Hi,
I downloaded the bluespice_wiki_5.1.0.tar.gz file. But it seems not a usual installation file. It contains a blobs folder only. Could someone direct me to the correct file for download? Thanks.
Hello and welcome to the BlueSpice community forums!
Indeed, starting with BlueSpice 5, we do not provide regular tarball releases of the codebase anymore. Instead, we highly recommend (and mainly support) installation via docker container stack (GitHub - hallowelt/bluespice-deploy: Easy setup and deployment of BlueSpice MediaWiki). Visit Setup:Installation Guide/Docker - BlueSpice Helpdesk to learn more about that.
Setting things up with docker is much more convenient, than dealing with different operating systems and setting up all required services manually. Also updating gets a lot easier.
The free edition’s container image is also available for direct pull from https://hub.docker.com/r/bluespice/wiki, so usually no manual download is required. If really required, one can still download the codebase from our new github.com project, e.g. GitHub - BlueSpice-Wiki/bluespice-free-release
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thanks for the detailed reply
I suspect that you’re going to hear this a lot but:
We’re hosting this wiki on a shared webserver that doesn’t allow us to install or run docker containers.
I have pulled the bluespice-free-release files but when going to mw-config we are now presented with a message that:
The web installer is not supported by BlueSpice. Please refer to the installation instructions on the helpdesk . That link fails with a ERR_SSL_UNRECOGNIZED_NAME_ALERT error
I suspect that that link would take me to the instructions to perform a Docker installation anyway, right?
@RSDancey I completely agree with you. There are sometimes reasons why you cannot work with the official released versions of docker like strict regulations at your company network.
More and more companies will run into problems, maybe caused by using podman instead of docker or they distribute its own complex server clustered infrastructure where they have to build there own containers which are working efficiently.
For sure, I think the contributors of BlueSpice by themself can help you to bring it up and running customized for you but this will destroy the possibility starting BlueSpice as a free software in a company like I’m administrating. BlueSpice free currently fully meets the requirements sometimes or will be the base to keep it productive OnPrem with the option to switch later to the pro version paying for official support.
From my point of view, there are enough arguments that the developer hasn’t considered by not longer deploying a native installation. I think there are a lot of companies which will not destroy the contributor and will keep in mind to upgrade to pro after using free for a time. But very often these are precisely these companies that have strict restrictions like “it has to be OnPrem and it has to be integrated into our own concept of cluster infrastructure”.
For this reason I found a small team including myself to find a way to install BlueSpice free on a native way which you can find fully documented at GitHub - freesoft-official/bluespice-free at 5.1.3
Please keep in mind that this only an attempt, that you will use it on your own risc and that you will never find support for it. As I’m using it at a company I can say “it works” but who knows how long this possibility will exist and if we will be able to publish updated versions for it.
@janmuellerfs I actually built a system to do an installation using their Docker containers on a hosted server. You can find it here:
It relies on Docker so if you want to use some other containerization system you’ll have to fork and reimplement.
@RSDancey Had a look at it yesterday without trying, that looks very pretty, thank you 
That shows up, that the deployment of an application only by one official docker is not the bliss (I mean every application, not only BlueSpice). At the moment there are so many situations where you would be forced to rebuild your infrastructure for one application and not to have an infrastructure where you can really run every application in Docker.
We are running so many applications in Docker but I can count by only one hand where we were able to use the official deployed images. Hope that times will change.