Help:Getting Started

Set up your accounts

To access Toolforge, Cloud VPS, or other Wikimedia developer tools, you need the following two types of accounts:

Account Type	Description	Where to sign up
Wikimedia account	Also known as "Wikimedia single user login (SUL)" account. Allows you to log into wikis like Wikipedia, MediaWiki.org, MetaWiki, and Wikitech (this wiki).	Create Wikimedia account
Wikimedia developer account	Username (also called LDAP username) is used to log in on Gerrit, the Toolforge admin console, and other Wikimedia technical tools. In GitLab it is your displayed name, so you may want it to be your full name. You will not be able to change this later! Shell username is used to log into Toolforge, other Cloud VPS or Wikimedia production hosts using SSH.	Create Wikimedia developer account

Get started with Toolforge

Follow the steps on Help:Toolforge/Quickstart.

Get started with Cloud VPS Projects

Follow the steps on Portal:Cloud VPS.

Get started with Gerrit

Gerrit is Wikimedia's code review system.

Once you have created your Wikimedia account and Wikimedia developer account, including your UNIX shell username, follow the instructions in the Gerrit tutorial to get started.

Communication and support

Support and administration of the WMCS resources is provided by the Wikimedia Foundation Cloud Services team and Wikimedia movement volunteers. Please reach out with questions and join the conversation:

Discuss and receive general support

• Chat in real time in the IRC channel #wikimedia-cloud ^connect or the bridged Telegram group
• Discuss via email after you have subscribed to the cloud@ mailing list

Stay aware of critical changes and plans

• Subscribe to the cloud-announce@ mailing list (all messages are also mirrored to the cloud@ list)
• Read the News wiki page

Track work tasks and report bugs

Use a subproject of the #Cloud-Services Phabricator project to track confirmed bug reports and feature requests about the Cloud Services infrastructure itself

Read stories and WMCS blog posts

Read the Cloud Services Blog (for the broader Wikimedia movement, see the Wikimedia Technical Blog)