Extension:CirrusSearch

MediaWiki extensions manual

CirrusSearch Release status: stable
Implementation	Search, API , Hook
Description	Implements searching for MediaWiki using Elasticsearch
Author(s)	Nik Everett, Chad Horohoe, Erik Bernhardson
Latest version	continuous updates
Compatibility policy	Snapshots releases along with MediaWiki. Master is not backward compatible.
MediaWiki	>= 1.43
Composer	mediawiki/cirrussearch
License	GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download	Download extension Git [?]: Download Git master browse repository (Phabricator · GitHub) commit history repository contributors (GitHub) code review README
Help	Help:Extension:CirrusSearch
Parameters $wgCirrusSearchDeduplicateInQuery $wgCirrusSearchLanguageWeight $wgCirrusSearchAutomationCIDRs $wgCirrusSearchUseIcuFolding $wgCirrusSearchStemmedWeight $wgCirrusSearchQueryStringMaxDeterminizedStates $wgCirrusSearchCrossClusterSearch $wgCirrusSearchExtraIndexSettings $wgCirrusSearchAutomationUserAgentRegex $wgCirrusSearchTalkNamespaceWeight $wgCirrusSearchPrefixWeights $wgCirrusSearchPrefixSearchRescoreProfile $wgCirrusSearchDisableUpdate $wgCirrusSearchActiveTest $wgCirrusSearchExtraFieldsInSearchResults $wgCirrusSearchMoreLikeThisMaxQueryTermsLimit $wgCirrusSearchUseIcuTokenizer $wgCirrusSearchCompletionBannedPageIds $wgCirrusSearchOptimizeIndexForExperimentalHighlighter $wgCirrusSearchRescoreProfiles $wgCirrusSearchPhraseRescoreBoost $wgCirrusSearchInterwikiProv $wgCirrusSearchDefaultCluster $wgCirrusSearchQueryStringMaxWildcards $wgCirrusSearchElasticQuirks $wgCirrusSearchMaxFileTextLength $wgCirrusSearchFallbackProfiles $wgCirrusSearchMoreLikeThisTTL $wgCirrusSearchAllowLeadingWildcard $wgCirrusSearchInterwikiPrefixOverrides $wgCirrusSearchMaintenanceTimeout $wgCirrusSearchReplicas $wgCirrusSearchPhraseSlop $wgCirrusSearchBoostOpening $wgCirrusSearchWriteBackoffExponent $wgCirrusSearchUserTesting $wgCirrusSearchShardCount $wgCirrusSearchUseCompletionSuggester $wgCirrusSearchPhraseSuggestReverseField $wgCirrusSearchFallbackProfile $wgCirrusSearchFragmentSize $wgCirrusSearchUnlinkedArticlesToUpdate $wgCirrusSearchCustomPageFields $wgCirrusSearchClientSideUpdateTimeout $wgCirrusSearchIgnoreOnWikiBoostTemplates $wgCirrusSearchRegexMaxDeterminizedStates $wgCirrusSearchInterwikiHTTPConnectTimeout $wgCirrusSearchExtraIndexes $wgCirrusSearchCategoryDepth $wgCirrusSearchMergeSettings $wgCirrusSearchClusters $wgCirrusSearchCrossProjectShowMultimedia $wgCirrusSearchBannedPlugins $wgCirrusSearchMoreLikeThisConfig $wgCirrusSearchClusterOverrides $wgCirrusSearchCrossProjectBlockScorerProfiles $wgCirrusSearchEnableIncomingLinkCounting $wgCirrusSearchNearMatchWeight $wgCirrusSearchWriteIsolateClusters $wgCirrusSearchIndexedRedirects $wgCirrusSearchIndexAllocation $wgCirrusSearchNumCrossProjectSearchResults $wgCirrusSearchLanguageDetectors $wgCirrusSearchUpdateShardTimeout $wgCirrusSearchEnableCrossProjectSearch $wgCirrusSearchFullTextQueryBuilderProfiles $wgCirrusSearchCompletionDefaultScore $wgCirrusSearchWriteClusters $wgCirrusSearchCompletionSuggesterHardLimit $wgCirrusSearchRecycleCompletionSuggesterIndex $wgCirrusSearchLogElasticRequests $wgCirrusSearchConnectionAttempts $wgCirrusSearchElasticaWritePartitionCounts $wgCirrusSearchWikiToNameMap $wgCirrusSearchMaxFullTextQueryLength $wgCirrusSearchLogElasticRequestsSecret $wgCirrusSearchNaturalTitleSort $wgCirrusSearchDeduplicateInMemory $wgCirrusSearchEnableRegex $wgCirrusSearchClientSideSearchTimeout $wgCirrusSearchIndexFieldsToCleanup $wgCirrusSearchUseEventBusBridge $wgCirrusSearchDeduplicateAnalysis $wgCirrusSearchExtraBackendLatency $wgCirrusSearchNamespaceMappings $wgCirrusSearchWMFExtraFeatures $wgCirrusSearchPreferRecentUnspecifiedDecayPortion $wgCirrusSearchNamespaceResolutionMethod $wgCirrusSearchDocumentSizeLimiterProfiles $wgCirrusSearchSearchShardTimeout $wgCirrusSearchCategoryMax $wgCirrusSearchPrivateClusters $wgCirrusSearchSimilarityProfiles $wgCirrusSearchCategoryEndpoint $wgCirrusSearchRescoreFunctionChains $wgCirrusSearchPoolCounterKey $wgCirrusSearchCompletionProfiles $wgCirrusSearchMaxShardsPerNode $wgCirrusSearchWeights $wgCirrusSearchEnableArchive $wgCirrusSearchSimilarityProfile $wgCirrusSearchInterwikiThreshold $wgCirrusSearchIndexDeletes $wgCirrusSearchDocumentSizeLimiterProfile $wgCirrusSearchFiletypeAliases $wgCirrusSearchDevelOptions $wgCirrusSearchPrefixSearchStartsWithAnyWord $wgCirrusSearchUpdateConflictRetryCount $wgCirrusSearchInterwikiHTTPTimeout $wgCirrusSearchFetchConfigFromApi $wgCirrusSearchBoostTemplates $wgCirrusSearchExtraIndexBoostTemplates $wgCirrusSearchPrefixIds $wgCirrusSearchFullTextQueryBuilderProfile $wgCirrusSearchStripQuestionMarks $wgCirrusSearchMoreLikeThisFields $wgCirrusSearchIndexBaseName $wgCirrusSearchMasterTimeout $wgCirrusSearchSanityCheck $wgCirrusSearchTextcatConfig $wgCirrusSearchNamespaceWeights $wgCirrusSearchCrossProjectOrder $wgCirrusSearchTextcatModel $wgCirrusSearchRescoreProfile $wgCirrusSearchMoreAccurateScoringMode $wgCirrusSearchMaxPhraseTokens $wgCirrusSearchCrossProjectSearchBlockList $wgCirrusSearchCrossProjectProfiles $wgCirrusSearchLanguageToWikiMap $wgCirrusSearchMaxIncategoryOptions $wgCirrusSearchEnableAltLanguage $wgCirrusSearchWikimediaExtraPlugin $wgCirrusSearchCompletionSuggesterUseDefaultSort $wgCirrusSearchLinkedArticlesToUpdate $wgCirrusSearchCompletionSuggesterSubphrases $wgCirrusSearchPreferRecentDefaultHalfLife $wgCirrusSearchSlowSearch $wgCirrusSearchFunctionRescoreWindowSize $wgCirrusSearchEnablePhraseSuggest $wgCirrusSearchCompletionSettings $wgCirrusSearchUseExperimentalHighlighter $wgCirrusSearchFeedbackLink $wgCirrusSearchUpdateDelay $wgCirrusSearchRefreshInterval $wgCirrusSearchInterleaveConfig $wgCirrusSearchPhraseRescoreWindowSize $wgCirrusSearchMoreLikeThisAllowedFields $wgCirrusSearchPreferRecentDefaultDecayPortion $wgCirrusSearchClientSideConnectTimeout $wgCirrusSearchPhraseSuggestUseText $wgCirrusSearchPhraseSuggestProfiles $wgCirrusSearchDefaultNamespaceWeight $wgCirrusSearchInterwikiSources $wgCirrusSearchPhraseSuggestUseOpeningText $wgCirrusSearchICUNormalizationUnicodeSetFilter $wgCirrusSearchICUFoldingUnicodeSetFilter $wgCirrusSearchReplicaGroup
Hooks used APIAfterExecute APIQuerySiteInfoGeneralInfo APIQuerySiteInfoStatisticsInfo ApiBeforeMain ArticleRevisionVisibilitySet BeforeInitialize CirrusSearchAddQueryFeatures CirrusSearchAnalysisConfig CirrusSearchSimilarityConfig GetPreferences LinksUpdateComplete PageDelete PageDeleteComplete PageMoveComplete PageUndeleteComplete PrefixSearchExtractNamespace ResourceLoaderGetConfigVars SearchGetNearMatch SearchIndexFields ShowSearchHitTitle SoftwareInfo SpecialSearchResults SpecialSearchResultsAppend SpecialStatsAddExtra TitleMove UploadComplete UserGetDefaultOptions
Hooks provided CirrusSearchAddQueryFeatures CirrusSearchAnalysisConfig CirrusSearchBuildDocumentFinishBatch CirrusSearchBuildDocumentLinks CirrusSearchBuildDocumentParse CirrusSearchFulltextQueryBuilder CirrusSearchFulltextQueryBuilderComplete CirrusSearchMappingConfig CirrusSearchProfileService CirrusSearchRegisterFullTextQueryClassifiers CirrusSearchScoreBuilder
Quarterly downloads	264 (Ranked 19th)
Public wikis using	1,226 (Ranked 212nd)
Translate the CirrusSearch extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Vagrant role	cirrussearch
Issues	Open tasks · Report a bug

