Manual:$wgPingback

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Miscellaneous settings: $wgPingback
If true, MediaWiki will report back data about its installation from time to time to aid developers
Introduced in version:	1.28.0 (Gerrit change 296699; git #f181cde)
Removed in version:	Still in use
Allowed values:	(boolean)
Default value:	`false`
Other settings: Alphabetical \| By function

System information reported

Name	Description	Example	Rationale
wiki	Cryptographically random hash	49748f9060251596beb44eaac206135c	This is a unique hash that is generated once per MediaWiki installation and then saved in the updatelog table under the "PingBack" key.
database	Configured database type	"mysql", "sqlite"	To understand the usage and popularity of different database types.
MediaWiki	MediaWiki version	"1.28.0"	To see the usage of different MediaWiki versions and when people update to newer versions.
PHP	PHP version	"5.6.0", "7.0.9"	To see the usage of different PHP versions and what the impact would be if we want to raise the minimum requirement.
OS	Operating system and release	"Linux $version", "Windows $version"	To see how MediaWiki is used on different operating systems and the versions of those operating systems
arch	Identifying 32-bit or 64-bit	"32", "64"	To see how extensively MediaWiki is used on 32-bit systems and what the impact would be of only supporting 64-bit systems.
machine	Machine hardware	"x86_64"	To see what architectures MediaWiki is used with
serverSoftware	Web server software	"Apache/2.4.10 (Debian)"	To see which web servers MediaWiki is used with and whether compatibility hacks for specific versions of web servers should be kept.
memoryLimit	php memory limit	220M	To see the amount of memory MediaWiki normally has available and the impact of potentially raising MediaWiki's memory requirements.

Implementation

The time and data sent are logged to the debug log when it is enabled. The data points are implemented in the includes/Pingback.php file.

Enabling the Pingback; Data collection and use

The web installer asks the user if they want to enable the feature during the installation of MediaWiki.

The user may choose at this time to opt out of the pingback. If the user opts in, the pingback feature will send new data on the first-page load after upgrading to a new version of MediaWiki.

Starting with MediaWiki 1.31.0, a monthly heartbeat ping will be sent by active wikis (see task T189785).

Users may enable or disable the pingback at any time by setting the $wgPingback configuration variable in LocalSettings.php. This will not delete any data transmitted to our servers.

The pingback anonymously tracks which version of MediaWiki is being used, along with the configured database type and PHP version, as well as your operating system, system type (32-bit or 64-bit), machine hardware, server software, and memory limit. The feature also sends a unique ID with the data transmission, which tracks upgrades made to wikis over time.

You may view your wiki’s ID after a pingback is sent by running the following SQL command:

SELECT * FROM updatelog WHERE ul_key = 'PingBack';

For more information, please see the complete MediaWiki Pingback privacy statement.

Access to data

Aggregate pingback data is available at https://pingback.wmflabs.org. The code behind those queries displayed on that page can be found in the analytics/reportupdate-queries repo. The config can be found on meta.

Currently, the raw pingback data is stored in the Wikimedia Foundation's Data Lake. Users with a signed NDA with the WMF (see wikitech:Volunteer NDA for the process) can access the data via analytics machines.

System information reported

Implementation

Enabling the Pingback; Data collection and use

Access to data

See also