News/2024 Migrating Wikitech Account to SUL
A process has begun to migrate wikitech.wikimedia.org wiki accounts from Developer accounts to Wikimedia Unified Login (SUL/single user login) accounts. This work unblocked wikitech.wikimedia.org from migrating to hosting in the "WikiKube" Kubernetes cluster that hosts Wikimedia movement project wikis.
After the process is complete:
- Developer accounts will be managed via Wikimedia IDM and not Wikitech.
- Users will be able to login and edit Wikitech using their Wikimedia Unified Login (SUL). Read more about SUL in metawiki.
Timeline
- 2024-10-01:
Done Wikitech detached from Developer accounts and configured so that local accounts can be attached to Wikimedia SUL accounts with matching usernames.
2024-11-302025-02-10: Wikitech config changed to only use Wikimedia SUL accounts. All legacy local accounts that have been linked to a Wikimedia SUL account via idm.wikimedia.org or toolsadmin.wikimedia.org will be renamed if necessary and then attached to the SUL account.
Some renames and attachments may happen sooner as admins find the time to test and refine the process.2025-01-302025-02-24: Final migration. SUL account mappings added since the prior migration will be processed. All remaining unattached accounts will be converted to SUL accounts. This final conversion will include renaming any local accounts that match existing SUL accounts to avoid that name collision.- Merging two MediaWiki accounts is not currently possible.
What you need to do
Wikitech is rejecting my password
You will have to request a password reset through Special:PasswordReset if you wish to edit Wikitech prior to the SUL unification step. This is necessary because Wikitech did not store Developer account passwords.
My Wikimedia Developer Account username matches my Wikimedia Unified Login (SUL) username
Great news! Please use the Special:MergeAccount option in Wikitech, and merge the two. You are done!
My Wikimedia Developer Account username is different from my Wikimedia Unified Login (SUL) username
- Please visit https://idm.wikimedia.org and follow the instructions provided to link your Developer account to your existing Wikimedia Global Account (SUL). Linked Wikitech accounts will be renamed on 2025-02-10 and 2025-02-24.
- Or go to Wikitech:Rename requests and write down your username change request.
I have followed the instructions, but I am still having issues.
Trouble logging in? Report it on task T376267
What is changing
One of the historic roles of wikitech.wikimedia.org has been the creation and management of Developer accounts. In order to manage these accounts, Wikitech itself uses Extension:LDAP Authentication to connect local MediaWiki accounts with the Developer account data that we store in an LDAP directory. The LDAP Authentication extension itself has been largely unmaintained for many years. Other communities who used it have moved on to replacement systems, but Wikitech has not. This was largely due to the use of Extension:OpenStackManager by Wikitech. Extension:OpenStackManager required Extension:LDAP Authentication to function.
After several years of work, Extension:OpenStackManager has been fully replaced by a combination of horizon.wikimedia.org and idm.wikimedia.org. This has unblocked a long desired migration of wikitech.wikimedia.org from using Developer accounts to identify editors to using SUL accounts. Functionally everyone contributing to the Wikimedia movement has a SUL account, but only a small percentage of us have Developer accounts. We hope that the SUL migration will allow more Wikimedians to contribute to the technical documentation here on Wikitech. It will also remove a special dependency from the wiki which will make it easier for us to move to a different hosting configuration.
Account migration details
- Developer accounts that are linked to SUL accounts
- If you link your Developer and SUL accounts by the deadline, edits made by your legacy Wikitech account will be migrated to your Wikimedia Global Account (SUL). This will retain your full edit history and attribution for past contributions in one place.
- Unlinked Developer accounts
- If you do not link your accounts by the deadline, your legacy Wikitech account will be migrated to a local placeholder account (for example
OLDWIKITECHUSERNAME~labswiki
). This is similar to what was done for unclaimed local accounts during the SUL migration for content wikis in 2015. Your edits will still be visible in page history, but you will no longer be able to login to that account and new edits will be made under a new SUL account with no immediate link to your past edits.
If you have already linked your accounts, no further action is required at this time.
If you have any questions or need assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at Portal:Toolforge/About Toolforge#Communication and support
We are also maintaining an FAQ page below that hopefully answers some questions you may have.
FAQ
Will my Wikitech user name change?
Possibly, yes:
- If your Wikitech account and your SUL account have matching names, for example User:Legoktm and meta:User:Legoktm, then neither user name will change.
- If your Wikitech account and your SUL account have different names, for example User:BryanDavis and meta:User:BDavis (WMF), then your Wikitech account will be renamed to match your SUL account.
- Wikitech accounts that do not have a SUL account associated when the migration occurs will be renamed to ensure that they do not collide with present or future SUL accounts by appending something like
~labswiki
to the former account name. (~
is a character not normally allowed in Wikimedia SUL account names.) These accounts will also become inaccessible by virtue of not having an associated password. It is currently unknown if these accounts will be recoverable in the future.
Will my Developer account user name or shell account name change?
No. Wikitech is being separated from Developer accounts, but no other systemic changes to Developer accounts are planned at this time.
Will my logins to Cloud VPS, Toolforge, Horizon, Gerrit, GitLab, Phabricator change?
No. These systems all use Developer accounts today and will continue to use Developer accounts in the foreseeable future.
Your Phabricator account may already be connected to your SUL account as Phabricator logins can use either, or even both!, systems. This will not be changing as part of the Wikitech SUL migration.
How will I manage the password, email address, ssh keys, etc of my Developer account after the SUL migration?
https://idm.wikimedia.org has already become the central location for mw:Developer account management. You can read more about this identity management service at IDM.
When will the SUL migration happen?
See #Timeline for current estimated dates. Please be aware that these dates may change due to many factors.