Shafail Shafa
Available for new work · I reply within a business day · UTC+6

I upgrade and customise phpBB forums

I set up and maintain Linux servers

I fix broken or hacked WordPress sites

I transfer websites and emails between hosts

Thirteen years of keeping small-business web infrastructure working: forums, sites, servers, mailboxes and the moves between them. Beyond WordPress that includes Joomla, Drupal, Laravel and plain PHP applications, plus self-hosted automation and private AI. You deal with me directly, not with an agency.

5.0 ★ · 2,200+ reviews · 100% job success · 13 years
5.0
rating
2,200+
reviews
3,200+
orders
100%
job success
13
years

Some of the work

All case studies →
AUTOMATION & AI

Production self-hosted n8n with tested disaster recovery

An n8n instance running in production on my own hardened VPS, with a restore I've tested end to end on a clean server.

n8n · Docker · nginx · PostgreSQL 16 · Prometheus · Grafana · Uptime Kuma · Tailscale
AUTOMATION & AI

Private self-hosted AI stack

A private AI setup on self-managed infrastructure. Local models by default, with a cloud API used only where local hardware isn't enough.

Ollama · OpenWebUI · SearXNG · Claude API · Linux · nginx
PHPBB

Five years of phpBB work for one publisher

Six separate phpBB contracts with the same client between 2016 and 2021. It started with a single extension install and ended with a version upgrade that had to carry a whole set of modified extensions along with it.

phpBB · PHP · MySQL · HTML/CSS · Cloudflare · WordPress
PHPBB

A sixteen-year-old phpBB 2 board brought up to the current version

A bulletin board that had been running phpBB 2.0.11 since around 2005, moved onto the current phpBB 3 release with its posts and user base intact.

phpBB 2 · phpBB 3 · PHP · MySQL
PHPBB

A community forum kept current across seven updates

The same client hired me seven times between 2019 and 2024 to update one phpBB board and adjust it as their branding changed.

phpBB · PHP · MySQL · CSS · cPanel · Google AdSense
PHPBB

A forum where no email worked and nobody could reach the admin panel

Signup confirmations and alerts had stopped sending, so new members couldn't register, and then the admin account locked itself out because password resets went through the same broken email.

phpBB · PHP · MySQL · SMTP
WORDPRESS

Old phpBB forum moved into bbPress on WordPress

An old phpBB board moved into bbPress on WordPress. I carried across the whole category structure, the posts, attachments, users and groups, so none of the forum's history got left behind.

phpBB · bbPress · WordPress · PHP · MySQL
WORDPRESS

A WordPress site that turned into a monthly retainer

This one started as a site build with a learning app attached and turned into a standing monthly arrangement to keep everything maintained. By value it's the largest single contract in my Upwork history.

WordPress · PHP · MySQL · HTML/CSS
SERVER CARE

Maintaining a long-standing client's Linux servers

A client I'd been doing phpBB work for since 2016 brought me onto their Linux servers: configuration, maintenance, security policy, backups, and a disaster recovery plan behind them.

Linux · Debian · MySQL · PostgreSQL · Bash · TCP/IP
MIGRATION

Four years of hosting work for a web agency

Forty-eight orders between 2021 and 2025 for one agency: certificate installs, moves between hosting accounts, server setup, and whatever else broke on the sites they host for their own customers.

cPanel · Linux · Let's Encrypt · DNS · WordPress · VPS
SERVER CARE

A site that broke every morning

A small business site went down most mornings, and the owner had been bringing it back by re-uploading one file. The real cause was the hosting company overwriting that file every night.

Apache · .htaccess · PHP · cPanel
MIGRATION

A forum and its image gallery after a server move

A community forum with a separate image gallery had been moved to a new server by someone else. Image links across the board were dead, and a large part of the gallery had never arrived.

phpBB · Piwigo · Plesk · rsync · FTP
PHPBB

A scheduled forum upgrade, and a thumbnail that came out sideways

A version upgrade booked for a fixed hour, so the members could be told when the board would be down, followed by two image problems that both turned out to be somewhere other than phpBB.

phpBB · PHP · GD · EXIF · Cloudflare

What clients say

All 2,200+ reviews →

A few out of 2,200+, across 13 years. 58 percent of them are from clients who came back.

★★★★★ Upwork

“Freelancer did a great job on a LAMP REST API deployment to Amazon Web Services. We'd be happy to work with this freelancer again.”

J*** R*** · United States · Server care · Nov 2021
★★★★★ Fiverr

“This is just one of numerous domain transfers I've ordered and am ordering 3 more! Good communication. Professional excellent gig!”

u*** · United States · Migration · Jul 2016
★★★★★ Fiverr

“Great work on website works on any issue. If you are looking for someone to setup up your business or website or just need help in general. He will go the extra mile to get it done great guy. I can't express how well he did with issues I was having. He even started from scratch to just to get the job done. He really cares and is a honest worker.”

u*** · United States · Migration · Jul 2019
★★★★★ Fiverr

“Let me set some context here. I spent the bones of 2 hours this evening with BlueHost and GoDaddy 'technical support'. No go. Not a clue between them. Hired Dtyacf instead. Paid for 2 gigs (don't be cheapskates, guys). Within 30 minutes, he's fixed it. V. impressed. Will work with Dtyacf again.”

s*** · Ireland · Migration · Jul 2015
★★★★★ Fiverr

“He did a website migration and also helped me to overcome some challenges from the domain name transfer. His work is much appreciated. thank you.”

b*** · United States · Server care · Jul 2025
★★★★★ Fiverr

“Quickly addressed a spike in server usage due to an SQL issue on the server that was slowing down the site.”

g*** · United States · phpBB · Jul 2024

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