TerraEarth has been rebuilt from the ground up

[cproudlock]

Hello everyone,

If you've been on the forums in the last few days, you'll have noticed things look and feel different. We have rebuilt TerraEarth from scratch on a new server, and I want to explain what happened and why we did it.

Why this had to happen

TerraEarth had been running for years on one very old server, shared with several of our other sites. That machine ran software that reached end of life long ago: an old PHP 5, an old MySQL 5.6, and an operating system that no longer received normal updates. It was also short on memory, so the sites slowed down whenever it got busy.

The forum itself ran on phpBB 2, which has been unmaintained for many years. Old software like that can't be patched when security problems are found, and sooner or later one of them would have cost us the forum and everything in it. Patching around it wasn't an option, because the newer software that is still supported can't run on that old stack at all. The only safe fix was to move everything to a modern foundation.

What we did

• Moved TerraEarth to a new, current server with up-to-date software, automatic security updates, nightly backups and uptime monitoring.
• Converted the forum from phpBB 2 to phpBB 3.3, the current supported version.
• Carried the history over from a fresh copy of the old database: about 60,000 posts across more than 3,500 topics, plus about 2,650 private messages.
• Rebuilt the main site pages, news and downloads, and moved over the uploaded files.
• Rebuilt the gallery with all 189 pictures.
• Added redirects, so old links you bookmarked or that other sites point to take you to the right new page.
• Restyled the forum in the TerraEarth look.

What you may notice

• The forum is now phpBB 3.3, so menus and settings are in different places.
• If an old link doesn't land where it should, please tell us.

Thank you

[eFlare]

You've always been a lifesaver, Cam! Kudos and much thanks!