The CirrusSearch extension implements searching for MediaWiki using Elasticsearch.

Elasticsearch is a standalone third-party software you must install as a requirement for this extension. It is a database system that provides search and indexing functionality, where the current text of your wiki pages gets indexed for faster and improved search results. The communication between MediaWiki and ElasticSearch is done through web services.

See also the help page on using this extension.

Goals

• No native dependencies that would make this difficult to install. The only dependencies are pure-PHP, MediaWiki extensions, and Elasticsearch itself.
• Provide a near-real-time search index for wiki pages that's extendable by other MediaWiki extensions.
• Provide all of the query options MWSearch has given users, and more.

Dependencies

PHP and cURL

In addition to the standard MediaWiki requirements for PHP, CirrusSearch requires PHP to be compiled with cURL support.

Elasticsearch

You must install Elasticsearch.

Every version of ElasticSearch changes how web services work and causes compatibility problems. You must install the version of Elastic Search compatible with the version of MediaWiki you are currently using:

MediaWiki 1.39+ require Elasticsearch 7.10.2 (6.8.23+ is possible using a compatibility layer ). See this revision for compatibility information with earlier versions of MediaWiki.

Elasticsearch versions before 6.8 are incompatible with PHP 8+.

Take note that a Java installation like OpenJDK is needed in addition. It's best to use the official Elasticsearch Docker image or a self-hosted version. A managed product like Amazon OpenSearch (formerly Amazon Elasticsearch) can work but may require additional configuration depending on its specifics. For example, Amazon OpenSearch only listens for Elasticsearch API requests over HTTPS on port 443 (i.e., it does not expose the default Elasticsearch port 9200), so a TLS-enabled proxy (e.g., Nginx) can enable CirrusSearch to communicate with an Amazon OpenSearch cluster.

Elastica

• Elastica is a PHP library that makes CirrusSearch talk to Elasticsearch. Install Elastica per the instructions below.

Other

• Due to the actual handling of jobs by the CirrusSearch extension, it is advisable to set up jobs in Redis to prevent messages like Notice: unserialize(): Error at offset 64870 of 65535 bytes in JobQueueDB.php and subsequent errors like Unsupported operand types. See task T157759.

Installation

Elastica

Even though the instructions below tell you only to run Composer when installing from git, it may be necessary to issue it anyway to install all PHP dependencies.

• Download and move the extracted Elastica folder to your extensions/ directory.
  Developers and code contributors should install the extension from Git instead, using:cd extensions/
git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/Elastica
• Only when installing from Git, run Composer to install PHP dependencies, by issuing composer install --no-dev in the extension directory. (See task T173141 for potential complications.)
• Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php file:

  wfLoadExtension( 'Elastica' );
  

•  Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

CirrusSearch

• Download and move the extracted CirrusSearch folder to your extensions/ directory.
  Developers and code contributors should install the extension from Git instead, using:cd extensions/
git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/CirrusSearch
• Only when installing from Git, run Composer to install PHP dependencies, by issuing composer install --no-dev in the extension directory. (See task T173141 for potential complications.)
• Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php file:

  wfLoadExtension( 'CirrusSearch' );
  

• Now follow the setup instructions in the CirrusSearch README delivered with your extension i.e. $IP/extensions/CirrusSearch/README. Note that all info in it might not apply to your version of the extension, especially the version of Elasticsearch supported.
• Configure as required.
•  Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

