Some time ago, I helped one of the UK pedigree dog breed clubs to add a
phpBB forum to their web site. This has been running happily for a
couple of years now and they have been administering it without much
help from me. However, last week the forum became inaccessible. They
eventually called me and asked if I could find out what was wrong. After
fighting my way through various dead-end conversations with Fasthosts
tech support, I eventually got an answer. Apparently, Fasthosts have
recently run a PHP update on their systems from PHP v4 to PHP v5 and the
phpBB2 code that is installed on the site is now incompatible.
As far as I know, the latest version of phpBB (phpBB3) should run OK, so
I started to do an upgrade. This looked fairly straightforward, but
after uploading all the new files, I needed to change the permissions on
some of them. I ran chmod on the various files but kept getting an error
message saying that the directory did not exist. Eventually I called
Fasthosts tech support again and they told me that the reason is that
the site is running on a Windows server and they do not allow permission
changes for security reasons, however, if I move the site across to a
Linux server, I will have full access to file permissions :-P The only
caveat is that in moving the site, they will delete all email addresses
stored and also any databases.
I now realise that when the original decision was made to go with
Fasthosts, I should have opted for a Linux server and a mySQL database,
which would have made life a lot easier all round. I live and learn.
However, we are where we are, so I now need some help, as I am getting
out of my depth. What I need is someone who can do the following:
1. Securely back up the existing MS SQL database (I assume this needs
something like Enterprise Server Manager?)
2. Restore and if possible convert it to msSQL on the new Linux server
3. Recommend a cheap source of Prozac
If anyone can help, please let me know and tell me what sort of cost
will be involved. I can then go back to the site owners and give them
the bad news.
Regards,
Dave
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