- Name of the software:
- search.wikimedia.org, also known as Apple dictionary gateway
- Link to code repository of the software:
- Link to homepage of the software (if existing):
- Succinct problem statement to give context for why the review was initiated:
- search.wikimedia.org is a service we are contractually obligated to provide, it powers the Wikipedia integration in the Apple dictionary. With the migration to Kubernetes, the service will require some modifications (T288848: Make HTTP calls work within mediawiki on kubernetes ). This service is designed to be extremely low maintenance, to quote the wiki page: "[In 2013] Tim Starling moved it to the main application cluster, and updated the source, with a view to allowing another 5-10 years of low-maintenance service." - that statement has held up pretty well 8 years later.
- Per T289224#7301754 there is no clear owner for this.
The following bullet points are optional - please fill them out if feasible, but this is not a hard requirement:
- Current entry in mw:Developers/Maintainers:
- Listed Code Steward: it's not listed
- Listed Maintainer:
- Listed In-training:
- Number, severity, and age of known and confirmed security issues:
- none
- Was it a cause of production outages or incidents? List them:
- Does it have sufficient hardware resources for now and the near future (to take into account expected usage growth)?
- yes
- Is it a frequent cause of monitoring alerts that need action, and are they addressed timely and appropriately?
- no
- When it was first deployed to Wikimedia production:
- ~2007
- Usage statistics based on audience(s) served:
- In the 1/128 sampled web request logs, (in August 20201) this service has 1.7k entries over 30 days, so theoretically ~217,600 reqs/month, or ~5reqs/min. For reference in 2013, we were getting 11 reqs/second (per T81982).
- Code changes committed in last 1, 3, 6, and 12 months:
- 0
- Reliance on outdated platforms (e.g. operating systems):
- not really.
- Number of developers who committed code in the last 1, 3, 6, and 12 months:
- 0
- Number and age of open patches:
- 0
- Number and age of open bugs:
- 1 (migration to k8s)
- Number of known dependencies:
- It depends on PHP/curl and the MediaWiki prefixsearch API
- Is there a replacement/alternative for the feature? Is there a plan for a replacement?
- supposedly this functionality is no longer used in modern Apple devices/operating systems.
- Submitter's recommendation (what do you propose be done?):
- Support @Majavah in migrating the service to k8s and decoupling from MediaWiki (T289224: Split search.wikimedia.org out of ops/mediawiki-config into separate service)
- Have someone reach out to Apple to see at what point request rate drops low enough that we can sunset the service (last done in 2013 supposedly, see {T81982} (NDA-only))
- Continue to monitor request rate until it can be sunset