Hi, my name is Shawn Kwon from Korea.
I'd like to request help and support from drupal lovers worldwide.
I've been managing KLDP, one of Korea's biggest/oldest Free and Open Software community focusing on documentation, project hosting, forum...etc since 1996. As the site grows we had to adopt different software platform for different services but time for migration has finally come and we chose drupal for our next service platform.
The issue is how we can migrate all the data and especially the phpbb conversion is the most important/hardest part of this job. So we did fundraising for this migration job and assigned 400000 Won(about $400) on bounty for GPL'd phpbb->drupal converter.
Here are the specification for the converter.
- This converter should be licensed under GPL
- phpbb: phpbb 2.0.18 + attachment mod / drupal: 4.6.5
- phpbb should be converted to drupal forum functionality
- Using/Adding drupal module is okay (when necessary) but modifying the drupal 4.6.5 core is not welcomed.
- The phpbb database is UTF-8 so the converter does not have to care for the encoding. (Changing encoding is quite easy and straightforward. So I set this to ease the job of converter)
- The attached files in the starting thread and attached files at the comments should be preserved (drupal does not support attaching file in comment. Using/developing mod for adding file attachment support to comment is welcomed / encouraged)
- The user information should be preserved(id/pw/email, avatar, signature, messenger address, join date, location...etc)
- File attachment should be optional so that it can be used for normal phpbb conversion also.
- BBCode should be preserved (using existing drupal bbcode module is welcomed and encouraged)
Here the condition for this bounty
- Payment(USD400) will be done by paypal so the receiver should have paypal account.
- Even though multiple converter is developed or the converter is developed by many people, the money will go to one people who developed the converter which was actually used for migration for my site
- Registering this converter to here as new project or adding patch to existing phpbb module project is welcomed and encouraged.
If you are Korean, you can read this announcement including other bounty items (theme...etc) from: http://bbs.kldp.org/viewtopic.php?t=68407
I know http://drupal.org/node/24639 exists but not much luck so far and there is no handy converter yet. I hope this can solve the problem of many people who are trying to convert their phpbb to drupal.
Thank you very much and I hope many bounty hunters be interested to this so that drupal adoption can be easier!
Comments
Ooh, I wish I had time to
Ooh, I wish I had time to work on this right now. I'm planning to convert a phpBB board I run over to Drupal, and figgured I'd probably have to do at least some coverter updating. But alas, it won't happen for at least a few months due to lack of time on my part...
I'm working on the
I'm working on the PHPBB->Drupal converter... Just letting people know as somebody in #drupal suggested. Let me know if you might be insterested in working on this.
I would very much appreciate
I would very much appreciate a converter for phpbb to drupal also. I'm looking for one to convert to drupal 4.7 though. If someone makes one for the above bounty, I would really appreciate it if they could make it work for 4.7 versions also.
Michael
2 of my Drupal sites:
Small Farm Resource Center
Israel Travel Center
upgrade
you could just install it on 4.6 and then run the upgrader
Wow! Thank you Mr. Shawn Kwon!
Wow! Thank you Mr. Shawn Kwon, I think fund raising for money and donations to support your needs is a great way to a community working harder! Although I'm suprised there aren't a hundred comments saying they are very close to being finished or at the very least started.
I had already started some of what you asked for, and will be happy to convert it into a module. I have the same needs as you, however my community is very small and specific.
As for my project, I have successfully transfered all users from phpbb to drupal. This was pretty simple to do. I'm now testing and fine tuning moving all messages. When this is finished, it will be possible to convert a phpbb forum to an existing drupal system, which does not have to be a fresh install with an empty database. If a user from phpbb matches a user in drupal, some options will be presented. Attachments will need some work!
I'm new to drupal, so I'm not so fast yet. I'll keep you updated.
Just a heads up...
...File attachments in comments isn't really doable without some hacks to the core comment.module. It's an inherent limitation that exists in Drupal 4.6.
Drupal 4.7's new forms API makes it possible without any changes to the core, though.
--
Jeff Eaton | I heart Drupal.
--
Eaton — Partner at Autogram
John Hwang is now working on it...
John Hwang who replied to this thread second already did quite much of the work and he is now working on optimization and adding poll migration functionality.
As he is now quite busy with his personal stuff, I am waiting for his comeback but I am confident that he will be back shortly.
Once he is done, he or I will announce the good news again.
Thanks very much for your interest.
Thank you
Thank you, Mr. Kwon, for giving drupal a big impulse for everyone who is stuck with phpbb because of migration issues.
