Phorum 3! http://www.phorum.org ********************************************** * READ security.txt!!!!!!!!!!!!!! * ********************************************** Contents: 1. Installation 2. Features 3. Support 4. Upgrading 5. Known Issues **************************** *** 0. PRE-Installation *** **************************** 1. Read security.txt. 2. Make sure you have PHP (www.php.net) installed. We recommend version 3.0.9 or higher. Phorum has been known to work with 3.0.6, but we have also seen problems with this version. 3. Make sure you have one of the supported databases installed. At the time this was written they are MySQL (www.tcx.se) and PostgreSQL (www.postgresql.org). 4. If you do not have a database already, create a database. In MySQL you use the "mysqladmin" program like this: mysqladmin -uuser -ppaswword create mydb 5. Be sure that you have a user for that database which has the rights to select, insert, update, delete, create, alter and drop. A MySQL Grant statment for this user would look like this: GRANT select, insert, update, create, alter, delete, drop ON database.* TO user@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password'; ************************ *** 1. Installation *** ************************ 1. Read security.txt. 2. Edit common.inc. Change $inf_path to the dir where you will put forums.inf. See security.txt for more on why you should move it. 3. Configure Phorum to interface with your DBMS. If you are using MySQL do nothing, it is the default. If you are running another supported DBMS, rename abstract.php3 to mysql.php3 and copy {yourdbms}.php3 (e.g. postgres.php3) to abstract.php3. NOTE FOR POSTGRESQL USERS: If you are using PostgreSQL 6.5 or newer use the postgresql65.php3 file. Others use the postgresql.php3 file. 4. Move the files onto a web server. Be sure you move forums.inf and forums.inf.bak to the location you designated in common.inc. NOTE: If this is a first time install you will need to rename the following: forums.inf-dist => forums.inf forums.bak.inf-dist => forums.bak.inf header.inc-dist => header.inc footer.inc-dist => footer.inc For upgrades, see changes.txt to see if any changes have been made to these files. If not, use the ones you have. If there have, you may want to determine if the changes are neccassary ones. In most cases, changes to forums.inf can be included by upgrading admin.php3 and selecting "Rebuild INF file". 5. CHMOD forums.inf and forums.inf.bak according to your setup as layed out in security.txt. 6. Goto admin.php3 from a web browser. 7. Select 'Change Password' from the menu and hit 'Login'. The Password at this point is blank. 8. Change the master password and hit 'Update'. 9. Select 'Master Settings', enter your password and hit 'Login'. 10. Fill out this form completely and hit 'Update'. If you are unsure of some information, consult your systems admin. NOTE: PHORUM DOES NOT CREATE THE DATABASE ONLY THE TABLES. 11. Next, add a forum. Select 'New Forum', enter your password and hit 'Login'. 12. Fill out this form completely and hit 'Update'. If you are unsure of some information, consult your systems admin. 13. Before you can see the forum in the forum list, it must be activated. Select the forum you just created from the menu, enter either the master password or the moderator password for that forum and hit 'Login'. 14. Select 'Activate Forum' and hit 'Continue'. The forum should now be active. Select the link 'forums' at the top of the page. Follow steps 10-14 to add more forums. ************************ *** 2. Features *** ************************ New Features: All editing of forums.inf should be done through admin.php3. 1. Multiple forums on one engine. See steps 10-13 in Section 1, Installation, to add forums. You can create different header, footer and censor files for different forums. Simply name the files header_tablename.inc where tablename is the table name you gave the admin when creating the forum. Table names were selected because they are more compatible with file naming conventions. 2. Database independence. Phorum currently supports MySQL and PostgreSQL. To support your databse, convert abstract.php3 to work with your db. To change the db engine used by Phorum rename {yourdb}.php3 to abstract.php3. 3. Multi-leveled threading. This is enabled by default, but can be set back to the old 2 level way if desired on a forum by forum basis. Select the forum you want to enable it for, then select 'Edit Properties'. Uncheck the box under 'multi level threads' and hit 'Update'. 4. Emailing readers when replies are posted to a thread. 5. Limited HTML/URL linking. The following text decoration tags are allowed in all posts: ,,,
    ,
