Forum module: Discussion thread for converting PHPBB data

/********** Disclaimer: This info is not well tested, not official, and not verified to work by the developers. I am winging it here and have no idea if this will work! **********/

I will keep all my info in this one post… please correct any incorrect information.

Problems:

XXX This is not a problem, see post below by Rick XXX –PHPBB uses MD5 encryption scheme which is not compatible the SHA1 which appears to be the default for EE. *There is no way to convert an MD5 password to SHA1. The same is true of the reverse. *For this reason EE will either have to be changed to MD5 or users that are added to the forum will have to redo their passwords. *If changing EE to MD5 all EE users will have to redo passwords.

/********** The following data is for moving users from PHPBB to the EE forum **********/

EE tables that need user information to be entered: –It appears only the following tables need member information to be entered… *exp_member_data *exp_member_homepage *exp_members

Primary PHPBB tables used: –phpbb_users

Methods used: –Using phpMyAdmin to download a mysql dump. *Make a mysql dump for both PHPBB and the EE tables listed above. *Open the mysql dump into Excel with delimited columns separated by commas. *Use find/replace and copy/paste to take data from phpbb_users and paste it into the relevent areas of the EE tables. –note: some items such as “member_id” will have to be given a unique number. This will need to be changed from the number given by PHPBB. *If in doubt on what should be entered you could use the default value given to a new user with no activity. *Save the finished EE tables from Excel (you should have one for each of the above mentioned tables) and dump them into your database. *Test, test, test… rinse repeat.

Other important notes: –exp_member_data seems to only be a listing of users. This might be used for the “list members” option. You will just have to enter all numbers for the new users. –The unique_id field appears to be a random number encrypted by the MD5 or SHA1 scheme (depends on which one you are using.)

/********** End information for importing users **********/

Thanks and that is all for now. Again I ask that any incorrect information be brought to my attention.

Problems: –PHPBB uses MD5 encryption scheme which is not compatible the SHA1 which appears to be the default for EE. *There is no way to convert an MD5 password to SHA1. The same is true of the reverse. *For this reason EE will either have to be changed to MD5 or users that are added to the forum will have to redo their passwords. *If changing EE to MD5 all EE users will have to redo passwords.

This is not a problem. Transfer the passwords as MD5 and leave EE as SHA1. When someone logs in, EE will try to match the submitted password as SHA1. If it’s unsuccessful, it’ll try MD5. It it’s successful, EE will convert the user’s submitted password to SHA1 and save it. We wrote our authentication system this way so that importing MD5 passwords would be possible without any hassle.

Thank you for the tip and I am actually learning quite a bit by doing this. Do you have any suggestions for creating the unique_id? I just came acrross a post by Paul that suggests one way of creating new users by using a fake Moveable Type import file. I could use this but any other suggestions would be helpful.

The thread can be found at… http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/8245/

The “unique_id” is just a random, unique hash value, I believe. Look at the “hash” function in ‘system/core/core.functions.php’.

Any more discussion on this? I bought the forum module, but can’t use it until there is a way to convert my phpBB data.

There is a conversion script in the works. Until then hang tight. There is no way to tell how long before we will see one.

Edit… I started this thread for those that want to transfer their own data. I have been working on doing this using Excel which will work fine for me. Everyone else will have to wait 😊

I am also interested in having a phpBB import script, probably as soon as it is released and working, I’ll purchase the EE+forum module.

Will excel work to move over the posts too? Or just the users?

The quick answer is that Excel can move anything.

This is not a point and click method… but it will work if you don’t want to wait for the conversion scripts (which may never come for your particular forum software.)

A PHP script such as PHPBB and EE is pretty complex, but the database behind the systems are relatively straight forward. It is also much more difficult to write a script that will convert all data with a click of a button than to manually move stuff over. So it is much easier to simply grab information from one system and drop it into another (if you are comfortable with databases). The cool thing about my method here is you don’t actually have to build anything because the structure is allready there.

I have found Excel to be the easiest tool to help with this. Excel is an extremely powerful program if you know how to use it well. Basically what you can do is export the relevant tables from PHPBB, open that data in Excel, run a series of search and replace commands to get the data to match that of the EE forum, and then upload the data into the EE database.

I started this thread to help people who wanted to do the same thing I did. It takes time to go through both databases, research the layout, make the conversion, and then test the system. I would of course suggest fully backing up the EE database, and even run this process on a test system before going live with it.

Sounds easy right?

Edit: There actually is a few items not addressed up above that you have to go through. The above steps are just a general overview. If there is interest I could document all the steps I took as well as any scripts I use to help this process.

I am using phpbb, and would be very interested, however if you don’t have the time I’m sure I can figure it out because I have some limited experience editing stuff in phpadmin so I know my way around.

I am using phpbb, and would be very interested, however if you don’t have the time I’m sure I can figure it out because I have some limited experience editing stuff in phpadmin so I know my way around.

I will have to backtrack and dust things off to write it (the documentation.) I would have added more to this thread but it seemed the interest was not there. This is probably because the conversion is more work that anyone would really want to go through unless they have alot of free time on their hands.

Until I post something you could try it on a test system. Good luck!

yeah, but for the needs of the site I am adminstering EE is 10 times better than phpbb. It is great as a message board, but the site needs more.

I has no idea that a conversion script would take so long - I purchased the Discussion Forum hastily, thinking that it would be something that would come soon. Being that I don’t completely understand databases, I am guessing that this method isn’t recommended for me… :(

Bottom line is this is not a supported solution. It is a “use at your own risk” hack. Possibly you could hire someone from the professional network that could perform a conversion for you.