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News/2026 Commons links tables database split

From Wikitech

This page contains information about the split of Commons links tables to the new x4 database cluster.

What is changing?

Tables holding Commons links information are being split to a new separate database cluster. Tools querying those tables via the wiki replicas must be adapted to connect to the new cluster instead.

The following tables are affected by this move:

  • linktarget
  • externallinks
  • pagelinks
  • templatelinks
  • categorylinks
  • collation
  • imagelinks
  • globalimagelinks
  • iwlinks
  • existencelinks
  • langlinks

In addition, the page and redirect tables will continue to exist on both the existing core (s4) and extension (x4) clusters.

Timeline

  • Yes Done 2026-09-08: New hostnames announced and ready for use.
  • Yes Done 2026-09-08: The x4 section is split and MediaWiki is changed to write there. The old tables on the s4 cluster will no longer be updated and will eventually be dropped.
  • Yes Done 2026-09-14: x4 is set up on the Wiki Replicas as a separate section. Queries will start returning up-to-date information again, but no longer have access to s4 tables.
  • TBC: The old tables in the s4 cluster will be dropped from the Wiki Replicas.

What should I do?

If you maintain a tool that queries the Commons links tables listed above, you need to update your code to connect to a separate database cluster for those:

Old hostname New hostname
commonswiki.analytics.db.svc.wikimedia.cloud links.commonswiki.analytics.db.svc.wikimedia.cloud
commonswiki.web.db.svc.wikimedia.cloud links.commonswiki.web.db.svc.wikimedia.cloud
testcommonswiki.analytics.db.svc.wikimedia.cloud links.testcommonswiki.analytics.db.svc.wikimedia.cloud
testcommonswiki.web.db.svc.wikimedia.cloud links.testcommonswiki.web.db.svc.wikimedia.cloud

In addition, any code performing JOINs between those tables and other commonswiki (or testcommonswiki) will need to be changed to perform the same operations in code instead.

Why are we doing this?

The Commons database has been growing too fast, and so this change is necessary to allow growth and to improve performance.

See also

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