Thanks for all the suggestions again. I went with a dynamic phpbb archive - that gives the possibility of reopening the board to new posts at some point. It was pretty straightforward to regexp links etc to phpbb as-posted format and then run the reparser. Everything looks good now!
On the slight chance anyone else might want to try a similar conversion, here's a summary of the steps I did to convert an IPB v 2.3.4 board to phpBB 3.3.14, via phpBB 3.0.14:
You'll need an .sql backup file of the old IPB database, and the files in the old IPB public_html/ directory. No need for other access to the old forum server.
Install old LAMP from a debian 5 image (burned onto a DVD). Install phpBB 3.0.14. Run the converter from this post according to the procedure in this post. The conversion takes a few hours for a board with ~250 000 posts and ~25 GB attachments. Convert old passwords according to this post. Create emergency admin password with the STK and you've got access to a functioning phpBB 3.0.14 board.
On a separate machine, install current LAMP and phpBB 3.3.14. Upgrade board to 3.3.14 according to these instructions.
To have old attachment thumbs work, rename filename_thumb.jpg etc to thumb_filename.jpg and run sql query to enable each attachment. Sql query to hide posts/topics hidden in IPB. Sql queries to reformat smileys, urls, quotes, code boxes to phpbb as-posted format. Sql phpbb_privmsgs_to table to reveal hidden PMs. Run reparser.
One thing I learned the hard way: useoption when creating or restoring from .sql backups to avoid garbled special characters.
On the slight chance anyone else might want to try a similar conversion, here's a summary of the steps I did to convert an IPB v 2.3.4 board to phpBB 3.3.14, via phpBB 3.0.14:
You'll need an .sql backup file of the old IPB database, and the files in the old IPB public_html/ directory. No need for other access to the old forum server.
Install old LAMP from a debian 5 image (burned onto a DVD). Install phpBB 3.0.14. Run the converter from this post according to the procedure in this post. The conversion takes a few hours for a board with ~250 000 posts and ~25 GB attachments. Convert old passwords according to this post. Create emergency admin password with the STK and you've got access to a functioning phpBB 3.0.14 board.
On a separate machine, install current LAMP and phpBB 3.3.14. Upgrade board to 3.3.14 according to these instructions.
To have old attachment thumbs work, rename filename_thumb.jpg etc to thumb_filename.jpg and run sql query to enable each attachment. Sql query to hide posts/topics hidden in IPB. Sql queries to reformat smileys, urls, quotes, code boxes to phpbb as-posted format. Sql phpbb_privmsgs_to table to reveal hidden PMs. Run reparser.
One thing I learned the hard way: use
Code:
--default-character-set=utf8Statistics: Posted by fredipb — Sun Mar 30, 2025 2:15 pm