View source for Permanently remove a MediaWiki revision using SQL

[[Category:MediaWiki]]
[[Category:Ubuntu]]
[[Category:201211]]

==Instructions==

You saved sensitive information for example like a password in your MediWiki? Now it is almost impossible to remove this permanently. Here you can read how to remove the text of a revision using two SQL statements.

With MediaWiki:
# First edit the page to make a new revision with the sensitive information removed.
# Go to page ''history'' and re-open the revision, the sensitive information will still be there
# Note the ''Permanent link'', this URL points to this specific revision and looks like <nowiki>http://mediawiki/index.php?&</nowiki>'''oldid=1248''' here the number '''1248''' points to the revision you want to remove.
# To be sure try the link in your browser

'''Backup your ([[MySQL]]) database before you continue!''' 

In the following example '''1248''' denotes the revision we are removing:

<syntaxhighlight lang=sql>

-- mark the revision as deleted:
update revision set rev_deleted=1 
  WHERE rev_id = 1248
  ;

-- overwrite the old text:
update text set old_text = 'DELETED'
  where old_id in (SELECT rev_text_id FROM revision WHERE rev_id = 1248)
  ;

</syntaxhighlight>

== MySQL Workbench show BINARY as character string ==

Datatypes in the MediaWiki database are all binary, in order to view the contents do the following:

# Go to Edit > Preferences
# Choose SQL Queries
# Under Query Results, check Treat BINARY/VARBINARY as nonbinary character string