Forum software upgrade (for real now)

[Fangu]

Oooo yes I saw mine just now. Nice. <3

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I'm not more well-versed for the record, I just fucked about with the options already there and randomly pasted TLS's CSS into the CSS box

The colour tab is to the left of that I'm sure.

Hahaha. Yes. I've already done all I can do with the Colour Tab. xD




X

 

[Cthulhu]

so liek,

Spoiler: upgrading discourse is pretty neat

. I bet it's a security risk . Am I weird for preferring to need to log in via ssh and do it from there and shit?

I know vB can update itself either by giving the webserver itself write access to its own files (which... doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do), or giving it FTP credentials so it can upload files to its own folder. It's user-friendly and shit, buuuut probably not very secure.

 

[Fangu]

Am I weird for preferring to need to log in via ssh and do it from there and shit?

Yes

I assume it's a two-step login anyway - one to log in and press the update button, a second holding a super sekrit passw0rd stored in a config file somewhere?

And yeah auto-update is boo. I do run it on my personal WP blog though, never had problems with it. Buuut I prefer control. Updates are never 100% fool proof. Someone always fucks up at some point.

 

[Cthulhu]

Nope, just my regular login, not even a re-authentication required (like vB does) when I go to the admin CP . Looks like one could basically destroy shit if logging in.

Might be I need to look into additional security options, there's probably some of those around somewhere. Two-factor authentication would be neat too.

(I'm fucking about with a local version, trying to get it to run in virtualbox. This shit takes loads of time, might be easier to set up a second droplet, or just fuck up the original test environment with an attempt at importing posts)

(if you've worked on the discourse site, e.g. styling or whatever, back up your shit. IDK if there's a neat theme system where you can at the very least install files somewhere though)

 

[CK]

I'm going to be very sad if I lose my awesome profile page I worked so hard on.

 

[Cthulhu]

But you get to have the what is love gif as a card background

 

[CK]

Oh well that more than makes up for it then.

 

[null]

Just noticed https and the shiny new Let's Encrypt certificate. That's awesome!

 

[Cthulhu]

Aight biatches I'm bored at work and started hobbying again. I wasn't looking forward to the import because it looked complicated - you get an undocumented script with no instructions in there, gl;hf. Off course I then actually read the documentation which didn't seem as bad.

The other thing holding me back was that installing Discourse is a pain and takes forever, but as it turns out, installing the development version is relatively easy, straightforward and fast.

So, did the above, got a recent TLS dump installed in a local database, and started the import. Two days ago

The regular forum import is slow; it goes through all posts one by one and passes them through Discourse's regular code for creating posts (yay, good apis <3). However, that takes forever; I've been running the script for err, about 10ish hours? Half a workday on tuesday, most of the workday yesterday (it's suspended when I close the laptop, lols), and it's at 45%. Mind you, this is in a VM and it seems to only use 1 cpu. Which makes some sense I guess. Anyway, this is probably the most reliable approach, ensuring data consistency and shit - which I'll have to check once it's done (should leave it running overnight this time).
There's also a second option, described https://meta.discourse.org/t/importers-for-large-forums/61681, which involves a bulk importer that just works on the database directly, starting a background task afterwards to finish things / make stuff consistent.

I think I'll let this import task finish (only 1 error so far), check all the things. Then do it again using the bulk importer. Then I'll probably know enough to be able to determine whether we can actually go ahead with the move.

Whether we still want to is another question, but I'm pretty sure at one point we won't have a choice

 

[Fangu]

Whether we still want to is another question, but I'm pretty sure at one point we won't have a choice

Yeah I'm just waiting for the day everything breaks tbh. Although critical functions in banks and hotels and airports etc still run on systems from the 60's, so maybe this crows nest will live forever, who knows

 

[Cthulhu]

Well those were made before the internet and operating systems were a thing, so they're impervious to hacking due to obsolescence

 

[Cthulhu]

Some notes:

* Subsction permissions will need to be fixed after import, I can see everything as an unauthenticated user atm.
* bb codes are broken / need to be reimplemented
* quotes are slightly broken, they contain not only the user but also the post ID
* Permalinks will probably be fucked; I checked, each topic will get a new ID so we can't do a redirect. May just set something up where there's a link on the old forums page to a search on the new one with the topic title, for example.
* Got a string of errors importing attachments, will have to figure that out
* Avatars aren't transferred, but this too is iirc a setting we have to change in vB before transferring.
*

Spoiler: oo look profile pages

*

Spoiler: oo look thread page

* it's slow as hECK in development mode
* Not sure how account recovery works (if at all). I'm hoping it's able to import existing passwords and such.

anyway, so far so good.

 

[Flintlock]

Cross-posting because I don't want to turn yet another thread into a forum upgrade discussion...

I cba and do we have the theme working yet?

I can be arsed, and I can probably get the theme working, if you define "working". I've previously volunteered to take charge of the project like I did with the new front page design, but I'm waiting to either be taken up on that offer or hear that someone else is doing it.

 

[Joker]

admin flint

 

[Cthulhu]

If you can figure out how theming works in Discourse then by all means. I think the options given in the admin CP are a bit on the shallow side, so make sure to take a look at https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-develop-custom-themes/60848?source_topic_id=24402. It seems very minimalistic though, and I'm not sure if they offer a workflow for developing them; might be just a matter of putting them in the /plugins directory of a Discourse development instance.

 

[Tetsujin]

Just realized the test forum recently had its one year anniversary already

 

[Cthulhu]

Only one year? That was shorter than I expected

 

[Carlie]

Classic TLS.

 

[Tennyo]

I thought it was longer than that...

 

[Shademp]

I thought it was longer than that...

That is indeed what the member of the fairer sex uttered.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

This thread has made me woefully aware that I have absolutely no sense of the passage of time.





X

 

[Lex]

Why did we decide against Xenforo again? I ask because that's what the new ResetEra is using and I'm finding it pretty great to use so far. Pretty much in love with the notifications button - it's similar to Discourse's but has a more TLS-like traditional feel.

 

[Flintlock]

Closed source. Expensive. We'd potentially be in exactly the same position some years down the line.

Though I agree it's nice software and not radically different from VB.

 

[Cthulhu]

Which might just be the problem with Xenforo - it uses the same outdated license structure of annual subscriptions for even security (!) updates (correct me if I'm wrong). Mind you, having a similar architecture / software stack to vB can be considered a pro; Discourse is a whole different beast and takes a lot of work to install / run, which I guess I have, but it's not as simple as uploading some files and editing a config file like vB / Xenforo (the latter is an assumption).