Help:Server-side upload

Uploads on Wikimedia Commons are normally limited to a maximum file size of 100 MiB (although files up to 5 GiB = 5,368,709,120 bytes may be uploaded using the Upload Wizard and chunked uploading).

However, system administrators have ways to upload files between 100 MiB and 5 GiB, and you may ask for their help if needed.

Requirements

• URL(s), publicly accessible without logins or passwords, to
  • the files themselves. They should already have the correct names in UTF-8.
  • the file description page (wikitext) for each file, as a UTF-8 .txt file. So the description page for Foo.ogv should be in Foo.ogv.txt
• Commitment to deal with post-upload complaints. Regarding licence or file description...

Providing the files as TAR/TGZ archives is fine (and preferred for larger numbers of files).

Tiff files

Tiff files are commonly huge. If your tiff file is in uncompressed mode please convert to either the deflate/zip (preferred) or LZW compression method for any file large enough to require a server side upload. One way to convert a file is using the tiffcp program, with the command line tiffcp -c zip:p9 infile.tif outfile.tif

Process

Please file a request on Phabricator via this link, where a system administrator will process your request. Make sure your Phabricator account is linked to the MediaWiki account you want the upload made under. (See more information on Phabricator)

What to do if files represent hundreds of GB to several TB?

If you prepare a mass upload of large files, for example dozens of videos from a GLAM project, and it's not technically possible to upload so much content, you can prepare a hard disk with the files, using the same procedure described above.

Once done, open a task on Phabricator, and you will be provided with the address of the datacenter to mail the disk to (don't mail the disk before you receive a confirmation with a tracking number: we need to register the delivery before it's received by the datacenter staff).

You should use FedEx, UPS or DHL as the carrier. We're unable to receive USPS mail.

It will then be added to a shell machine, and processed, as URL requests are.

As this requires extra human handling, this procedure is only for when it's technically not possible to upload files through the network.

Examples of past requests: T50205 (successful), T69477 (failed) – sender declined to use recommended delivery companies.

See also

• mw:Special:MyLanguage/Manual:ImportImages.php: documentation for the maintenance script
• Wikitech: Uploading large files
• Foundation-l post by Catrope
• Special:UploadWizard