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    1. . Plus any URL surrounded by <> will be linked. Full HTML use is allowed and can be enabled in the admin on a forum by forum basis. Select the forum you want to enable it for, then select 'Edit Properties'. Check the box udner 'allow HTML' and hit 'Update'. 6. Take Phorum up and down from the admin. This is great for maintenence. Select 'Down Phorum' from the main menu, enter the master password and hit 'Login'. All requests to the Phorum will now be sent to down.php3. To bring Phorum back up, select 'Up Phorum' from the main menu, enter the master password and hit 'Login'. 7. Moderator Privileges. When the master password or the forums moderator password is entered in place of the email address, the message is given moderator priveleges. This includes: the message will be bolded in the message list; his host/ip will be replaced with the string specified by the moderator under 'when moderator post, replace host with' in the admin section for that forum. The post will also be given full HTML privileges. 8. index, list, read and post file names as well as the extension are defined as variables. This can be changed in the 'Master Settings' section of the admin. NOTE: THIS DOES NOT CHANGE THE FILE NAMES. 9. User Banning. You can ban users by email, name, or their IP/HOST. See bad_*.inc for details of use. Other Features: 1. Reactive moderation. By checking the box in the admin section for a particular forum under 'email moderator', all messages will be emailed to the address entered in the admin section of that forum under 'moderator email'. 2. Allows for censored posting. This had been in a table. To lessen the load on the db servers, this has been moved to an included file called censor.inc. There are instructions in that file as to how to use it. By default the f word and sh-t are censored. 3. Allows for disallowing service to a given author, email or domain. Entries in bad_names.inc, bad_hosts.inc and bad_emails.inc will be checked for when a message is posted. If any are present, the user will be forwarded to violation.php3. There are instructions in those files as to how to use them. 4. Localized text (Multi-lingual). Additional .lang files are available at http://www.phorum.org. 5. Ability to quote text from original message. 6. Colors, table sizes, and fonts configurable in Admin 7. Control number of messages displayed in main list. 8. Edit a post or delete entire threads or individual messages. 9. Search Engine (needs improvement) 10. Collapsible threads. This can be defaulted on or off in the forum admin section. ************************ *** 3. Support *** ************************ Mailing Lists ------------------------------ You can send all support questions to phorum@phorum.org. This list is the support mailing list. It is for general support, questions and answers. If you are familiar with the PHP list then this is much like that. To subscribe to this list, send and empty email to: phorum-subscribe@phorum.org There are also two other lists for Phorum. The first is the announcements mailing list. This is a moderated list and no spam will be sent through it. If you would like to receive mailings about new releases or bug fixes, send an empty email to: phorum-announce-subscribe@phorum.org The last is the developers list. It is for discussion of development issues. This is a new list. To subscribe send an empty email to: phorum-dev-subscribe@phorum.org Phorum Mailing List Archive ------------------------------ The good people at Progressive Computer Concepts, Inc have started archiving the phorum mailing lists. The URL's are: Phorum Support List: http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists/?l=phorum&r=1&w=2#phorum Phorum Developers List: http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists/?l=phorum-dev&r=1&w=2#phorum-dev Phorum Announcement List: http://www.progressive-comp.com/Lists/?l=phorum-announce&r=1&w=2#phorum-announce Online Support Phorum Once the technology is developed for communicating with Phorum via email, there will be a support Phorum tied into the mailing list above. We have found that better support is received via email. ************************ *** 4. Upgrading *** ************************ Upgrading from Phorum 1.x. There is a file included called upgrade.php3. Once you have Phorum3 up and running, load upgrade.php3 in a browser and follow the Help section. ************************ *** 5. Known Issues *** ************************ 1. Some servers do not like sending mail with the To: field empty. If you get errors on posting about email, you will have to edit post.php3: mail("", "$subject", $forum_url."$r..... change to: mail("some@address", "$subject", $forum_url."$r..... The bad part is that that email has to go somewhere. If you can setup some address that can be auto deleted do that. Otherwise you may want to comment out the lines following in form.inc: colspan=2 width="100%" nowrap align="left"> This is actually only 3 lines in the code but has to wrap here. 2. When adding new forums with forum sorting turned on, the forums do not appear sorted at first. However they are. Sorting is off by default.