Help moving to a new server

[Henry1941]

• Server is Alma Linux 8.10
• Running on VMware ESXi 6.0
• Both servers are running Apache
• Both servers are fully updated
• I have root access to everything
• Both servers are in my office, no CPanel, direct access
• Both on the same subnet and on the same Proliant server
• I am not a Linux or PHP guru. Novell and Windows

We could no longer load either of the two boards for very complicated reasons. The server has to be decommissioned. I logged into both servers as root and used Filezilla to copy the entire /var/www folder to the new computer. It's an identical build to the crashed one but with a different name and IP address.
Next, I dumped all the database files copied the dumps across with Filezilla and imported them into the new clean database.
I copied the /etc/httpd/conf.d files that run the two virtual Apache servers.
I have no idea of the version it must be located somewhere. If you need it, please tell me where to look for it.

Where do I go from here?

[Mick]

See Knowledge Base - Transferring Your Board to a New Host or Domain.

[thecoalman]

I logged into both servers as root and used Filezilla ....

One thing to be aware of if you haven't already done so is to change the default mode in FileZilla to binary mode. phpBB stores attachments with no extensions. Every other FTP client on the planet defaults to binary mode for files without extensions(or unknown extensions) which can safely transfer binary or ASCII files. Filezilla defaults to ASCII which will corrupt binary files.

As far as the server configuration that is question best directed to Apache forum. Specifically with phpBB assuming same domain the only steps required should be to edit config.php if DB credentials changed and make sure the folders files/, store/ and images/avatars/upload are writable.

[exemplary1]

One thing to be aware of if you haven't already done so is to change the default mode in FileZilla to binary mode. phpBB stores attachments with no extensions. Every other FTP client on the planet defaults to binary mode for files without extensions(or unknown extensions) which can safely transfer binary or ASCII files. Filezilla defaults to ASCII which will corrupt binary files.

Wow, you learn something new everyday. I just checked my Filezilla settings and while its set Auto by default, other two selected options below, indicates ASCII transfer in some cases. Thank you.

[thecoalman]

If it's text file ASCII is fine. The issue is when you have file with no extension. Typically on a server a file with no extension is a text file but there is no reason it can't be a binary file either. You can safely transfer ASCII or binary files using binary which is why other FTP programs default to binary.

Why Filezilla has decided to to pick ASCII mode as default is really unexplainable. If you transferred the attachments without changing the default mode they are corrupt, at least any of them that are binary files like images.

You may ask why they would be stored like this and the answer is simple. It's for security. A file with executable code and no extension by default can't be executed. If for example there was some other break down in security and they could access the file directly with browser it won't be executed.

[Henry1941]

I've restored everything, and been through the config.php. There is no problem there at all because it's an exact copy of the one on the crashed machine and I double checked that the database is there and intact.

I type the URL into my border. (I've tried Firefox, Chrome and Brave) and I get a blank page. No error message nothing.

Remember I couldn't do any of the pre-move steps. it was already unloadable. A can edit the database if necessary.

What do I do now?

[thecoalman]

Create a text file called test.html with some text in it and upload to root of domain and try and access it with browser to make sure it's actually serving pages as expected.

White pages are usually indicative of php error, check the server error logs.

[Henry1941]

It seems to be Ok when I do that.

I have two virtual phpBB boards running on the same IP address on a VMware 60.0 ESCI server, the Virtual machine is an Alma Linux VM. The one give =s me a blank page and the other:

Index of

Favicon

[janus_zonstraal]

Do you have a error log? Or can you add error logs?

[exemplary1]

You need to activate error display on page. That would make easy to solve the problem. I don't know what's the setting for that. Someone might suggest here.

[Helter Skelter]

Im not familiar with v3.3 error reporting but this should work.
OPEN
root/common.php
FIND

Code: Select all

if (!defined('IN_PHPBB'))
{
	exit;
}

AFTER ADD

Code: Select all

ini_set('display_startup_errors',1); 
ini_set('display_errors',1);
error_reporting(-1);

when your done, remove or comment out these lines because they will report everything