Converting from phpbb to SMF on a new server

[bsky92]

Hi

this is the challenge I am facing, and I'm a total newbie in coding and servers 

my actual forum runs on a server I have to quit - my site being to big for them now  , so i got a new dedicated server and decided to change to smf

but how do I get the converter running while being on two different servers Do I have to have SMF and my current version on the same server - ie then the old one - convert and then find a way to export the new SMF forum tables on my new server ??

My phpbb database - unzipped - is 45 MB

Thanks for any help you could provide

[BigMoneyJim]

Somebody correct me if I'm talking out of the wrong end...

You will probably want to:

• Set up a database name and user on the new server
• Install phpbb on the new server
• Make sure phpbb is working
• Import your posts to phpbb
• Test to see things imported well
• Install SMF (not in the same folder as phpbb, of course, and don't use the same table headers e.g. smf_ vs phpbb_)
• Make sure SMF is working
• Run the appropriate conversion script
• Test to see conversion went well

You probably want to try it once as a test, then put the new and old boards in maintenance mode and do it again making sure you wipe out existing posts on the new site when reimporting data. After determining SMF is running well with the imported data you can take it out of maintenance mode.

[Oldiesmann]

Not quite that complicated actually...

Do the following:

• Install SMF on the old server, making sure that it's installed on the same database as phpBB
• Convert the phpBB to SMF using the converter
• Get a database dump of the SMF tables from phpMyAdmin (you want the "data only" option in this case
• Transfer any avatars and attachments to your computer using FTP
• Install SMF on the new server, using the same database prefix you used when you installed SMF on the old server
• Upload the avatars and attachments to the new server using FTP
• Again, using phpMyAdmin, import the database dump
• Use repair_settings.php (What is repair_settings.php?) to fix all the paths and URLs as necessary on the new server

It's a lot simpler to do things that way.