Step by step guide for transfer of webserver for beginners (SMF Forum script)

Assumptions:

1. Both your old and new webhost doesn’t have cpanel

2. You know basic FTP uploading/downloading, control panel administration and so on.

3. You are planning to transfer your SMF forum to another server

1. The first step is to set your forum to maintenance mode. Login to your forum’s administrator control panel and enter into server settings.

Check on Maintenance Mode? And key in whether message you want.

After you have saved, your forum will now be in maintenance mode and no new posts can be added.

2. After that, you need to backup your forum files from your old webserver. Start your FTP client and download all the files in your forum directory (or html root directory) to your computer.

3. The next step is to backup your database. First login to your old webhost’s control panel and go into your smf’s database phpMyAdmin. Below are some samples on how to access phpMyAdmin.

If you are using cpanel, goto MySQL Account Maintenance and scroll to phpMyAdmin.

This sample is for Site5. Access phpMyAdmin here

You will come to a page like this.

This is the main interface for phpMyAdmin. Next choose your smf’s database and you will be shown the page as below.

Now let’s scroll way down and click on Check All

Then scroll back to the top and click on Export.

Next you will come to a page like as below.

Depending on your new host, choose the one which is most compatible. If your new webhost doesn’t support MySQL v5, then choose V4.

There are several options for you to choose from.

Click on Select All

After you have choose the options, scroll down and click on Save as file. If your database is big, it would also be a good idea for you to “gzipped” the database. Now click on Go

Save the file somewhere on your computer you can remember.

4. Ok, now time to restore the database to your new webhost. So login to your new webhost’s control panel and create a database (if you can, create in the same name as your old database) and add a user (if you can, create in the same name as your old database user) full access to it.

I have done a small tutorial, but this is for cpanel users. Follow the steps below.

Please remember the database server name, database name and the username and password.

Then enter into phpMyAdmin. If you are using dreamhost/site5 or cpanel, then go back to the beginning and see how to access phpMyAdmin.

Enter to the database you have created.

Click on Import.

Click on Go after you have chosen the database

Browse to the database you have backup previously.

Choose the database you have backup previously and then click on Go.

You then have to wait till the database is restored. It may take some time, especially if your database is big.

All done!

5. Before we start uploading your forum files to your new webhost, we neeed to do some changes to the settings.php file in the forum root directory.

Change these

$db_server = 'databaseservername';

$db_name = 'databasename';

$db_user = 'username';

$db_passwd = 'password';

If you change the domain name, you need to do the following changes.

$boardurl = 'http://www.mydomain.tld'; # URL to your forum's folder. (without the trailing /!)

Change these as well.

$boarddir = '/path/to/forums'; # The absolute path to the forum's folder. (not just '.'!)

$sourcedir = '/path/to/forums/Sources'; # Path to the Sources directory.

And these too.

# Make sure the paths are correct... at least try to fix them.

if (!file_exists($boarddir) && file_exists(dirname(__FILE__) . '/agreement.txt'))

$boarddir = '/path/to/forums';

if (!file_exists($sourcedir) && file_exists($boarddir . '/Sources'))

$sourcedir = '/path/to/forums/Sources';

Wait, a minute, what’s the “path/to/forums” thingy and how do I find out what is it???

Of you don’t know, don’t worry. We will continue this step later on.

5. Next, start your FTP client and upload your backup forum files to your new webhost.

This step assumes that you have updated your DNS settings and your domain has already been propagated fully and is working. Usually DNS propagation takes 24-48hours, so it’s better to wait.

* Important point. You can download the tool repair_settings.php to repair your forum instead of going thru all these trouble.

http://www.simplemachines.org/download/index.php?thanks;filename=repair_settings.php

Just upload this php file to your forum directory and run it.

Eg. http://www.mydomain.com/forums/repair_settings.php

Just remember to delete it off after running the script.

You don’t need to do the rest if you have used repair_settings to change your settings.

6. Now let’s start by going to your forum URL.

If you had previous missed to step to add in the absolute path to your forum, you will get this error.

Do you see the error “No such file or directory in /path/to/forums/index.php on line 47” ?

And there you have it, that’s the absolute path to your forum (the bold ones with the /index.php).

So, do the changes to the settings.php file and FTP it to your webhost again.

~~~~~~~

So we now continue to your forum and see again there is an error.

Not to worry, just click on the text and you will be directed to your theme’s control panel.

Do the change to your theme’s directory (yes the absolute path thing again) .

Now let’s go to the Smiley & Message Icon and change

After saving, goto Attachments & Avatars to change the following.

And that’s about it.

Date Modified: 1/9/2006

Written by: Solidghost

Website: Singapore Tours & Travel Holiday

Webmaster: Simple Sites