Dave is maintaing the ForumTopics BOB forum since... a long time. He want to retire and shut down / save as read-only the actual BOB forum. Some members wants to keep BOB running, but it need to be updated. So there is a BOB 2.0 project

• running on phpBB 2

Dave, 2019 dec

I would not restrict the options to just phpBB3. With all of the enhancements (phpBB calls them "mods") the conversion process from phpBB2 to phpBB3 will not work. I've actually tested it...years ago, to be sure...but at the time it did not work.

Dave, 2020, aug

When phpBB3 came out there definitely was an upgrade path / conversion process. The problem is, for better or worse, I made a significant number of changes to the system. It would be okay if I had just added, but I actually removed some fields that I knew we were not going to use.

• Keep the content live
• Upgrade/Change the software because it is too old actually

• phpBB3 there is a migration path from phpBB2 but the current schema will prevent from using this migration path.
• discourse another forum solution. migration path available from phpBB3 but not from phpBB2
• flarum still in beta.

This repo is working on the Discourse import as it seems to be a popular and recognized forum solution today. flarum seems too young, and phpBB3 seems to not have all the common feature we are waiting for a forum in 2020.

The goal of the subproject is to import existing bobbeta.sql file to discourse forum server (this file have been provided by Dave as a test file).

• a docker test image (https://hub.docker.com/r/bitnami/discourse/)
• Discourse rely on postgresql so it is needed to convert existing mysql data to postgresql
• setup discourse for production usage in 30mn (https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md)

using https://github.com/narayandreamer/mysql2pgsql-docker to generate an equivalent pgsql import file.

git clone https://github.com/narayandreamer/mysql2pgsql-docker.git
cp data/*.sql mysql2pgsql-docker/migrations/
cp pg.load mysql2pgsql-docker/
cd mysql2pgsql-docker
docker-compose up 
docker-compose exec postgres pgloader -v pg.load
docker-compose exec postgres pg_dump -U postgres postgres > bobbeta.pgsql

Rely on https://hub.docker.com/r/bitnami/discourse/

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-discourse/master/docker-compose.yml > docker-compose.yml
docker-compose up

See on http://localhost.lan:80 for a running Discourse server.

docker-compose exec -T postgresql psql -U bn_discourse bitnami_application < bobbeta.pgsql
docker-compose exec -T postgresql psql -U bn_discourse bitnami_application < phpbb2_discourse-user.pgsql
docker-compose exec -T postgresql psql -U bn_discourse bitnami_application < phpbb2_discourse-content.pgsql

Discourse data is in the public schema, and PhpBB2 in database schema.

The phpbb2_discourse.pgsql script will:

• Create categories from categories
• Create categories from forums
• Create categories from sub-forums
• Create topics from topics
• Create posts from posts
• Create users from users

TODO

cp emojis/* 

Recreate cooked from raw (this will handle most of BBcode !)

docker-compose exec discourse bash
cd /opt/bitnami/discourse
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake posts:refresh_oneboxes
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake posts:reorder_posts
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake users:recalculate_post_counts

It is then possible to generate the postgres discours dump: (you can remove the database schema first)

docker-compose exec postgresql pg_dump -U postgres postgres > bob_discourse.pgsql

Follow this to setup a production ready discourse instance.

There is a deployed test system here

• drop files on the server

scp *.pgsql bob-discourse.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com:
rsync emojis/* bob-discourse.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com:/var/discourse/shared/standalone/uploads/default/original/1X

TODO other files !

• login the server and import data, same as on dev

ssh bob-discourse.eastus.cloudapp.azure.com
sudo docker exec -i --user postgres app psql discourse < bob_move.pgsql
sudo docker exec -i --user postgres app psql discourse < phpbb2_discourse-user.pgsql
sudo docker exec -i --user postgres app psql discourse < phpbb2_discourse-cat.pgsql
sudo docker exec -i --user postgres app psql discourse < phpbb2_discourse-upload.pgsql
sudo docker exec -i --user postgres app psql discourse < phpbb2_discourse-topic.pgsql

Edit the file /var/discourse/containers/app.yml and put at the end:

## Any custom commands to run after building
run:
  - exec: echo "Beginning of custom commands"
  ## If you want to set the 'From' email address for your first registration, uncomment and change:
  ## After getting the first signup email, re-comment the line. It only needs to run once.
  #- exec: rails r "SiteSetting.notification_email='[email protected]'"
  # Following task will allow to download directly xls/doc/pdf/zip files from BOB import
  - replace:
          filename: "/etc/nginx/conf.d/discourse.conf"
          from: /gif\|png\|jpg/m
          to: gif|png|jpg|doc|htm|pdf|ppt|rea|rep|txt|unv|wid|xls|zip
  - exec: echo "End of custom commands"

Rebuild the container:

sudo /var/discourse/launcher rebuild app

This action will allow to download all kind of file we have on bob historical topics (zip xls doc...)

Useful when the sidekiq pool is too big

Edit the file /var/discourse/containers/app.yml and put in the env: section:

UNICORN_SIDEKIQS: 8

Rebuild the container:

sudo /var/discourse/launcher rebuild app

• sudo docker exec -it --user postgres app psql discourse login to the postgres server
• sudo /var/discourse/launcher enter app login to the discourse container

Some postgres commands:

• \l list databases
• \c dbname select a database
• \dt list tables in current database
• \dn list schemas in current database
• \d+ users list columns in the users table

Some discourse rake commands:

• rake --lists list possible tasks