SMF to NodeBB

BitBass

Per the last comment here, I have a similar question. Is it possible to import from a SQL dump? Or is the DB connection required?

If the live DB connection is required, can I run the importer against SMF without affecting SMF? In other words, I'd like to be able to continue operating on SMF while I sort out configuration issues in NodeBB, but I'd like to do it with actual data. I'm not talking about live data in NodeBB, just the full historical DB.

I'm having a little bit of a struggle with this because I installed the importer plugin in a fresh 0.9.3 NodeBB system to see what it all looks like. Then I saw that it's not supported. I'm guessing the interface isn't present for me for that reason.

? Offline

@BitBass you could create another user in MySQL and import the dump into it. Then you can connect to that user over NodeBB.

julian

Seems @a_5mith wrote an exporter for SMF

GitHub - a5mith/nodebb-plugin-import-smf: Gets SMF posts ready for import into NodeBB.

Gets SMF posts ready for import into NodeBB. Contribute to a5mith/nodebb-plugin-import-smf development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub (github.com)

Either ask him or @bentael for their advice?

a_5mith

I did mine as a 3 step process. I exported my live SMF Database to my local machine, I then ran a WAMP server and emulated my live production into a pre-prod environment. I made any changes I wanted to make there, such as removing custom BBcode and anything else that wasn't going to be transferred over, on this site somewhere, I did post the script I used on my SMF database.

I then automated that script (pasted all of the commands into a notepad document and saved that for bulk usage as a SQL Query.)

I then did several trial runs of converting from SMF to NodeBB to make sure everything went smoothly.

Once I was happy with that, I put my SMF site into maintenance mode, exported the DB. Ran my queries, ran the exporter into the new NodeBB, and as that was happening, changed the nameservers to point to my new server with a custom be back soon message until NodeBB was ready to be started.

I did then have to spend a bit of time going through and making small changes. But the exporter isn't one size fits all, I had a number of custom plugins running.

bentael

so @BitBass - YES you can. The importer will NOT WRITE against your SMF database, it will only READ.
That said, it's gonna hit it hard (depending on how large it is) - so I recommend creating a copy database of SMF and use that for testing, then when you're ready use the production one, just like what @a_5mith did.

BitBass

Thanks! It shouldn't be too hard to spin up SMF on my test system and import the DB into that to get started. At least I can work out the process from there.

Is the import tool supported on 0.9.3? Or will that be coming soon?

Thanks, again!

? Offline

@BitBass it is available in 0.9.3. At least it appears to be installable.

bentael

@BitBass no. It's at 0.9.2 you dont need 0.9.3 to import, just import to 0.9.2 then

git checkout v0.9.3
./nodebb upgrade

itistoday

Hey just wanted to say "thanks" to @a_5mith for creating the SMF importer/exporter thing! Haven't tried it out yet but it's nice to see that it exists (even if you do have to upgrade in a roundabout way).

Also adding these terms to the thread so that people can find it when searching (turns out nobody said "SimpleMachines" or "Simple Machines", just SMF).