And thank you, Mr. Hwang, for coding a converter that will surely draw many more users to drupal.
I myself can't wait to try it on two small phpbb-infested community sites I run. :-)
Any update on the progress
Any update on the progress of the migration tool?
2 of my Drupal sites:
Small Farm Resource Center
Israel Travel Center
varifying
my code is almost complete for a basic phpbb and drupal conversion. I'm still becoming familiar with drupal, but I know phpbb pretty well, so my program is a phpbb script that copies everything into the drupal database directly, including watchdogs. now I'm mostlying varifying the data and making sure drupal can still handle the data the same as it's own. It's a long and tedious process, but I'll release the basic version as soon it's ready. then I'll work on the file attachments and any requests.
Thanks for the update
Thanks for the update Myriad!
Let me know if you need a tester...
2 of my Drupal sites:
Small Farm Resource Center
Israel Travel Center
For what it is worth
This is a script I altered from Feodor's original for phpbb to drupal 4.7 (no polls) . If it helps anyone, thats wonderful. It includes a part to change the table names to have a prefix of "drupal_" and back, and you'll want to change that if you have a prefix of any sort.
I'd love to help, or work for this bounty, but am just too busy. This worked for my conversion and I hope it helps someone else.
And if anyone had any thoughts on commenting about my coding practices, this got the job done, it was a one time deal so no, it ain't always pretty.
Hi, the bounty itself is
Hi, the bounty itself is over and John Hwang got the bounty also.
As he is quite busy working on other issues now, he did not post the converter yet but he will post it soon as a contributed module.
Thanks.
good job! Hope to see it
good job! Hope to see it soon!
phpbb2drupal project
Sorry for the late update.
The project finally got approved and I've uploaded the latest version to the repository.
phpbb2drupal: http://drupal.org/node/45403
I used it to help KLDP (Korean Linux Documentation Project) migrate from phpbb 2.0.18 to drupal 4.6.5. KLDP has over 25000 users and 500,000 posts/topics/comments. It took a few hours to migrate the scripts but all in all, everything seems to be in order.
beginner wrote a phpbb2drupal module unlike mine which is a script. I haven't had the chance to view this code, but he tells me that mine is more feature complete. I'll update the project page with details on how to install and run the script.
Thank you for your
Thank you for your contribution! When do you think you'll get the module updated for 4.7?
2 of my Drupal sites:
Small Farm Resource Center
Israel Travel Center
Drupal 4.7
In my opinion, the easiest, way to migrate to 4.7 would be to import your phpbb data to drupal 4.6.x then use Drupal's upgrade system to upgrade to 4.7.
I'm not sure if an upgrade to 4.7 is warranted at this point. The next major upgrade would probably be to update directly to the next major drupal revision, something like Drupal 5.0.
John, yes that could be the
John, yes that could be the case for some but, it doesn't help me and possible others.
I already have a 4.7 site on a busy live site with lots of content. That site also has a phpbb forums that has been active for several years now.
To backport my drupal site from 4.7 to 4.6 then migrate phpbb then update back to 4.7 sounds disasterous to me. It is asking for problems.
The only way I can see on migrating phpbb to drupal for me is to have a current module/script that can migrate directly to 4.7.
I hope you'll consider updating your module to work with 4.7.
Michael
I didn't consider your case.
I didn't consider your case. I will definately consider upgrading the script for 4.7, but I don't have time at the moment... :'(
patched core files
Because Drupal 4.6 doesn't support attachments in comments, the comments.module had to be patched, correct? So upgrading from 4.6 to 4.7 probably wouldn't work, depending on the differences between the database structures of the patched files and the current system.
Do you think it's a lot of trouble to update the script to 4.7? Is it so much different than 4.6? I'm asking because I don't know.
Also, I have a feeling the phpbb to drupal is expecting a clean and empty database. The code I'm slowly putting together will work with a busy site by changing user id's in the posts. I'm doing it the backwards way by making a phpbb page that inserts data directly in drupal's database, since I'm a complete newb here.
The phpbb2drupal script
The phpbb2drupal script doesn't expect a clean database. It simply adds the new users/content as if you were doing it by hand. It uses Drupal's API and therefore the newly migrated content are assigned the next available id for users, nodes, comments ...etc.
As for attaching files to comments... I haven't looked closely to 4.7's comment.module but the patch that I've included is what developed and later included into 4.7, developed by the same person (ethan). He tells me that it's pretty similar so the only change needed for 4.7 would be to upgrade the comment_upload.module...
