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Issue tracker: #CheckUser
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This page is about the installing the extension itself. For the Wikimedia Foundation CheckUser policy, see m:CheckUser policy. For details on how to use the extension, see Help:Extension:CheckUser .
MediaWiki extensions manual
CheckUser
Release status: stable
Implementation Special page , User identity , API , Hook , Database
Description CheckUser function allows a user with permissions to check which IPs are used by a given username and which usernames are used by a given IP, without having to run queries directly against the database by hand.
Author(s) Tim Starling, Aaron Schulz, Dreamy Jazz
Latest version 2.5 (continuous updates)
Compatibility policy Snapshots releases along with MediaWiki. Master is not backward compatible.
PHP 7.4.3+
Database changes Yes
Virtual domain virtual-checkuser-global
Tables cu_changes
cu_log_event
cu_private_event
cu_log
cu_useragent_clienthints
cu_useragent_clienthints_map
cu_useragent
cuci_wiki_map
cuci_temp_edit
cuci_user
License GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download
Download extension
Git [?]:
Help Help:Extension:CheckUser
Parameters
  • $wgCheckUserGBtoollink
  • $wgCheckUserClientHintsSpecialPages
  • $wgCheckUserCAMultiLock
  • $wgCheckUserLogSuccessfulBotLogins
  • $wgCheckUserWriteToCentralIndex
  • $wgCheckUserSpecialPagesWithoutIPRevealButtons
  • $wgCheckUserLogLogins
  • $wgCUPublicKey
  • $wgCheckUserCAtoollink
  • $wgCheckUserCuciUserRandomChanceDebounceCutoff
  • $wgCheckUserClientHintsRestApiMaxTimeLag
  • $wgCheckUserDeveloperMode
  • $wgCheckUserEnableTempAccountsOnboardingDialog
  • $wgCheckUserCentralIndexRangesToExclude
  • $wgCUDMaxAge
  • $wgCheckUserCIDRLimit
  • $wgCheckUserMaxBlocks
  • $wgCheckUserCentralIndexGroupsToExclude
  • $wgCheckUserDisplayClientHints
  • $wgCheckUserGlobalContributionsCentralWikiId
  • $wgCheckUserForceSummary
  • $wgCheckUserInvestigateMaximumRowCount
  • $wgCheckUserMaximumIPsToAutoblock
  • $wgCheckUserClientHintsForDisplay
  • $wgCheckUserClientHintsValuesToHide
  • $wgCheckUserClientHintsUnsetHeaderWhenPossible
  • $wgCheckUserCollapseCheckUserHelperByDefault
  • $wgCheckUserClientHintsEnabled
  • $wgCheckUserTemporaryAccountMaxAge
  • $wgCheckUserMaximumRowCount
  • $wgCheckUserClientHintsHeaders
Added rights

  • checkuser
  • checkuser-log
  • checkuser-temporary-account
  • checkuser-temporary-account-log
  • checkuser-temporary-account-no-preference
  • investigate
Hooks used
Hooks provided
Quarterly downloads 195 (Ranked 30th)
Public wikis using 9,118 (Ranked 13th)
Translate the CheckUser extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Issues Open tasks · Report a bug

CheckUser is an extension that allows a user (with the checkuser permission) to check which IP addresses are used by a given username and which usernames are used by a given IP, without having to run queries directly against the database by hand. The extension is running live on all Wikimedia wikis.

Updates will be made according to the needs of Wikimedia Foundation wikis; or where critical vulnerabilities are discovered. Details on how to use the tools provided by the extension are at Help:Extension:CheckUser .

Installation

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  • Download and move the extracted CheckUser folder to your extensions/ directory.
    Developers and code contributors should install the extension from Git instead, using:cd extensions/
    git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/extensions/CheckUser
  • Only when installing from Git, run Composer to install PHP dependencies, by issuing composer install --no-dev in the extension directory. (See T173141 for potential complications.)
  • Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php file: 
    wfLoadExtension( 'CheckUser' );
  • Run the update script which will automatically create the necessary database tables that this extension needs.
  • Configure as required.
  • Yes Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

Using MediaWiki-Docker

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Follow the steps in MediaWiki-Docker/Extension/CheckUser to install this extension inside a MediaWiki Docker instance.

