Upgrading your forum

Thank you for deciding to upgrade to SMF. Before you get started, please remember that there is a place for help at www.simplemachines.org if you run into any problems at all.

You can find the following information in this file:

• » Minimum installation requirements.
• » Uploading SMF onto your webserver.
• » Finishing the upgrade and cleaning up.

What's required to run SMF?

Your server must meet a few requirements to be able to run SMF. If you unsure as to whether your webserver meets these, please try to upgrade anyway - it should detect any problems.

• Any webserver that properly supports PHP, such as Apache or Internet Information Services (IIS).
• PHP 4.1.0 or higher. The following directives are required to be set correctly in php.ini:
  • the engine directive must be On.
  • the magic_quotes_sybase directive must be set to Off.
  • the session.save_path directive must be set to a valid directory.
  • the file_uploads directive must be On.
  • the upload_tmp_dir must be set to a valid directory.
• MySQL 3.23.28 or higher.
• at least 512 kilobytes of storage space in the database, although more is highly recommended.
• about two and a half megabytes of storage space on the web server, although more is recommended.

Recommendations for best performance:

• Linux or another Unix based operating system.
• the GNU Aspell and its dictionaries for spell checking support.
• Apache with AcceptPathInfo set to On (Apache 2 and later only) for queryless URL support.
• PHP 4.3.0 or higher, with the following set in php.ini:
  • the max_input_time directive is set to a value of at least 30.
  • the post_max_size and upload_max_filesize directives are set to the size of the largest attachments you wish to be able to upload.
  • the session.use_trans_sid directive set to Off.
  • the memory_limit directive is set to at least 8M.
  • the max_execution_time directive is set to at least 15.
  • the register_globals directive is set to Off.
• MySQL 4.0.15 or higher with query caching enabled.
• GD Graphics Library 2.0 or higher.

If your server does not meet these requirements, SMF may not work properly.

Uploading the files

Before uploading anything, make sure to make a backup of what's there. Some administration panels allow you to download a backup of everything, and if yours does this would be highly recommendable. It's best to backup both the MySQL database and the files. Additionally, if you are using any languages other than English please make sure to upload their versions as well to the same directory you uploaded everything else to.

After that, you need to do is upload all of the files in this package, excluding this file itself, to your server. You should upload it to the same directory as your previous installation of SMF or YaBB SE. If you are given the option to "resume" uploads, make sure you do not do that - you must upload all of the files. You may wish to make sure that all of the files were uploaded, such as those in Themes/default/languages, because some FTP clients have been known to drop files.

After you have finished uploading the files, point your browser to http://www.yourdomain.tld/forum/upgrade.php - where www.yourdomain.tld/forum is the URL to where you uploaded it. You should then see a page asking you for a few bits of information.

In most cases, you'll want to have "Put the forum into maintenance mode during upgrade." checked, because it will ensure that nothing is messed with while the upgrader is working. You may also wish to check "Backup tables in your database...", which will make a backup of your old information and tables before making any changes in the database. This is strongly recommended if you haven't already made a different backup.

Finishing everything up

From this point, the upgrader should walk you through everything. It may take some time if you are upgrading from YaBB SE, but it shouldn't be too long.

Please remember to delete upgrade.php after finishing the installation. If you do not delete it, it is possible that someone could compromise the security of your forum with it.

Good luck!
Simple Machines