Enable regex queries

This is an optional step. You will need to install the search-extra plugin for this. Do so by following these steps:

1. execute the following command:

   /usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-plugin/elasticsearch-plugin install org.wikimedia.search:extra:7.10.2-wmf12
   

2. add the following line to your LocalSettings.php file:

   $wgCirrusSearchWikimediaExtraPlugin[ 'regex' ] = [ 'build', 'use', 'max_inspect' => 10000 ];
   

3. restart Elasticsearch with the following command:

   systemctl restart elasticsearch
   

4. recreate the search index by executing the following commands:

   1. php path/to/extensions/CirrusSearch/maintenance/UpdateSearchIndexConfig.php --startOver
      

   2. php path/to/extensions/CirrusSearch/maintenance/ForceSearchIndex.php
      

Upgrading

Please follow the upgrade instructions in the CirrusSearch UPGRADE file.

Configuration

The configuration parameters of CirrusSearch are documented at the "settings.txt" file. See also documentation on CirrusSearch configuration profiles.

Elasticsearch will fail to index for CirrusSearch if one uses a database name for MySQL containing a capital character, e.g., "MyWikiDatabaseName." To mitigate this, CirrusSearch provides the $wgCirrusSearchIndexBaseName configuration parameter, which one needs to set, e.g., $wgCirrusSearchIndexBaseName = 'mywikidatabasename';.

Hooks

CirrusSearch extension defines a number of hooks that other extensions can make use of to extend the core schema and modify documents. The following hooks are available:

• CirrusSearchAnalysisConfig - allows to hook into the configuration for analysis
• CirrusSearchMappingConfig - allows configuration of the mapping of fields
• CirrusSearchBuildDocumentParse - allows extensions to modify ElasticSearch document produced from a page
• CirrusSearchBuildDocumentLinks - allows extensions to process incoming and outgoing links for the document
• CirrusSearchBuildDocumentFinishBatch - called when a batch of pages has been indexed
• CirrusSearchAddQueryFeatures - allows extensions to add query parser features
• CirrusSearchScoreBuilder - allows extensions to define rescore builder functions
• CirrusSearchProfileService - allows extension to declare various search components and configuration

API

CirrusSearch features can be used in API queries. Searching happens via the normal search API, action=query&list=search; you can use CirrusSearch-specific features, such as the morelike: special prefix to find pages related to Marie Curie and radium:

api.php?action=query&list=search&srsearch=morelike:Marie_Curie%7Cradium&srlimit=10&srprop=size&formatversion=2

Custom APIs and parameters are provided for querying CirrusSearch configuration and debug information:

• action=cirrusdump module: 2014?action=cirrusdump
• cirrusDumpQuery parameter to Special:Search or search API queries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/cat%20dog%20chicken?cirrusDumpQuery
• cirrusDumpResult parameter to Special:Search or search API queries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/cat%20dog%20chicken?cirrusDumpResult
• An additional parameter, cirrusExplain, can be passed with cirrusDumpResult to have the Lucene explanation of the score included with the result dump: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/cat%20dog%20chicken?cirrusDumpResult&cirrusExplain It can also be used to get the explanation in a human-readable format, by giving it one of the values verbose, pretty or hot, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/cat%20dog%20chicken?cirrusDumpResult&cirrusExplain=pretty
• cirrus-config-dump, cirrus-settings-dump, cirrus-mapping-dump, cirrus-profiles-dump modules to obtain dump from the CirrusSearch setup: api.php?action=cirrus-config-dump&formatversion=2

See also

General links

• Usage help page - CirrusSearch usage documentation (needed after the install)
• Project page
• Info about Wikimedia Cirrus/Elastic setup
• Configuration help page - sets of tunable parameters that influence various aspects of the indexing
• Extension:WikiSearch - provides faceted search API for Semantic MediaWiki using ElasticSearch.
• Extension:AdvancedSearch - Enhances Special:Search by providing advanced parameters

Debugging

• How to determine that Cirrus is actually used as the search backend

Local development

Elastic Search service can be run with the Vagrant role (cirrussearch) and MediaWiki Vagrant.

For Docker, you can use a command like docker run -d --name elasticsearch -p 9200:9200 -p 9300:9300 -e "discovery.type=single-node" elasticsearch:6.8.2. Then follow the installation and configuration directions. If your web host is in a container, you'll want to make sure the above container is on the same network, and in the LocalSettings.php file, you will want to reference the elasticsearch as the hostname. This will not have the WMF plugins but can be sufficient for basic testing.