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GPLX – Deployment Runbook: IONOS VPS (native Apache)

This document records the exact steps taken to deploy GPLX on an IONOS VPS on 2026-06-05. It replaces a broken Docker-based MediaWiki install with a native Apache + PHP + MariaDB stack. Use it verbatim for a repeat deployment or hand it to another AI assistant.

Environment

Item Value
Server IP 31.70.94.35
OS Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Web root /var/www/gplx/mediawiki
Git bare repo /var/repo/gplx.git
DB name/user gplx / gplx
MW admin user Gxplex_admin
MW admin pass TempAdmin123 ← change this
HTTP Basic Auth user testUser

Starting situation

  • Two Docker containers were running on the server:
    • mediawiki:1.41 on 0.0.0.0:8080->80
    • mysql:8.0 on 3306/tcp
  • nginx was running on port 80 (served something else, now disabled)
  • /var/www/gplx did not exist
  • Git remote ionos pointed at ssh://root@31.70.94.35/var/www/gplx (wrong — no bare repo)

Step 1 – Create bare git repo on the server

Run locally:

ssh root@31.70.94.35 "git init --bare /var/repo/gplx.git && mkdir -p /var/www/gplx && printf '#!/bin/bash\nGIT_WORK_TREE=/var/www/gplx git checkout -f main\n' > /var/repo/gplx.git/hooks/post-receive && chmod +x /var/repo/gplx.git/hooks/post-receive && echo 'Done'"

This creates a bare repo at /var/repo/gplx.git and a post-receive hook that checks out the code into /var/www/gplx on every push.

Step 2 – Fix local git remote and push

git remote set-url ionos ssh://root@31.70.94.35/var/repo/gplx.git
git push ionos main

The hook fires automatically: output shows Switched to branch 'main'.

Step 3 – Install system packages

All packages were already present on this server. If doing a fresh install:

ssh root@<ip>
apt update && apt install -y apache2 php8.3 php8.3-mysql php8.3-xml \
  php8.3-mbstring php8.3-intl php8.3-curl php8.3-gd php8.3-zip \
  mariadb-server git apache2-utils

Step 4 – Stop nginx (was holding port 80)

systemctl stop nginx
systemctl disable nginx

Step 5 – Create database and user

mysql -u root <<'SQL'
CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS gplx CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER IF NOT EXISTS 'gplx'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'YOUR_DB_PASSWORD';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON gplx.* TO 'gplx'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
SQL

If the user already exists with a different password, reset it:

mysql -u root <<'SQL'
ALTER USER 'gplx'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'YOUR_DB_PASSWORD';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
SQL

Step 6 – Configure Apache vhost with HTTP Basic Auth

cat > /etc/apache2/sites-available/gplx.conf << 'EOF'
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName 31.70.94.35
    DocumentRoot /var/www/gplx/mediawiki

    <Directory /var/www/gplx/mediawiki>
        AllowOverride All
        AuthType Basic
        AuthName "GxPlex – restricted access"
        AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/.htpasswd
        Require valid-user
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>
EOF

a2enmod rewrite
a2ensite gplx
a2dissite 000-default
systemctl start apache2

Important: Do NOT include Require all granted alongside Require valid-user — they act as OR, which lets anonymous traffic through.

Create the htpasswd file:

htpasswd -c /etc/apache2/.htpasswd testUser
# enter password at the prompt

Step 7 – Install Composer dependencies

MediaWiki core:

cd /var/www/gplx/mediawiki
composer install --no-dev

SemanticMediaWiki (has its own vendor tree):

composer install --no-dev -d extensions/SemanticMediaWiki

Step 8 – Deploy LocalSettings.php

LocalSettings.php is gitignored and must be transferred separately.

On your local machine, edit mediawiki/LocalSettings.php and set:

$wgServer     = "http://31.70.94.35";   // or https://yourdomain.de once TLS is live
$wgDBserver   = "localhost";
$wgDBname     = "gplx";
$wgDBuser     = "gplx";
$wgDBpassword = "YOUR_DB_PASSWORD";
$wgSecretKey  = "<output of: openssl rand -hex 32>";
$wgShowExceptionDetails = false;
// in the ExtensionFunctions hook:
enableSemantics( '31.70.94.35' );  // change to domain once live

Then copy to the server:

scp mediawiki/LocalSettings.php root@31.70.94.35:/var/www/gplx/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php

Or patch it in-place on the server with sed:

sed -i \
  -e 's|$wgServer = "http://127.0.0.1:8080";|$wgServer = "http://31.70.94.35";|' \
  -e 's|$wgDBserver = "127.0.0.1";|$wgDBserver = "localhost";|' \
  -e 's|$wgDBname = "gflex_test";|$wgDBname = "gplx";|' \
  -e 's|$wgDBuser = "root";|$wgDBuser = "gplx";|' \
  -e "s|\$wgDBpassword = \"\";|\$wgDBpassword = \"YOUR_DB_PASSWORD\";|" \
  -e "s|enableSemantics( '127.0.0.1:8080' );|enableSemantics( '31.70.94.35' );|" \
  -e 's|$wgShowExceptionDetails = true;|$wgShowExceptionDetails = false;|' \
  /var/www/gplx/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php

