One for the Techs

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AndyThomas
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One for the Techs

Post by AndyThomas »

Greetings and salutations. Still here! A technical question, if I may. How on earth do I export the database underlying this forum using CPanel functionality, and how would I then go about converting it into a phpBB board from there? I believe it's doable, but I don't know if I have access to the right tools. After many many years I'm changing hosting provider, you see, and it would be nice to keep the forum going even if it's more of an archive these days. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
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Crash
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Post by Crash »

This seems like a fun project.I had a look into this a while ago.There did seem to be a script that converted the database data fIkonboard to PHP (or SMF maybe).First, you would have to export the database in CPanel. You go to PHP MySQL (I'll have a look where that is in CPanel tonight) and export the database as a text file then re-upload it as a second database, which you can convert without worry.You plug SMF or PHPBB into that when you install it.If it all goes wrong, that way, you still have your original database still as it was.I will have a look and see if I can find the converter.
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Crash
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Post by Crash »

I know it's not PHPBB but SMF is as good if not better and this seems to be a 'supported' method:http://download.simplemachines.org/?con ... konboardIt lives on the actual download section of their website.The PHPBB converter seems to be less official and maybe less supported:https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... t=20282The other thing, is that you have to convert to PHPBB2 then again to PHPBB3 to be on the current version (apparently). It's a 2-step process, whereas, Simple Machines give you a 1-step one.
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AndyThomas
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Post by AndyThomas »

That seems to be a good shout, I have the option to install SMF. Let me look into it, when I switch over (which I will do imminently) there may be a little hiccup time but I'll try and get the board back up one way or another...
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Crash
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Post by Crash »

Sounds good - am working hard on X-Bomber at the moment.Shove me an email if you need any help.You can always leave this forum up until the new one is tried and tested.No harm in having two databases running two forum programs for a while.
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AndyThomas
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Post by AndyThomas »

Ha well that wasn't terribly easy! Converting it may be equally hilarious but at least this is here now...
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Bradster
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Post by Bradster »

Whew... I checked this site over the weekend (I've been away for quite a while!) and was a wee bit terrified to see that the forums had disappeared! I found a mention on Crash's site that you were working on a replacement, and I found your new SMF install at /forum/, but I resisted the temptation to register and make the "First!" post because I figured it might make the import go angry. Probably not much I can do short of having shell access to the server, but if you have any odd technical questions that we could help answer, post away. I've done a few forum migrations elsewhere (although with neither SMF nor Ikonboard) and I claim to be a web software developer by profession... so maybe I can help, but no promises.  
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Post by Bradster »

Geez, I'm clueless. Right there you already posted your questions and somehow I breezed past it down to see just your last post.Crash already posted the link that I also found for the Ikonboard-to-SMF converter. I just downloaded it and took a look for myself, and it looks like it *should* work with the version of Ikonboard you have installed here. A general workflow would be:- dump the Ikonboard database from the current host- create an empty temporary database on the new host- restore the Ikonboard database dump to that temporary DB on the new host (without actually running Ikonboard)- install SMF on the new host (including creating its own database)- run the convert.php script on the new hostIt looks like there aren't any good instructions for the conversion script and you may have to experiment as you go. The convert.php script also does not seem particularly robust, and any errors you get along the way may leave you stranded without a lot of detail on how to recover. If you decide to run it and it blows up, post notes on the steps you took to get there and any output from the script, and I'll take a look.Alternatively, if you get stuck, if you are OK with sharing the content of the current database (the only "sensitive" data in there would be email addresses and private messages — passwords are one-way hashed and not recoverable from a database dump), I'd be happy to spin up a local VM on my home computer with a copy of SMF and try running the import myself. You'd have to put the DB dump somewhere for download and PM the link. I could document the process step-by-step including any recovery steps if there are hiccups along the way.
AndyThomas
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Post by AndyThomas »

The error messages were indeed unhelpful.  Decidedly so.  Now, one mistake I may have made was setting up this board first and giving SMF access to the database this one runs off.  Is there a sensible way to import the backup other than through ikonboard?  I need just the bare tables imported using PHPAdmin, is that it?  That could well be the first issue I guess I would have run into...  Hm.Well, tried that, unhappy with SQL syntax or something. Special characters in a post or something? I know next to nothing about SQL sadly...



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