New off-shoot forum

[len backus]

I have a forum with 12,000 members. I am about to start a new one based on the interests in one of the sub-forums of the existing site .

I want to transfer about 500 posts from the existing forum to the new forum to get it started with some content. I am also thinking about bringing over the entire User database so those Users can login with the same usernames and passwords. I'd like to know how best to do that.

This would also make the new forum look well established to newcomers. I send out a monthly Newsletter to my current Users and I would do the same with these imported Users on the new site. The Newsletters generate a little revenue through ads and they promote activity by the otherwise "not recently active" Users.

Any thoughts on both the technicals as well as the marketing strategy of bringing over the Users.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

just backup your current board, restore into the databae for the new forum and remove all that you don't need.

[len backus]

Marco, thanks for the quick reply. My former webmaster set up daily backups so I am ol there but don't know how to: restore into the databae for the new forum

I don't see that function in the vB CP. Can you walk me through it please?

Any thoughts on the marketing part of my question?

[Dismounted]

The only reliable method of backing up and restoring a database is with shell access via telnet or ssh. This is because backing up with a PHP script like that in the Admin CP or phpMyAdmin can result in PHP timeouts errors and an incomplete backup file. Please see the instructions here:

Backup:
http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/maintenance_ssh_backup

Restore:
http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/maintenance_ssh_restore

P.S. If you don't have shell access, some people have also reported success with these scripts:

MySQLDumper:
http://www.mysqldumper.de/en/index.php

MySQLHotxcopy:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134821&highlight=mysqlhotcopy

Bigdump:
http://www.ozerov.de/bigdump.php

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Don't forget to update the Board URL in your vB options after restoring into a new database. ;)