Step 9 – Create images directory

mkdir -p /var/www/gplx/mediawiki/images
chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/gplx/mediawiki/images

Step 10 – Install MediaWiki database tables

Because the database is empty, update.php fails with "Can not upgrade from versions older than 1.35". Use install.php instead, temporarily hiding LocalSettings.php:

cd /var/www/gplx/mediawiki
mv LocalSettings.php LocalSettings.php.bak
php maintenance/run.php install \
  --dbuser gplx \
  --dbpass YOUR_DB_PASSWORD \
  --dbname gplx \
  --dbserver localhost \
  --server 'http://31.70.94.35' \
  --scriptpath '' \
  --lang en \
  --pass TempAdmin123 \
  'GxPlex' 'Gxplex_admin'
mv LocalSettings.php.bak LocalSettings.php

Then run update to pick up extension schema changes:

php maintenance/run.php update --quick

Step 11 – Set up SMW tables

php extensions/SemanticMediaWiki/maintenance/setupStore.php --nochecks

Step 12 – Smoke test

# Should return 401 (Basic Auth gate)
curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' http://31.70.94.35/

# Should return 200 with correct credentials
curl -sL -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' -u testUser:YOUR_HTPASSWD_PASSWORD http://31.70.94.35/

Open in browser: http://31.70.94.35 → login prompt → MediaWiki main page.

Step 13 – Import local database dump

The local MediaWiki DB was exported as gflex_test.sql (≈280 MB) and contains all user accounts, pages, and content from the dev instance.

Upload the dump to the server:

scp D:\Work\Projekte\gplx\gflex_test.sql root@31.70.94.35:/root/gflex_test.sql

The gplx DB already had tables from the fresh install (Step 10), so drop and recreate it before importing — otherwise MySQL errors with "Table already exists":

mysql -u root <<'SQL'
DROP DATABASE gplx;
CREATE DATABASE gplx CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON gplx.* TO 'gplx'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
SQL

Import the dump:

mysql -ugplx -pYOUR_DB_PASSWORD gplx < /root/gflex_test.sql

Run update to apply any schema differences between the dump and the current MW version:

cd /var/www/gplx/mediawiki
php maintenance/run.php update --quick

All local user accounts and wiki content are now available on the server.

Step 14 – Nutzeraccounts

Die Accounts aus dem SQL-Import (Step 13) sind direkt nutzbar — lokale Zugangsdaten funktionieren ohne weitere Schritte.

Vorhandene User prüfen:

mysql -ugplx -pYOUR_DB_PASSWORD gplx \
  -e 'SELECT user_name, user_registration FROM user ORDER BY user_registration DESC LIMIT 20;'

Neuen Account anlegen (Passwort wird interaktiv abgefragt):

cd /var/www/gplx/mediawiki
php maintenance/run.php createAndPromote NeuUser
# mit Bureaucrat-Rechten:
php maintenance/run.php createAndPromote --bureaucrat NeuUser

Passwort zurücksetzen:

php maintenance/run.php changePassword --user="Benutzername" --password="NeuesPasswort"

Account im Browser anlegen: http://31.70.94.35/index.php/Special:CreateAccount (nur sichtbar wenn $wgGroupPermissions['*']['createaccount'] = true, was der Standard ist).

Next steps (not yet done)

  • Change Gxplex_admin password via Special:ChangePassword
  • Point domain DNS A-record to 31.70.94.35
  • Add TLS via Certbot: certbot --apache -d yourdomain.de
  • Update $wgServer and enableSemantics() to use the domain
  • Push wiki page templates: Get-Content scripts/templates/<file>.wiki -Raw | php mediawiki/maintenance/run.php edit ...
  • Run npm run a11y:all against the live URL

Gotchas encountered

Problem Cause Fix
git push ionos main failed (exit 1) Remote pointed at non-bare working dir Created bare repo at /var/repo/gplx.git with post-receive hook
/var/www/gplx/mediawiki not found after push Directory was checked out by hook — actually worked, just needed to look again ls /var/www/gplx/mediawiki confirmed it was there
SMW fatal: Class "Onoi\Cache\NullCache" not found SMW vendor deps not installed composer install --no-dev -d extensions/SemanticMediaWiki
update.php: "Can not upgrade from versions older than 1.35" Completely empty DB — MW misreads it Use install.php with LocalSettings.php temporarily moved away
install.php: "A LocalSettings.php file has been detected" Installer refuses when file exists mv LocalSettings.php LocalSettings.php.bak before install, restore after
Apache won't start nginx was holding port 80 systemctl stop nginx && systemctl disable nginx
Basic Auth not blocking (returns 200 for anonymous) Require all granted + Require valid-user = OR logic Remove Require all granted; only keep Require valid-user
DB "Access denied for user gplx" Password in LocalSettings.php didn't match DB ALTER USER 'gplx'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '...' to sync them
ERROR 1050: Table 'actor' already exists on SQL import Fresh MW install already created tables; importing on top fails DROP DATABASE gplx + recreate, then import