CirrusSearch is a search extension that supports more complex search phrases. It uses ElasticSearch to store data.

ElasticSearch Install

For installation on mediawiki 1.35:

Install java8 and elasticsearch 6.8.23
- apt-get install openjdk-8-jre-headless
- echo "deb https://artifacts.elastic.co/packages/6.x/apt stable main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/elastic-6.x.list
- sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install elasticsearch
Install the Elastica and CirrusSearch (use the same version as your MediaWiki version) extensions [1]
Follow instructions in ./extentions/CirrusSearch/README

MediaWiki LocalSettings

- Add this to LocalSettings.php

wfLoadExtension( 'Elastica' );
wfLoadExtension( 'CirrusSearch' );
$wgDisableSearchUpdate = true;

php7.4 ./extensions/CirrusSearch/maintenance/UpdateSearchIndexConfig.php
Remove $wgDisableSearchUpdate = true from LocalSettings.php
php7.4 ./extensions/CirrusSearch/maintenance/ForceSearchIndex.php --skipLinks --indexOnSkip
php7.4 ./extensions/CirrusSearch/maintenance/ForceSearchIndex.php --skipParse
Edit LocalSettings.php to have $wgSearchType = 'CirrusSearch';

Check Special:Version to see if all is installed

To verify CirrusSearch is used add '&cirrusDumpQuery' to a search URL. A json-string will be shown.

ElastichSearch Tips

Remote ElasticSearch server

If ElasticSearch is on another server as the webserver you have to edit /etc/elasticsearch/elasticsearch.yml to listen to the outside address

network.host: <outside IP address>

Start/Stop script

For automatic start/stop I created /etc/init.d/elasticsearch like

#!/bin/sh
# kFreeBSD do not accept scripts as interpreters, using #!/bin/sh and sourcing.
if [ true != "$INIT_D_SCRIPT_SOURCED" ] ; then
    set "$0" "$@"; INIT_D_SCRIPT_SOURCED=true . /lib/init/init-d-script
fi
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          elasticsearch
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Start ElastichSearch deamon
# Description:       Start ElastichSearch deamon
#                    This script starts a
#                    single forking daemon capable of writing a pid
#                    file.  
### END INIT INFO

# Author: Hans de Ridder <hans@deridder.it>
#

if [ `id -nu` != 'elasticsearch' ]
then
 su elasticsearch $0 $*
 exit
fi 

DESC="ElasticSearch engine"
DAEMON="/opt/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch"
DAEMON_ARGS="-d"

Now you can start by service elasticsearch start. Stopping is not implemented in this script.

In /etc/rc5.d do ln -s ../init.d/elasticsearch S02elasticsearch

Troubleshooting

curl http://localhost:9200/_aliases?pretty=true: List the indexes in elasticsearch
curl -XDELETE http://localhost:9200/<indexname>*/: Remove all indexes where name starts with <indexname>

MediaWiki:SearchEngine

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