nodebb-postgres-converter

Converts an existing NodeBB NoSQL database to a relational PostgreSQL database.

See also: https://gist.github.com/BenLubar/dd816c736a9a1cbd70e3469828b96e5d

Supported database types

• Redis 2.8.9+
• MongoDB 3.2+
• PostgreSQL 9.5+

Instructions

Download nodebb-postgres-converter, either by cloning this repository and running npm install or by installing globally with the command npm install -g @ben_lubar/nodebb-postgres-converter

Make a backup of your NodeBB database and decide whether you'd prefer downtime or the loss of data more recent than your backup. In the future, there will be a plugin that will record changes made to the live database and then play them back on the converted database.

Set up your destination database. This can be any of the supported database types listed above. If you decided to keep the forum running during this process, set up another copy of your source database(s) from the backup.

Database connection URLs

Database connection URLs follow the same format no matter which database you're using: type://username:password@ip:port/database

• type: redis, mongodb, or postgresql
• username:password@: The username and password for the source/destination databases. If you're doing this process on a server where the database cannot be accessed externally and you don't have a username or password set up for the database, you can skip the :password part or the entire authentication section of the URL.
• ip: The IP address or hostname of the database server.
• :port: The port number the database server is listening on. This can be skipped if you are using the default port for that database type:
  • Redis 6379
  • MongoDB 27017
  • PostgreSQL 5432
• database: The database name (or number for Redis). Common examples include 0 for Redis and nodebb for MongoDB and PostgreSQL. For a PostgreSQL destination, the database must already be created.

PostgreSQL performance tips

Disabling certain safety features in a PostgreSQL destination database will improve performance. Just remember to turn them back on before going live.

Try running these commands:

ALTER SYSTEM SET wal_level = 'minimal';
ALTER SYSTEM SET archive_mode = 'off';
ALTER SYSTEM SET max_wal_senders = 0;
ALTER SYSTEM SET autovacuum = 'off';

Followed by restarting the PostgreSQL database before the conversion. After the conversion, run ALTER SYSTEM RESET ALL and restart the database again.

Disabling these features would normally make your database vulnerable to data loss during a power failure or a crash, but if the conversion process is interrupted, you can just start over from the backup.

Running the command

Now that you're ready, run the command:

• The command starts with bin/converter.js if you cloned the repository or nodebb-postgres-converter if you installed globally.
• Next, add the databases. You always need an output database (--outputType, --output), and you need the object database (--type, --input) or the session database (--sessionType, --sessionInput) or both.
  • The type is redis, mongo, or postgres, following NodeBB's database naming convention.
  • The input or output parameter is a database URL as described above.
• If you're converting to PostgreSQL, adding an argument like --memory 4GB will make the conversion go faster by temporarily allowing PostgreSQL to use up to 4GB of memory for maintenance tasks. PostgreSQL allows 64MB of memory by default, so for a large forum, creating indexes and clustering the data will take a long time without increasing the memory limit.

If you are running the command remotely (such as over SSH), I suggest using a program like screen to separate the conversion process from your SSH session, so that the conversion process can continue if your SSH connection is lost.

A complete command looks like this:

nodebb-postgres-converter \
	--type mongo --input 'mongodb://localhost/nodebb-copy' \
	--sessionType redis --input 'redis://localhost/0' \
	--outputType postgres --output 'postgresql://localhost/nodebb' \
	--memory 12GB