This section contains a description of options that are accepted by more than one command.
-h, --help
Show usage information and exit.
-c, --config=CONFIG
The value for this option describes the source of MediaWiki articles and images for the command and can be of one of the following types:
A "base URL" of a MediaWiki installation. A base URL is the URL up to, but not including the index.php/api.php part.
This URL can differ from the prefix seen in "pretty" article URLs. For example the article Physics in the English Wikipedia has the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics, but the base URL is http://en.wikipedia.org/w/.
If you've set up your own MediaWiki you probably know what your base URL should be, but if you're using a different MediaWiki, you can see the base URL if add a query string to the URL, e.g. by cicking on the edit link or by looking at an older revision of an article.
This value for --config corresponds to type=mwapi in a configuration file (see below), i.e. articles and images are fetched with the MediaWiki API. Specifying the URL directly as value for --config is usually the quicker way to achieve exactly the same result.
A shortcut for a base URL. Currently there are the following shortcuts:
- ":en" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/, i.e. the English Wikipedia
- ":de" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/, i.e. the German Wikipedia
A filename of a ZIP file generated with the the mw-zip Command.
A filename of a configuration file (see docs/configfiles.txt).
-m, --metabook=METABOOK
Description of the article colleciton to be rendered in JSON format. This is used by the Collection extension to transfer this information to mw-serve which in turn passes the information to mw-render and mw-zip.
--collectionpage=COLLECTIONPAGE
Title of a saved article collection (using the Collection extension)
-x, --no-images
If given, no images are included in the output document.
-i, --imagesize=IMAGESIZE
Maximum size (which can be either width or height, whichever is greater) of images. If images exceed this maximum size, they're scaled down.
--template-blacklist=TEMPLATE_BLACKLIST
A name of an article containing a list of "blacklisted templates", i.e. MediaWiki templates that should be discarded during rendering. Example for such a template blacklist page:
* [[Template:SkipMe]] * [[Template:MeToo]]
-o, --output=OUTPUT
Write output to given file.
-l, --logfile=LOGFILE
Log output to the given file.
-d, --daemonize
Become a daemon process as soon as possible. This doesn't work on Windows.
--pid-file=PID_FILE
To be used together with --daemonize: Write process ID of daemon process to this file.
--login=USERNAME:PASSWORD
For MediaWikis that restrict the viewing of pages, login with given USERNAME and PASSWORD (currently this is only supported for mwapidb, i.e. when the --config argument is a base URL or shortcut, or when type=mwapi in the configuration file).
--num-article-threads=NUM
Number of threads to fetch and parse articles in parallel. Set to 0 or use --no-threads to not use threading. Default is 3.
--num-image-threads=NUM
Number of threads to fetch images in parallel. Set to 0 or use --no-threads to not use threading. Default is 3.
--no-threads
If given, do not use multiple threads to fetch articles and images in parallel. This overrides --num-article-threads and/or --num-image-threads.
Render MediaWiki articles to one of several output formats like PDF of OpenDocument Text.
mw-render [OPTIONS] [ARTICLETITLE...]
-w, --writer
Name of the writer to produce the output. The list of available writers can be seen with mw-render --list-writers.
--list-writers
List the available writers.
-W, --writer-options
Writer specific options in a ";" separated list (depending on your shell, quoting with "..." or '...' might be needed). Each item in that list can either be a single option or an option=value pair. To list the available writer options use mw-render --writer-info WRITERNAME.
--writer-info=WRITER
Show avaiable options and some additional information about the given writer.
-s, --status-file=STATUS_FILE
Write status/progress information in JSON format to this file. The file is continuously updated during the execution of mw-render.
-e, --error-file=ERROR_FILE
If an error occurs, write the error message to this file. If no error occurs this file is not written/created.
--keep-zip=FILENAME
Do not remove the (otherwise temporary) ZIP file, but save it under FILENAME.
