the database, compress images, and use caching to improve performance. Varnish cache can significantly improve performance. Understanding Web server optimization is vital.
- Errors During Edits: If the database is nearing its capacity, users may experience errors when saving edits. This is a clear sign that storage needs to be addressed immediately. Error logging and analysis can help pinpoint the issue.
== Best Practices for Storage Management
- Regular Monitoring: Monitor storage reports regularly to identify trends and potential problems.
- Revision Control: Implement a revision control policy to limit the number of revisions stored for each page.
- Image Optimization: Optimize images for web use before uploading them.
- File Management: Regularly review and delete unused files.
- Log Rotation: Configure log rotation to automatically archive and delete old log files.
- Database Maintenance: Perform regular database maintenance tasks like optimization and repair.
- Caching: Use caching to reduce the load on the database and improve performance.
- Content Delivery Network (CDN): Consider using a CDN to offload file storage and improve performance.
- Database Backups: Regularly back up the database to protect against data loss. Backup strategies should be well-defined and tested.
- Scalability Planning: Anticipate future storage needs and plan for scalability.
== Advanced Techniques
- Archiving: Move older content to an archive to reduce the size of the main wiki.
- Database Partitioning: Divide large tables into smaller, more manageable partitions.
- Data Compression: Use database compression features to reduce storage space.
- External Storage: Store large files on external storage systems like Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage.
- Storage Auditing: Implement a system for auditing storage usage and identifying potential waste.
== Resources and Further Reading
- MediaWiki Manual:Configuration settings - Understanding the settings that affect storage usage.
- Help:Contents - General help documentation for MediaWiki.
- Special:Statistics - Direct link to the Storage Reports page.
- Database software - Information about different database systems compatible with MediaWiki.
- Web server - Understanding the role of the web server in wiki performance.
- [MySQLTuner-pl](https://tuner-pl.sourceforge.net/) - A tool for analyzing and optimizing MySQL databases.
- [TinyPNG](https://tinypng.com/) - An online image compression tool.
- [ImageOptim](https://imageoptim.com/) - A Mac app for image optimization.
- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/) - Video hosting platform.
- [Vimeo](https://vimeo.com/) - Video hosting platform.
- [Prometheus](https://prometheus.io/) - Monitoring system.
- [Grafana](https://grafana.com/) - Data visualization tool.
- [Lossy compression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossy_compression) - Explanation of lossy compression techniques.
- [Lossless compression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lossless_compression) - Explanation of lossless compression techniques.
- [Content Delivery Network (CDN)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network) - Explanation of CDNs.
- [Varnish cache](https://varnish-cache.org/) - A web application accelerator.
- [Web server optimization](https://www.akamai.com/blog/web-performance/web-server-optimization) - Guide to web server optimization.
- [Amazon S3](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/) - Cloud storage service.
- [Google Cloud Storage](https://cloud.google.com/storage) - Cloud storage service.
- [Database sharding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_sharding) - Explanation of database sharding.
- [Database indexing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_index) - Explanation of database indexing.
- [Version control](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version_control) - Explanation of version control systems.
- [Log management](https://www.solarwinds.com/log-management) - Guide to log management best practices.
- [Revision deletion](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Deleting_revisions) - Documentation on deleting revisions.
- [Image policy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Image_use_policy) - Example of an image policy.
- [Spam filtering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_filtering) - Explanation of spam filtering techniques.
- [CAPTCHA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA) - Explanation of CAPTCHA.
- [abuse filters](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AbuseFilter) - Details about MediaWiki's AbuseFilter extension.
- [Backup strategies](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backup-strategies/) - Guide to backup strategies.
- [Database administration](https://www.oracle.com/database/what-is-database-administration.html) - Explanation of database administration.
- [Technical analysis](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/technicalanalysis.asp)
- [Trading signals](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tradingsignal.asp)
- [Market trend alerts](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/market-trend.asp)
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