Database question - Would this work?

[Tomi-gwc]

I have a database of 15,000 people who use my website. In the database i have a username, password, email address, user id, name, address and some other values...

Would it be in any way possible to import this databse into a forum such as phpbb so that all my site members will already have accounts on the forum when i launch it?

 

[Kate]

Yes.

 

[Tomi-gwc]

Haha, I knew when was writing that somone would reply just like that!

Care to elaborate on how one could do this?

 

[nasaboy007]

You would have to see the exact structure of the database you ahve and compare it to the structure of the databse for the forum (or whatever you plan on using it for).

after making this comparison, you'd be in great luck if theyre exactly the same as that would involve just importing the old database to the new one.

if they're different, you'd have to code something to pull data from the old database, format/etc it, and insert it into the new database in the way it should be. then you just let the script iterate through all the entries.

 

[Tomi-gwc]

Ok thanks, the database formats are different. How would I go about getting/making this script. I don't know PHP.

 

[nasaboy007]

if you don't know php, that could be slightly problematic as this would most definitely need to be custom coded. i highly doubt you'll find a premade script.

however, it shouldn't be difficult to do for a person who knows php.

give me the field names and value formats of the databases, and also what field from old you want to go to what field in new, and i'll see what i can do for you

 

[Chicken]

The only complicated part I can see in this is converting the passwords from your site to the forums software.

 

[nasaboy007]

Wow, that COMPLETELY slipped my mind. Assuming they both don't use a simple md5 hash or something (which can be tested), the only other way to get around that problem would be to reset ALL the accounts passwords with a random, temporary password and send emails out saying that because of the transfer all the passwords were reset and that the users would have to go and change their password from the temporary ones.


edit: woo 900th post. almost at 1k!

 

[Tomi-gwc]

I took a look at the database and I see what you mean about the password. The original database for my website doesn't appear to have any encryption on the passwords, they are stored as of what they are. However the forum does encrypt the passwords. Example, my forum password is admin5556 and in the database it shows as $H$9V2iaiH3dzfvEDbUQsJ6WXJb6vX4id1

Thanks for the help and congratualtions on 900 posts!

 

[nasaboy007]

well if you have them as cleartext (lol @ security risk), then it shouldn't be that hard. it's just a matter of finding the hashing function that the new forum uses when storing the passwords, and you just have to run the passwords from the old one through that hash when storing it in the new database.