Configuration

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This tool copies recent changes data to separate tables, and adds to that when new entries are added. If $wgPutIPinRC is set to false, the copied data will not contain the associated IP address. However, entries added after installation of this extension will contain the IP address.

After installation of this extension, you can reduce $wgRCMaxAge to make recentchanges shorter without affecting checkuser. Use $wgCUDMaxAge to set how far back checkuser data can go, in seconds.

The CheckUser-specific setting $wgCheckUserCIDRLimit determines the largest range that can be checked in a single check. Its format is the same as $wgBlockCIDRLimit . The default limit is /19 for IPv6 checks and /16 for IPv4 checks.

To allow this tool to log successful and failed login attempts as well as logouts, set $wgCheckUserLogLogins to true. If you have bot accounts on your wiki, setting $wgCheckUserLogSuccessfulBotLogins to false will skip logging successful login attempts to bot accounts.

MediaWiki version:
≥ 1.43

If the extension is installed on a multi-wiki install, then you should set $wgVirtualDomainsMapping for the virtual-checkuser-global to point to a central database table. Setting this will ensure that the central index tables are actually on a central DB, and therefore the GlobalBlocking global autoblocks and GUC work. After doing this, you will need to run update.php to create the tables on the central wiki.

Troubleshooting Special:GlobalContributions functionality

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If Special:GlobalContributions is not returning revisions as expected (e.g. you have revisions on another wiki that you can view on that wiki), a misconfiguration may be causing an internal failure that isn't user-facing (as it cannot be user resolved). Check that:

  • Your user has a central account and that their accounts on the affected wiki are linked. This can be checked at Special:MergeAccount.
  • The affected wiki is known to the wiki farm. This is defined in the sites table and wikis can be added to this table via the addSite maintenance script. You'll need to ensure that the optional parameters pagepath and filepath are filled out (eg. php ./maintenance/run.php addSite $wikiName wiki --pagepath https://hostname/wiki/\$1 --filepath https://hostname/w/\$1), as Special:GlobalContributions uses these to generate API queries and links.
  • The central database is set with virtual-checkuser-global (eg. $wgVirtualDomainsMapping['virtual-checkuser-global'] = [ 'db' => $wiki ];) and that the cuci_temp_edit table is recording revisions from the affected wiki.
  • If necessary, cross-domain cookies should be enabled as the centralauth token must work across both wikis.

Granting right to use CheckUser

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To grant the right to use Special:CheckUser, Special:Investigate and Special:CheckUserLog, a user with user rights management must go to Special:UserRights and enter the user's name in the box, then select the option "checkuser". Once this is done, the aforementioned special pages will show up in Special:SpecialPages page for that user.

To allow users to access the IP addresses of temporary accounts , they should be granted the checkuser-temporary-account right.

To give sysops all the rights this extension provides, put the following into LocalSettings.php: 

$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['checkuser'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['checkuser-log'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['investigate'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['checkuser-temporary-account'] = true;

To only allow the adding and removing of the checkuser permission, use the following instead: 

$wgAddGroups['sysop'][] = 'checkuser';
$wgRemoveGroups['sysop'][] = 'checkuser';

Configuration

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A selected number of the configuration values are shown below. These configuration values are useful for administrators of wikis to modify. Configuration values which are usually left as their default value are not specified here to keep the list concise, but details for these configuration values are present in the extension.json file.

