[Tut] Shifting Servers with phpBB [on req.]

[theraven]

well smooth asked me to write this tut for him !
having done this soo many times [Nemi n me that is] i think i can pretty much cover it !
here goes nuthing !

first things first lets have a look at the admin panel !



Don't worry if u see some extra links in the LHS pane . They are just some mods we have installed !

what we need to see is the
"Backup Database" option

Backing up of ur database isn't just when you're shifting servers, its just common sense to have a backup of your forums' database !
here we will do a full Database backup since we are making a complete shift !
also click on enable GZip compression if u want the file to be compressed ...
say a 2 mb database will be in the late 200 kb's !
thats about a tenth of the original size.
Don't worry when you restore this phpBB will automatically uncompress it and restore it !

What does the Full Database backup consist of ?

:1: simply put ... your full database ofcourse ... lol
ok ... i ain't tryint to be funny ... but it consists of
all the tables
all the posts
users and settings
information abt the skins/settings/smilies etc etc
basically everything you've done since you put up your forums !

this however does NOT include ur skins and mods ( the files i mean )
though the entries will remain when u backup the database !!

What do i do next ?

Simple ... put up your forums at your new server !
I ain't telling you how now .. you did it once you can do it again

After you upload your forums you'll be in vanilla phpBB state
whats next ?

upload your skins/mods/smilies/rank images etc to the same internal directories as you had done in the earlier forums !
install your skins first
install all the mods
Now you can restore your Database !!
just use the inbuilt feature of phpBB



after you upload it should say database upload successful !
your forum is back to its original state now !
but its back to its "ORIGINAL" state. .. which would mean any HOST ORIENTED SETTINGS must be now manually changed
NOTE: you do not need to do anything abt the smilies and rank images etc except for uploading them to the same directory as before !
the entries are already there in your db !

Warning: Test your backed up database before you go on doing something like deleting your old forums !

what happens if I restore my db and then install the skins/mods etc ..
well nuthing ... except that you might have problems installing them after restoring !
also if your default board skin is something other than the default subSilver then you're in trouble since you wont be able to access the board .. since you're skin files simply don't exist
What else ?
well if you use EasyMOD to install your MoD's then the entry will already be there (as part of the database) hence you will not be able to reinstall those MOD's
also the SQL will arleady have the modifications that the MOD needs to make ( if the MOD requires SQL processing that is ) which might corrupt your database as well !

i think that covers everything !
happy shifting hosts with phpBB smooth
hope this helps

another quality Disco post

[SmoothCriminal]

Tnx a lot dude!