Topic on Project:Support desk

Hello.

I felt that I should install a MediaWiKi Instance on my own server, and seem to have succeeded so far. But, I'm having a problem with the ConfirmEdit Extension. I also run in to some barriers because I installed everything from Debian 11 packages, which means that my MediaWiKi version is 1.35.

The reason I wanted to set up the extension is the fact that its FancyCaptcha feature should slow down brute-force attacks against my home server. So, these are my relevant configs:

$wgMainCacheType = CACHE_ACCEL;

wfLoadExtensions( ['ConfirmEdit', 'ConfirmEdit/FancyCaptcha'] );

$wgCaptchaClass = 'FancyCaptcha'; 
$wgCaptchaDirectory = '/var/lib/mediawiki/Captcha';
$wgCaptchaDirectoryLevels = 0;
$wgCaptchaSecret = '...';

$wgCaptchaTriggers['edit'] = false; 
$wgCaptchaTriggers['create'] = false; 
$wgCaptchaTriggers['sendemail'] = false; 
$wgCaptchaTriggers['addurl'] = false; 
$wgCaptchaTriggers['createaccount'] = true; 
$wgCaptchaTriggers['badlogin'] = true; 
$wgCaptchaTriggers['badloginperuser'] = true; 
 
$wgCaptchaBadLoginAttempts = 3;
$wgCaptchaBadLoginExpiration = 300; // 300 seconds = 5 minutes $wgCaptchaBadLoginPerUserAttempts = 5;
$wgCaptchaBadLoginPerUserExpiration = 600; // 600 seconds = 10 minutes

Also, I did run the Python script, and populated the correct directory with captcha Images.

The problem is that when I test my setup by making 3 invalid logins (into my own server), I get an error message stating that an Underflow took place, and no further details. This is the point where the Captcha should actually display.

The server log file...

/var/log/apache2/error.log

Shows no corresponding error message.

There is a strong possibility that I'm just doing something wrong, which experienced admins would not do. But I need somebody at this point to give me a hint as to what that could be.

Thank you in advance, Dirk

Update: I have now set...

$wgShowExceptionDetails = true;

And what that has done for me is to elaborate, "Run out of Captcha Images". It does not seem to matter whether I use the Python script to generate 100 or 1000 captcha images.

I have found my error. The exception was being triggered because a line of PHP code in the extension was turning up empty, after an attempt to fetch a captcha image. And the reason for this was an error in the configuration line...

$wgCaptchaDirectory = '/var/lib/mediawiki/Captcha';

The name of the directory is 'Captchas', not, 'Captcha'.

With the configuration line updated, I get my captchas just fine now.

Dirk