1) Use releases.wikimedia.org for hosting release tarballs
Date: 2020-12-04
Status
accepted
Context
We need to determine a place to host our new release artifacts (tarballs). Currently releases are being served by the Extension Distributor and the release branches of the git repositories.
Github
pros:
- The same framework we use to produce the artifacts (in the current implementation of the release pipeline)
- Minimal effort required.
cons:
- Not a WMF/WMDE service
- Needs to use the github frontend or routing with a token to get the artifacts (unless it’s made into a release)
pros:
- Unified front for releases of the Wikimedia Foundation.
cons:
- Poor documentation (https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Releases.wikimedia.org) for what we are looking for.
- Seemingly bound to puppet/modules/releases repository for configuration
- No direct control, needs negotiation.
- Does not seem to be hosting any other extensions (ExtensionDistributor seems to be the desired place for these). However, Mediawiki with bundled extensions is released there https://releases.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.35/
Wikiba.se
pros:
- WMDE owned means direct control
- The official site for Wikibase
cons:
- We would need to build something that either pulls the artifacts or gets them uploaded from the pipeline.
- Effort required is estimated to be high.
- Meant to be a marketing website
Extension Distributor
pros:
- Seems to be the “goto place” for MediaWiki extensions
cons:
- Looking through the code we would need to adapt it to serve our needs which might be undesired.
- Does not align with our needs of simple a hosting space for artifacts.
- Does not support other software than MediaWiki extensions (WDQS, WDQS ui etc.)
| Repository |
Service provider |
Free to WMDE |
Self-Service (1) |
Method of publishing |
Visibility/Current usage |
Estimated effort |
Documentation |
URL |
Trusted |
| Github |
Github/Microsoft |
Currently, Might change in the future. (2) |
Yes |
Github Releases / Github Action Artifact |
- |
Low |
Good |
github.com/wikimedia/ |
no |
| WMF Releases |
WMF |
Yes |
No (negotiation needed - likely only initially) |
FTP/SFTP/SCP |
- |
High |
Poor |
releases.wikimedia.org |
yes |
| Wikiba.se |
WMDE |
Yes |
Yes |
FTP or some kind of pulling by the server (TBD - not existing yet) |
- |
High |
Poor (non existent) |
wikiba.se, or releases.wikiba.se |
yes |
| ExtensionDist |
WMF/Volunteers? |
Yes |
No (negotiation needed - likely only initially) |
Undefined, would need adaptations |
Low (3) |
Very High |
Poor |
extdist.wmflabs.org/dist/ |
yes |
- We can create new tarballs and publish without filing a ticket or speaking to admins
- WMDE (github.com/wmde) has a free open source plan with Github. WMF (github.com/wikimedia) does not
- https://grafana.wikimedia.org/d/000000161/extension-distributor-downloads?orgId=1&from=now-5y&to=now
Decision
- Wikibase release artifacts will be hosted on the WMF-controlled domain https://releases.wikimedia.org/.
Consequences
- A new release group called
releasers-wikibase will be created for access to the repository
- An SRE-Access-Request will be created, and the hike team members will be added as initial maintainers. The group will be later on expanded to cover other relevant WMDE staff.
- Publishing step of Wikibase release pipeline will be adjusted to publish tarball release artifacts to https://releases.wikimedia.org/wikibase/ (or similar directory - final name to be defined during the implementation).