Data migration from Xenforo

[rgilman]

At some point it would be good to test, and if need be refine, the data migration from our Xenforo forums. bbPress has a builtin importer for Xenforo that can be accessed via the admin dashboard at Tools > Forums > Import Forums. That seems like a good place to start.

[iangilman]

Sounds like @wunluv is going to work on this, so I've assigned the issue to him. :-)

[rgilman]

I got curious about how this would go so I ran a test and it looks promising.

Here's what I did:

• I used Local to clone my existing dev.bfcom.local into import.bfn.local. I didn't want to mess up my regular dev environment.
• I exported the cixf DB from forum.context.org
• Going in through the DB section of import.bfn.local in Local, I created a new version of cixf in the same container as the import.bfn.local DB. This makes the import easy.
• I followed the steps in https://codex.bbpress.org/getting-started/importing-data/import-forums/ using Tools > Forums > Import Forums
• I repaired the forums using Tools > Forums > Repair Forums. Everything worked except that I ran out of allocated memory for Recalculate the position of each reply. None of the "repairs" indicated that any repair was needed.

The result is a whole set of stand-alone forums (i.e. not in groups) that mirrors the Xenforo setup. All of the users were imported but not their passwords. Attachments and avatar images weren't imported but that's not surprising since they aren't in the DB and I didn't move them into the import.bfn.local container. Otherwise, it seems to all be there!

We will need to do some post-import clean-up and organizing but it looks quite doable.

[iangilman]

Sounds promising! What would we do about the users' passwords? Would we have them reenter theirs?

[rgilman]

Passwords don't transfer so we're at a choice point. I have a list of almost everyone's initial passwords so we could enter them and reuse them. However, most of those are just 4 characters and maybe it's time to step up to a higher level of security. Also, BFCom, via WP, has a good "forgot my password" system so I won't need to be tracking this and doing it manually.

There are likely some interesting policy questions here as well as operational ones. I'm glad we still have some time to think it through.

[iangilman]

If it's a smooth process, having everyone create fresh passwords seems like a fine way to go. I just want to make sure it's not confusing or difficult.

[rgilman]

I agree. The actual transition needs to be as smooth and easy as possible.