Fusetalk

In this thread @jenkins_t is moving a phpBB forum into an environment that favors ColdFusion; @Dani and @Zachery raised platform and alternative-stack points. Practical decisions should be driven by migration risk, integration (authentication, SSO/LDAP), and total cost of ownership rather than brand names. The items below focus on what typically causes the most work during a move.

• Verify import capability: confirm the target product can import posts, users, private messages, attachments, avatars and timestamps, or plan an automated conversion. If hashed passwords cannot be imported, prepare an email-driven password-reset plan for all users.
• Authentication and SSO: check LDAP/AD or SSO options up front so members don’t end up with duplicate accounts.
• URLs and SEO: preserve permalinks or add 301 redirects for threads and profiles to avoid broken links and traffic loss.
• Files and permissions: copy attachments and avatars with correct filesystem permissions and update stored paths.
• Charset and dates: ensure the same character encoding (UTF-8 vs ISO-8859) and timezone handling to avoid corrupted characters and displaced timestamps.
• Support, licensing, and exit plan: document licensing, upgrade costs, support SLA, and whether data export remains possible later.

Recommended migration workflow (minimal):

1. Build a staging ColdFusion instance.
2. Full export and snapshot of the phpBB database and files.
3. Run an import/conversion on staging and map groups/permissions.
4. Validate accounts, posts, attachments, search, and email.
5. Plan DNS/redirect cutover and a rollback path.

Common gotchas: character-encoding corruption, missing avatars, email bounces, and forgotten admin accounts. This discussion dates from June 25, 2005; product offerings and integration options may have changed since then, so confirm current vendor capabilities before committing.