Project status and decisions

This page summarizes the key technical decisions taken during the initial setup of the project. It is intended as a memory aid for future reference.

Overall status

The wiki is currently **under construction**
No public access
Focus is on **structure first**, then **content**
No urgency for upgrades or migrations

MediaWiki version strategy

Current version: **MediaWiki 1.45**
This version is **not LTS**
Current LTS is **1.39**
Target is the **next LTS after 1.39** (not yet released at the time of writing)

Decision:

Stay on 1.45 during development
Avoid unnecessary upgrades
Re-evaluate when the next LTS is available and stable

Namespaces and purpose

HO

Club-related structured content
Access restricted to members of the club group
Intended to be used with Page Schemas

DA

Club-related structured content (distinct purpose from HO)
Access restricted to members of the club group
Intended to be used with Page Schemas

Research

Temporary namespace
Used for cleanup and transition
Will disappear in the future (not now)

ICT

Permanent namespace
Personal technical documentation
Contains configuration notes, procedures, and decisions
Acts as long-term memory for system maintenance

Access control philosophy

Access is based on **group membership**, not on admin status
Being sysop does NOT automatically grant access to club content
Club access must be explicitly assigned

This allows:

Fine-grained control
Safe onboarding of future sysops
Clear separation between technical administration and content access

Groups in use

club → access to HO and DA, uploads allowed
research → access to Research namespace
ict → access to ICT namespace
sysop → technical administration only

Upload policy

File uploads are **restricted to club members**
Normal users cannot upload files
Sysops can upload only if they are also members of club

This is intentional.

Namespace protection

Lockdown extension is used
Read access to protected namespaces is explicitly restricted
Transclusion bypass is prevented using non-includable namespaces

Page creation discipline

Pages must be created directly in the correct namespace
Correct namespace comes **before** Page Schemas
Avoid creating pages in the main namespace and moving them later

Backup and recovery approach

MediaWiki and MariaDB run on **separate VMs**
VMs are powered off before backup
Full virtual disks are copied (no snapshots)
This provides full rollback capability

Development and infrastructure

Development currently runs on a personal PC using Hyper-V
VMs are restricted to **Hyper-V configuration version 9.0**

 * Ensures compatibility with Windows Server 2019

Operational servers use replication
Risk of immediate failure is low

Future infrastructure plans

Short term: move VMs to Hyper-V on Windows Server 2019
Long term: possible move to Proxmox on new hardware
No urgency; expected hardware lifetime is 3+ years

Current focus

Review and stabilize current setup
Begin using Page Schemas
Start with one namespace and one schema
Proceed slowly and deliberately

End of summary.