Generate a ZIP file containing
- articles,
- images,
- templates and
- additional meta information (especially if --metabook is given, see Common Options) like name and URL of the MediaWiki, licensing information and title, subtitle and the hierarchical structure of the article collection.
mw-zip [OPTIONS] [ARTICLETITLE...]
-p, --posturl=POSTURL
Upload the ZIP file with an HTTP POST request to the given URL.
-g , --getposturl
Retrieve the POSTURL from PediaPress and open the upload page in the web browser.
Send a ZIP file generated with the mw-zip command to a given or an automatically retrieved URL via HTTP POST request.
mw-post [OPTIONS]
-i, --input=INPUT
Filename of ZIP file.
-p, --posturl=POSTURL
Upload the ZIP file with an HTTP POST request to the given URL.
-g , --getposturl
Retrieve the POSTURL from PediaPress and open the upload page in the web browser.
Provide a server interface to mw-render and mw-zip. This can be used in conjuction with the Collection extension to provide PDF generation or the possibility to order printed books from a MediaWiki.
mw-serve [OPTIONS]
-P, --protocol=PROTOCOL
Protocol to serve. The value can be one of "http", "fcgi" (FastCGI) or "scgi". Note: If you want to "serve" CGI instead, use the mwlib.cgi script.
-p, --port=PORT
Listen on this TCP port. The default value is 8899.
-i, --interface=INTERFACE
Listen on this interface. The default value is "0.0.0.0".
--cache-dir=CACHE_DIR
Cache directory. This directory must be writeable by the mw-serve process.
--mwrender=MWRENDER
Path to the mw-render executable. The default is just "mw-render" which is ok, as long as mw-render is in the PATH.
--mwrender-logfile=MWRENDER_LOGFILE
Logfile for mw-render. Default is "/var/log/mw-render.log". The file must be writeable.
--mwzip=MWZIP
Path to the mw-zip executable. The default is just "mw-zip" which is ok, as long as mw-zip is in the PATH.
--mwzip-logfile=MWZIP_LOGFILE
Logfile for mw-zip. Default is "/var/log/mw-zip.log". The file must be writeable.
--mwpost=MWPOST
Path to the mw-post executable. The default is just "mw-post" which is ok, as long as mw-post is in the PATH.
--mwpost-logfile=MWPOST_LOGFILE
Logfile for mw-post. Default is "/var/log/mw-post.log". The file must be writeable.
-q, --queue-dir=QUEUE_DIR
If specified, do not call mw-render and mw-zip but write small job desciption files in the given QUEUE_DIR directory for later processing by the mw-watch command.
-m, --method=METHOD
Whether to use a preforking or a threaded server (values "prefork" and "threaded", default is "prefork"). When --protocol=http, "prefork" the server isn't actually preforking, but just forking.
--max-requests=NUM
Maximum number of requests a child process can handle before it gets killed. This setting is irrelevant for --method=threaded or when --protocol=http. A value of 0 means "no limit". The default is 0.
--min-spare=NUM, --max-spare=NUM
Minimum and maximum number of spare processes or threads. Defaults are 2 and 5.
--max-children=NUM
Maximum number of processes/threads. This is a hard limit. Default: 50.
--clean-cache=HOURS
Clean all cached files in --cache-dir that haven't been touched for the last HOURS hourse. This is meant to be run as a cron job.
Work on jobs queued by the mw-serve command.
-q, --queue-dir=QUEUE_DIR
Poll this directory for new job description files. The value must be the same to be given to the --queue-dir option of mw-serve to make any sense. Default is "/var/cache/mw-watch/q/".
-p, --processing-dir=PROCESSING_DIR
Job description files that are currently being processed are moved from the --queue-dir directory to this directory. After the processing they are deleted. --queued-dir and this directory must be on the same filesystem. Default is "/var/cache/mw-watch/p/".
-n, --num-job=NUM_JOBS
Maximum number of simultaneous jobs. Default is 5.
This script (located in the cgi-bin/ directory) can be used as a CGI script equivalent for the mw-serve command. Just copy the mwlib.cgi script to the cgi-bin directory of your web server and adjust the configuration variables located at the top of the file.