As stated, this script was designed to support 4.6.5, but features and future upgrade paths were considered in the design. Upgrading to 4.7 shouldn't be difficult especially b/c I use Drupal's API's and I welcome everybody to extend/upgrade the script. It's just that I don't have time currently to update the script for 4.7. I don't think I'll have time for the next few months at least.
Thanks John, that clears it
Thanks John, that clears it up for me. I'll take a hard look and see what I can do to make it work for 4.7. I appologize if my comments sounded negative in any way.
Take it easy!
4.7 upgrade 99% compatible
Alrighty, I downloaded and installed Drupal 4.6.6 then ran your excellent script and had no problems. I included the attachments and installed the comment_upload.module, everything worked.
Then I deleted all the drupal 4.6.6 files, put in the 4.7.0RC2 files and upgraded as usual. It's important to physically remove all 4.6 files as you will get theme errors if you don't and nothing works.
During the upgrade process, I had one error as shown here:
user warning: Duplicate entry '' for key 2 query: ALTER TABLE users CHANGE `name` `name` varchar(60) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, CHANGE `pass` `pass` varchar(32) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, CHANGE `mail` `mail` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '' NULL, CHANGE `theme` `theme` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, CHANGE `signature` `signature` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, CHANGE `timezone` `timezone` varchar(8) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '' NULL, CHANGE `language` `language` varchar(12) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, CHANGE `picture` `picture` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, CHANGE `init` `init` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '' NULL, CHANGE `data` `data` longtext CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT '' NULL in /home/www/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 120.
This results in usernames not being found when trying to add or preview new comments. Logins may possibly be denied, not sure.
To fix this, I simply used phpmyadmin and manually made the changes. No errors. I can now post and everything so far seems fine.
I moved all my old phpbb/files into drupal/files so comment attachments work (as the script says).
If I have more time, I'll try other methods, but hopefully this helps others waiting for a 4.7 surething.
What exactly did you have to
What exactly did you have to manually enter through phpmyadmin?
Also, where can your modified module be found? I would suggest creating an project issue and then offering a patch: http://drupal.org/project/issues/phpbb2drupal
I'm hoping that someone will be able to find out why you are getting that error and get it fixed.
Thanks for working on this!
2 of my Drupal sites:
Small Farm Resource Center
Israel Travel Center
How is the converter
How is the converter script/module going for 4.7? Is there a place I can download it to try it?
Thanks,
Michael
give it a shot
In the CVS module page, http://drupal.org/project/phpbb2drupal the phpbb2drupal says it's almost working with 4.7.
If you follow my vague instructions above then you might get it to work.
If you can use Drupal 4.6 and upgrade to 4.7 then you're in luck. I did get an error but easily fixed it with phpmyadmin.
I don't understand why the error happens, but if you load up the table and look at the error above, you can see the structure has different properties.
Change the old 4.6 "user" table properties to the new 4.7 propterties as follows:
You should notice that there are no 'bin' types anymore. now everything is varchar or longtext.
Another note, is you should install any node_access utilities BEFORE installing phpBB forums. I didn't and none of my permissions were being honored; none of my users could actually see any forums or posts after installing TAC_LITE. To solve that problem, I wrote a script to correctly add the nodes info where needed and everything works fine now.
Sorry, I'm at work every day and don't get to leave early, so this is the most I can do for now. Hopefully I can do more during "Golden Week" - the week where every family in Japan rides the train at the same time. The guy who received the bounty did a great job thus far. I will post the TAC_LITE fix as soon as I'm on my computer at home and remember!
yeah!
I also hope to see the 4.7 version. Thanks for the hard work!
contrib cvs
I didn't see a link to this, so here's the phpbb2drupal script that's in drupal CVS. I have no idea how well/if it works: http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/contributions/tricks/phpbb2drupal/
phpbb2drupal
I hope that my script it's useful for converting from phpbb to drupal forum. If I could help to improve the script, please send me a message (feodorp@yahoo.com). Thanks a lot.
Has anyone
Has anyone converted phpbb to Drupal 5.1?
I'd also like to know this
I'd also like to know this as well. I'm looking for a phpbb -> drupal 5.1, thanks in advance!
---
I work at The Jibe Multimedia, Inc., a Vancouver Drupal eCommerce Web Agency.
I was able to successfully
I was able to successfully migrate a 30,000+ post phpbb forum to drupal 5.1x using the updated version of the phpbb2drupal module that is discussed in this issue (http://drupal.org/node/112032)..