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

“Our PhpBB forum was stuck with emails not going and password not working. Shafi fixed all these issues within 1 hour. Highly recommended. He also helped upgrade our forum to latest version inspite of many technical issues. He talked to our hosting support directly and resolve all of them. I would definitely return if I have any more phpBB work.”

R*** G*** · United States · phpBB · Aug 2021
★★★★★ Fiverr

“I love it!!! Seller is very knowledgeable, has great communication skills and completes every task requested. I am beyond pleased with his work. dtyacf is now my go to for all forum related projects.”

m*** · United States · phpBB · Jul 2021
★★★★★ Fiverr

“This guy crushed it! I seriously must have spent at least 6 hours trying "six ways to Sunday" to migrate my client site to a new host. Thanks for doing this and so quickly. Highly recommend.”

m*** · United States · Migration · Jul 2015
★★★★★ Upwork

“What I requested was delivered in full without any issues. Shafa communicated clearly and politely throughout, so I could understand exactly what he was going to do. Shafa took a little more time than originally agreed but, in fairness, I had told him I was in no rush. I would strongly recommend Shafa for any phpBB related work.”

B*** B*** · South Africa · phpBB · Nov 2018
★★★★★ Fiverr

“This guy is awesome. Delivers well in time and perfectly crafted work and best is after sale support. in case anything was missed or didnt work well, he finds the error and fixes it like flash. Recommeneded 100% for PHPBB”

c*** · United States · phpBB · Jul 2018
★★★★★ Fiverr

“It was a very good experience working with Shafa. He was patient and worked on every aspect of the requirements we needed for these mail setups. Recommended.”

g*** · Greece · Migration · Jan 2026

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