First post - where do I start - phpBB2.0.22

[mike300zx]

Hi there,

Firstly, let me introduce myself. I'm Mike and I've been helping administer an old forum (phpBB2.0.22) for years now. I was told our admin guy years ago, that we could upgrade, but we would lose the garage so we didn't upgrade as we wanted to keep the garage. We now need to upgrade due to vulnerabilities in the old board software and the constant spamming that comes with that.

I have good general IT skills, but hardly any direct experience with php or the webserver side of things, other than take backups via the admin menu. I used to be good at writing SQL scripts years ago, but am a bit rusty. I'm quite a quick learner, but I don't know where to start to learn the basics, and eventually upgrade my forum to the latest version retaining the old data.

I don't know what I don't know at this stage, so please be patient with me until I get up to speed.

Where do I start?

Cheers, Mike.

[3Di]

docs/INSTALL.html#convert

viewtopic.php?f=65&t=1213555

[david63]

The main problem that you are going to have is that there is no garage extension for the latest version of phpBB which means that you are going to either abandon your garage system or stay with your current version, although at some point you will have a problem if/when your version of PHP on your server is upgraded to an incompatible version (i.e. PHP7)

[3Di]

Requirements are linked into the above topics: docs/INSTALL.html#require

[orynider]

We now need to upgrade due to vulnerabilities in the old board software and the constant spamming that comes with that.

In case You can not upgrade, You could take a look at my fork of phpBB2 at GitHub:
https://github.com/orynider/phpbb/tree/2.0.x
This patched fork has helped me to do preparations for upgrade on php 5.6 and I still use it to restore on Wamp Server old backups of phpBB2 databases.

[mike300zx]

Thanks for all your comments. I do want to keep the garage - that's been one of the main reasons we haven't upgraded so far.

orynider: I will definitely take a look at your fork - this may be our best option at the moment if it will stop the spam - does your fork make posting images easier? Thanks!

[3Di]

I have had no probs upgrading from phpBB2 (whatever version) to 3.1/3.2, without any fork of sort, for my customers.

If the issue it is that garage, then.. you are in your own since support ended a long ago for phpBB 2.0.xx/3.0.xx/3.1.xx.

[orynider]

orynider: I will definitely take a look at your fork - this may be our best option at the moment if it will stop the spam - does your fork make posting images easier? Thanks!

Depends on the php version how this "fork" will work. From what I know the database layer is upgraded to 3.x and all queries are updated to work with php 5.6 and mysql 5.

The database is "untouched" but the phpbb_users table is not "Vanilla" and may have three dummy fields user_perm_from, user_permissions, and user_birthday that are for the new template assigned vars in page_header() or page_header.php for the responsive styles version 3.1 and 3.2 and this fields may be deleted from phpmyadmin if the 'Vanilla' files are restored from backup.

[Ger]

Can you explain a bit (or link to) what the garage MOD does and what the minimal requirements are for you to be able to convert?

Going the fork-way will only temporarily solve your problem since that fork won't run on PHP 7 either. PHP 5.6 will only receive security fixes until the end of this year. After that, it's end of life. And it's already on extended support, so most hosts wil probably drop PHP 5.6 somewhere in 2019. See http://php.net/supported-versions.php
So if you host drops PHP 5 support, you'll have to move on to at least phpBB 3.2. My advice is to look forward and try to work out how you can accomplish that your board will still work with all desired features in 2020. Moving to an uncontrolled fork now will alter your DB and make upgrading properly only harder.

[david63]

link to) what the garage MOD

This was the "big" one in its day - viewtopic.php?t=369533