You can create nodes from external databases using the Feeds SQL module (requires Feeds). You should create a content type for the fields you want to import, and use the Feeds UI to select the external database table(s), add a query, and map the output to the fields in your content type.
Here are a couple of settings that you need:
Preparation: add your new source database to settings.php:
$databases = array ( 'default' => array ( 'default' => array ( 'database' => 'drupal_database', 'username' => 'drupal', 'password' => 'password', 'host' => 'localhost', 'port' => '', 'driver' => 'mysql', 'prefix' => '', ), ), 'database_to_migrate' => array ( 'default' => array ( 'database' => 'database_to_migrate', 'username' => 'migrateusername', 'password' => 'password', 'host' => 'localhost', 'port' => '', 'driver' => 'mysql', 'prefix' => '', ), ), )
Now: go to the Feeds UI, and start configuring:
1. Basic - attach to - your new content type Import on submission - checked 2. Fetcher - click "Change" -> select "SQL fetcher", save 3. SQL Fetcher - click "Change" - select your source database 4. Parser - click "Change" -> select "SQL Parser", save 5. SQL parser - click "Change" -> Enter your query, select your database, save Verify that your query performed as expected, results are displayed. 6. Processor - select "Node Processor" for nodes 7. Node Processor - Settings: Here, you can choose the content type (again), the author associated with the new node, format, expiration, and other parameters. 8. Node Processor - mapping: Here, you have to map the fields from the sql query to the fields in your content type. After you save, you can map the next field
Since you only have a couple of users/authors, you could create accounts for them manually. In your SQL query, you can select the users as well as the content/title/etc., and the new articles will then be associated with the appropriate authors.
This has worked well for me with a limited number of nodes (<1000). For large-number of nodes, I ran into time-out issues, and had to add a limit to the SQL query. Eventually, I just created a drush script to add the nodes from the command line (I had to add >50,000 nodes).
Edited to add: I used this with Drupal 7. Please read the documentation for the modules for updated information: https://drupal.org/project/feeds, https://drupal.org/project/feeds_sql
