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Thank you I appreciate it... I'll plan to buy the VPS in a month or two and do some tests using a spare domain first and get familiar with it all and port and test the forum in advance and then once I'm happy switch over for real.

I spoke too soon. SQL errors were back yesterday and sometimes I couldn't even access the forum it went to my default (sorry that page doesn't exist that I have setup in my .htaccess) not good especially when sign up's are on the increase

After watching the videos demos of how to admin the VPS and all the stuff you can do with it I dreamt of nothing else last night despite having a few Leffe's!

This morning I took the plunge and paid for a VPS.... I should imagine there'll be a lot of tinkering over the next few days

So far so bad

I backed up the DB and restored it on the VPS and then FTP'd my phpBB files from my PC (that I'd ftp'd from my current server) it didn't like it, think it was the permissions as it doesn't preserve them.

So... I decided to install phpBB a fresh on the VPS using a dummy database, went through ok then I switched config.php to point my proper database, then FTP'd my files again, deleted the cache and bingo.. all looks well

Its all running on a different domain at the moment so now its testing time I'll ask some of the regulars to give it a battering!

Quick question Rich.

Does the forum installation directly matter? What I mean is can I install it in one directory and then rename it without it affecting anything.

At the moment my forum is accessed via:- <URL>/forum

When I migrate to the VPS it will end up in the same directory but what is preventing anyone hitting the phpBB install screen before me/whilst I'm installing?

So I was thinking of installing the vanilla forum into a different folder like preinstall or whatever and then renaming to forum when I'm done

Does that make sense? If so will that be a problem?

Thanks

I think I've got an even faster way to do this, hear me out.

Old domain name stays as it is now.

Create everything in my new VPS, the domain name for my site/database etc but its not active at the moment until I change my DNS. So its all there behind the scenes ready.

But... I create a domain alias to access the new VPS just under a different domain name that's all, so I can get at everything but under an alias, that way I can do my vanilla phpBB install on a vanilla database, upload my real forum files and create another database (the one I want to use for real) and upload my SQL dump as it is now.

So I end up with everything running as it is now on my VPS just under a different domain name for now and a slightly out of date database.

Then everything should already be ready to go, all I need to do then is do a final SQL or phpBB dump, switch DNS, upload the latest database and I'm done.

That sound right? I think it should be as everything is stored in the database anyway so whatever I do before can't matter can it as long as I end up with it correct in the end.

Sounds like a plan to me.

The big kid I am I've already done it

Everything looks sweet to me so I have everything ready the core forum mirrors what I have now the only difference is its running on an empty db, once I move that over it should be good to go.

I must say I wish I'd done this early, learning tons as well.

Thanks I'll take a look at that

Is it normal for the MySQLdumper backup to be twice as big as the phpAdmin dump? I've looked at both files as they are in a different format so I guess that could explain it

What do you mean by "a different format"?

Well if you open up both files in Notepad they are totally different in terms of layout

When you import the files they end up the same size anyway according to phpAdmin so its all good. Anyway.. migration complete, now running on the VPS and all looks good, thanks ton's for you input!

Glad to hear it.

I'm sure you have learned a lot about migrating a forum to a new server.