Delete a wiki

Usually, wikis are closed, not deleted. Closing a wiki means that it is not editable anymore, but the content is still available.

When we delete a wiki, we usually only delete it from all.dblist, which makes MediaWiki claim that the wiki does not exist. Actually deleting the data from all of the database servers would be quite a bit more complicated, and is usually not worth doing.

To delete a wiki:

• cd /home/wikipedia/common
• Remove the wiki from all.dblist
• Add the wiki to deleted.dblist
• Run ./refresh-dblist
• Run sync-dblist

For small wikis it should be possible to clean up the centralauth database manually:

• Open php/wmf-config/db.php and determine which database server is the master for the centralauth database.
• Run mysql -h <host> centralauth
• SELECT COUNT(*) FROM localnames WHERE ln_wiki='wikidb';
• If this is less than say 20,000:
  • DELETE FROM localuser WHERE lu_wiki='wikidb';
  • DELETE FROM localnames WHERE ln_wiki='wikidb';

If you don't do this, the result is bug 28393.