Selected configuration settings in extension.json
Configuration name Default value Detail
$wgCUDMaxAge 7776000 How long to keep CU data (in seconds)? (default = 90 days)
$wgCheckUserMaxBlocks 200 Maximum number of users that can be mass blocked simultaneously on Special:Investigate
$wgCheckUserForceSummary false Set this to true if you want to force checkusers into giving a reason for each check they do through Special:CheckUser. (Not very useful, given that checkusers could simply give a summary such as "they need to be checked" or "I feel like it" and the software would not know.)
$wgCheckUserCIDRLimit [ 'IPv4' => 16, 'IPv6' => 19 ] Smallest CIDR value that can be used in any individual range check
$wgCUPublicKey '' Public key to encrypt private data that may need to be read later. Generate a public key with something like:

openssl genrsa -out cu.key 2048; openssl rsa -in cu.key -pubout > cu.pub and paste the contents of cu.pub here

Used with an associated private key to encrypt certain data that is not shown to CUs but stored in the cu_changes or cu_private_event table. Currently this is only the recipients of emails. Without a valid public key the data will not be stored.

$wgCheckUserCAMultiLock false This can be used to add a link to Special:MultiLock by CentralAuth to the Special:CheckUser's mass block form. This requires the CentralAuth extension to be installed on the wiki. To enable this, set this to an array with a central wiki's database name and an array with the name(s) of the global group(s) to add the link for. For example: 
$wgCheckUserCAMultiLock = [
    'centralDB' => 'metawiki',
    'groups' => [ 'steward' ]
];
$wgCheckUserCAtoollink false Since 77360f1cf1d2. This adds a link to central wiki Special:CentralAuth to the Special:CheckUser's "Get users" results. This requires the CentralAuth extension to be installed on the wiki. To enable this, set this with a central wiki's database name. For example: 
$wgCheckUserCAtoollink = 'metawiki';
$wgCheckUserGBtoollink false Since 77360f1cf1d2. This adds a link to local or central wiki Special:GlobalBlock to the Special:CheckUser's "Get users" results. This requires the GlobalBlocking extension to be installed on the wiki. To enable this, if a $wgConf is configured, set this to an array with a central wiki's database name and an array with the name(s) of the local (or global if you have CentralAuth installed) group(s) to add the link for. For example: 
$wgCheckUserGBtoollink = [
	'centralDB' => 'metawiki',
	'groups' => [ 'steward', 'staff' ]
];
$wgCheckUserEnableSpecialInvestigate (1.35-1.43) false (<=1.39)
true (1.40+) 		Since 57dcfe46d2e4. This enables Special:Investigate, an updated version of Special:CheckUser that allows checking for multiple user accounts and IP addresses within one investigation.
$wgCheckUserLogLogins false Whether CheckUser should log login and logout attempts (both successful and not).
$wgCheckUserLogSuccessfulBotLogins true Whether CheckUser should store successful login attempts to accounts with the bot user group if $wgCheckUserLogLogins is set to true. Only is used if $wgCheckUserLogLogins is true
$wgCheckUserMaximumRowCount 5000 The maximum number of results that can be returned by Special:CheckUser. Before MediaWiki 1.39, in the 'Get edits' and 'Get IPs' results having over 5,000 results would return the results in a different format. From MediaWiki 1.39 this is the maximum number of results to show by page and more can be generated using the paging links
$wgCheckUserInvestigateMaximumRowCount 25000 Similar to $wgCheckUserMaximumRowCount, but for Investigate
$wgCheckUserCollapseCheckUserHelperByDefault (1.41+) 2500 Controls when the "CheckUser helper" summary table on Special:CheckUser. Specify true to always collapse by default, false to never collapse by default, and a number to collapse when more than that number of results are displayed on the page.
$wgCheckUserMaximumIPsToAutoblock (1.43+) 1 The maximum number of IP addresses to retroactively autoblock when a block is created with autoblocking enabled.
$wgCheckUserClientHintsEnabled (1.41+) true Used to control whether client hints should be collected and displayed in results by CheckUser.
$wgCheckUserClientHintsSpecialPages (1.41+) { "CreateAccount": "header", "Emailuser": "js", "PasswordReset": "js", "Userlogin": [ "js", "header" ], "Userlogout": "header"} The list of SpecialPages where CheckUser will request client hints if $wgCheckUserClientHintsEnabled is true.
