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.

★★★★★ Fiverr

“I had so much trouble migrating this wordpress site. dtyacf did it fast and correctly!”

s*** · United States · Migration · Jul 2015
★★★★★ Fiverr

“I needed files transferred to a new server. It was a mess! I ordered this gig and presto, it was done! Super fast, professional and even though it was a messy job there were no complaints. Great job!”

n*** · United States · Migration · Jul 2018
★★★★★ Fiverr

“A skilled professional that worked with great patience to overcome any issues that arose, always felt confident that he knew what he was doing and I would have no hesitation in recommending him to anyone that has a complex task to deliver in this field. Many thanks”

n*** · United Kingdom · Migration · Jul 2023
★★★★★ Fiverr

“My hosting provider did a moonlight flit and I tried (and failed) to restore my WP site myself from a backup. Big mistake! I ended up with all sorts of errors I didn't have a clue how to resolve. Thankfully dtyacf through Fiverr saved the day and restored my site completely. Can't begin to say how relieved I am that it's all sorted out. Thank you!”

w*** · United Kingdom · WordPress · Jul 2022
★★★★★ Fiverr

“Extraordinary level of performance! Shafa had my phpBB powered forum set up in no time, and helped tremendously in getting it integrated with the main website and working through many technical issues beyond the forum itself. Tremendously appreciative of the quality of work!”

d*** · United States · phpBB · Jul 2025
★★★★★ Fiverr

“Amazing experience. Would definitely use again. Really happy with the work produced and has saved me so much time trying to do something that I have absolutely no clue about. Shafa transferred all of my old emails to my new account as well as transferring an old website domain and 14 email address to a new domain name. It wasn't always easy to find a time to connect so that I could give him access codes, because of the time difference, but he remained consistent and competed the project exactly as I needed. Thank you very much”

b*** · United Kingdom · Migration · Nov 2025

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