vBulletin to Drupal Migration (it can happen!)

This post is going to be a little backwards, hope that is acceptable. Usually people request help and those with the relevant knowledge answer. But in this case I have the knowledge and am looking for the people with the questions.

I've been looking at migrating our Webmaster Forums over to Drupal for better integration with our Articles site, unfortunately there's no pre-built solution to do this. Also tried doing a test migration from vBulletin to phpBB to Drupal, but the phpBB to Drupal converter locked-up (it was left overnight but still no success), looking at the code it seems the vBulletin -> phpBB converter drops all file attachments and avatars too, which is a shame. Then there's the problem of users not being able log in with their existing passwords after migration.

I have the knowledge to create a converter but can't afford to work on something like this for free. Although I can do it for a big discount (since am benefiting from it too). So, this is what I propose: some people interested in using this module chip-in some money whilst I co-ordinate and write the code.

Here is the project specification as I see it:

Timescale and Cost

The project will take approx. 2 weeks from the commencement date (that being when project sponsors are ready) and will cost 200EUR (that's 276USD--exchange rates will vary over time).
After this time the code will be uploaded to the Drupal site where interested parties may test the modules and provide feedback. The length of time involved in testing and bug fixing until the module(s) become stable is unspecified (it's done when it's done).

Payment will be received when the project is available in Drupal's version control, and all deliverables listed below have been completed with no major bugs. If anyone has any features that are essential to them and not listed in the deliverables: please request them before coding begins. To prevent bad situations we should all be clear about what this module will and will-not provide.

License and Distribution

The project will be released as a contributed Drupal module under the GPL. This will be added into Drupal's version control and module list, so it will be available to everyone and development may continue without the original author.

Deliverables

Migration Module

There are a number of datasets to be imported into the Drupal forum by our proposed migration module:

• Users
• Forums and sub-forums (as containers/forums in Drupal)
• Threads (as nodes in Drupal)
• Posts (as comments in Drupal)
• Polls
• Post/Thread attachments
• Private messages

Login Module/Hack

The other problem to be addressed is the login system. Drupal and vBulletin have different login systems (vBulletin uses the license number as salt I believe), so just copying the password field isn't enough. There are two ways this can be addressed, in order of preference:

1. A module on hook_user that performs a login the vBulletin way, makes it appear to Drupal that the user has logged in, then updates the database password field to store the password using Drupal's method. Eventually all the passwords in the db will be updated and this module can be disabled/uninstalled.
2. A hack to Drupal core could make it perform logins using the vBulletin method. This is not preferable--as it make upgrading Drupal difficult--and should only be resorted to if the first method is impossible.

So the project will either deliver a module or instructions on how to hack Drupal core.

Dependencies

For a data import to work correctly the migration module is expected to have the following dependencies:

• BBCode (not required for the import itself, but for displaying posts)
• PrivateMsg
• Comment Upload (not required for import itself, but without this file attachments will not appear)
• Forum
• Poll
• Profile

This list may vary before the end of the project.

Limitations

Limitations come from either functionality in one system that the other lacks or difficulties in conversion. This is unpredicable (due to the nature of the project), so limitations may vary over time. I will do my best to accommodate most people's needs and advise of problems as I find them!

A preliminary feasibility (looking at plugin capabilities, database fields and code) showed the following limitations to the migration process:

• No subfolders in Private Messages. Will probably dump these messages into the Inbox.
• Polls can only be single-choice in Drupal.
• No plans to include url rewriting/redirection from old vBulletin threads to new Drupal ones.

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How does this look? Is there anything I've missed, moreover is there anything that could be a deal breaker?

URL redirection could be important, am not sure whether this should be done using Apache/mod_rewrite or Drupal's own Path module: suggestions are very welcome. If it's really important to people I will investigate including an example .htaccess file, or working on something for the Path module.

This is the first time I've done anything like this so hope everything above makes sense, and am not in breach of some ettiquette/rules! Really, I just want to get this module developed and can see others do too.