$wgCheckUserClientHintsHeaders (1.41+) { "Sec-CH-UA": "brands", "Sec-CH-UA-Arch": "architecture", "Sec-CH-UA-Bitness": "bitness", "Sec-CH-UA-Form-Factor": "", "Sec-CH-UA-Full-Version-List": "fullVersionList", "Sec-CH-UA-Mobile": "mobile", "Sec-CH-UA-Model": "model", "Sec-CH-UA-Platform": "platform", "Sec-CH-UA-Platform-Version": "platformVersion", "Sec-CH-UA-WoW64": ""} The list of client hint types that will be requested. Keys represent the client hint values requested using the Accept-CH header. Values represent the equivalent name when requesting them from the JS client side client hints API.
$wgCheckUserClientHintsForDisplay (1.41+) [ "model", "fullVersionList", "platformVersion", "platform", "brands", "formFactor", "architecture", "mobile", "bitness", "woW64" ] The list of Client Hints data to display in CheckUser results. The order of the array is used to determine what order to display the data.
$wgCheckUserClientHintsValuesToHide (1.41+) { "architecture": [ "x86" ], "bitness": [ "64" ], "woW64": [ false ]} Specifies Client Hint data values which should be hidden in the CheckUser results. This is done to hide commonly seen Client Hint data values in the cases where it's not useful to see this information unless it's a rare value.
$wgCheckUserTemporaryAccountMaxAge (1.40+) 86400 The number of seconds for which the temporary account API response is fresh.
$wgCheckUserSpecialPagesWithoutIPRevealButtons (1.40+) [ "Investigate", "InvestigateBlock", "CheckUser", "CheckUserLog", "Activeusers", "Listusers", "BlockList" ] A list of special page names where "Show IP" buttons are disabled, because they are not useful. The special page names are case sensitive and do not always match their appearance in the URL. For example, e.g. Special:ListUsers is called Listusers in this array.
$wgCheckUserClientHintsUnsetHeaderWhenPossible (1.41+) true If true, the server will send an empty Accept-CH header when the user is viewing a page which does not need client hints data.
$wgCheckUserGlobalContributionsCentralWikiId (1.44+) null A string representing the name of the wiki to designate as the "central" wiki for Special:GlobalContributions. Setting this will redirect all other wiki's Special:GlobalContributions page to the central wiki's instead.
$wgCheckUserWriteToCentralIndex (1.43+) true Used to prevent adding entries to the CheckUser central index tables on the wiki. Use this when the wiki is not part of a larger wiki farm unified account system.
$wgCheckUserCentralIndexGroupsToExclude (1.43+) [ "bot" ] Users in any of the groups specified in this configuration value will not have their actions stored in the central index tables. Used to reduce the rate of writes to the central index tables for high activity users where there is no need to run CheckUser checks on these users.

Using the extension

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See also: Special:MyLanguage/Help:Extension:CheckUser

Detail about how to use the extension can be viewed at the extension help page . This information is not included here to keep this page manageable in size, and to focus this page on installation and administration of the extension.

There are several special pages and a few APIs provided by the extension. The special pages are:

  • Special:CheckUser - Used to look up CheckUser data about accounts and anonymous users. Described at Help:Extension:CheckUser .
  • Special:Investigate - Alternative tool used to look up CheckUser data about accounts and anonymous users, with information displayed using a single-page format. Described at Help:Special Investigate .
  • Special:CheckUserLog - Used to list the checks performed using either Special:CheckUser, Special:Investigate, or the CheckUser API. Described at Help:Extension:CheckUser .
  • Special:IPContributions - Used to lookup edits performed by temporary accounts on a given IP address or range. Described at Help:Extension:CheckUser .
  • Special:GlobalContributions - Used to lookup edits performed by accounts, or temporary accounts on a given IP address or range. Described at Help:Extension:CheckUser .

The extension also provides the ability to reveal the IP address used by a temporary account. Described at Help:Extension:CheckUser .

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