Topic: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

ok, since the host people who were going to do this never got back to me i'm gonna do this myself, i've bought the domain http://www.mypunbb.com/ and soon there will be free punbb forum hosting on a subdomain of your choice (i hope), e.g. http://connorhd.mypunbb.com

to begin with theres just going to be the default punbb install but i would like additional packages to be available, how its going to work is:
subdomain.mypunbb.com/file.php loads
mypunbb.com/forum/file.php with the config file getting the table prefix from the subdomain name, however i would like it to be able to load a different set of forum files depending on the subdomain name,

an idea is to use mod_rewrite in apache like this
mypunbb.com/forum/file.php becomes mypunbb.com/forum/loader.php?file=file.php so that the loader can lookup the subdomain name from the header and choose the right package, which in theory works except for mod_rewrite losing get variables when i use it, if anyone has any ideas on how to do this i would be very happy wink

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Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

You can use FilesMatch, it's what we use in Nucleus to get urls from /index.php?itemid=1 to /item/1

The .htaccess file and code is in the /extra/fancyurls subdirectory

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

i have another bigger problem too, the hosting uses cpanel and i dunno how to make "catch-all" subdomain with it or if i can...

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

well, i got the forum to get the table prefix and cookie name from the subdomain, and all subdomains to go to the right DNS, i hopefully just need the host to add a ServerAlias for *.mypunbb.com to the httpd.conf, i'm going to leave different packages and mods until 1.2 is out wink, so hopefully it should be ready for people to sign up next weekend, assuming i can get the subdomains working

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

Connorhd wrote:

ok, since the host people who were going to do this never got back to me i'm gonna do this myself, i've bought the domain http://www.mypunbb.com/ and soon there will be free punbb forum hosting on a subdomain of your choice (i hope), e.g. http://connorhd.mypunbb.com

Could you tell me more about "free punbb forum hosting" ? For any kind of forum ? We have a OSS project here, so I would like to know as detailed as possible about your exellent idea smile

[no signature]

6 (edited by Connorhd 2004-12-13 21:13)

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

you will get a punbb forum, but no ftp access or anything, just the admin controls to customise it, basically what happens is

you register the forum, it creates the tables with the prefix username_
you go to username.mypunbb.com and config.php detects the subdomain and uses the prefix username_ so all the forums use one set of files,

hopefully if its popular i'll add other stuff like the option to have preinstalled mods etc

edit: in 1.2 there will also be any language packs anyone wants but until then i think it might have to be english only

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

Well, I would have created a subdir per domain and used massive-symlink-attack. ;-)


Oh, and prefix from domain:

Make sure you apply some safety checks on it before using it as a table prefix. Otherwise one can easily inject sql.

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

well i want this to be fully automatic so i dunno if that can be done easily

as for injecting sql, how could they? subdomains can only be a-z,-,0-9

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

fully automatic: Create a script, that does symlink-attack ;-)  (Yes, I'm used to full root-access to boxes ;-) )

sql injection: This can all be tricked. The httpd mostly knows about the wanted domain name, cause it's transfered in clear in HTTP/1.1. So all I need to do, is to talk HTTP/1.1 on my own. (I'm not 100% sure, one can get spaces in or apache might sanitize this also. But I wouldn't want to count on either of these.)

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

you up for trying to break this once i get it setup? or at least trying to find the flaws wink since i have no idea what you mean lol

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

wooo, the host has edited the httpd.conf and now all subdomains except @ and www. go to the forums folder big_smile this means i can get to work making an install script big_smile

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

Yes, it looks great.

For all that still dont understand, you register, you get a forum name, such as http://gary.mypunbb.com and you post!

Indocron
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Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

100% free the only ad i'm going to have atm is a Hosted by myPunBB.com at the bottom

14 (edited by middleground 2004-12-14 01:16)

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

Curious- one install per subdomain...??

This is easy with Plesk (as opposed to cPanel)- only need to create a subdomain and it does all work for you. Each subdomain gets its own httpdocs setup...sweet....

Every Day Above Ground Is A Good One!!

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

Yes, also Plesk is windows compatable.
cPanel needs to catch up.

but he got it to work anyway, contacted the host and he did it

and yes, its one install per sub domain, but there are only 1 set of files.

Indocron
$theQuestion = (2*b) || !(2*b);

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

thanks much!  i've been trying to use http://www.freesuperhost.com that was referred by some people here, but my guests seem to get punted to member login screen instead of the forums when i send them to http://majorfreak.freesuperhost.com/eve/forum/index.php

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

middleground wrote:

Curious- one install per subdomain...??

This is easy with Plesk (as opposed to cPanel)- only need to create a subdomain and it does all work for you. Each subdomain gets its own httpdocs setup...sweet....

i don't want to have to setup the subdomains though i want it to be automated so i wanted all subdomains to be setup, also a cool idea gary suggested is that all sites that aren't registed (say you go to middleground.mypunbb.com right now) would give you the registration form wink

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

well the basics of it work go and try it out if you want - http://www.mypunbb.com/register.php just please don't flood it yet i ain't done flood protection

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Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

Great work connorhd, its looking great, its gona be the next Proboards but with punbb... maybe you could set it up some how where the admins could change a css file to custimize it more

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

hmm.. idea time smile

each forum has there own styles. (yes, this would be huge if this gets big, but still somewhat good). then thee is an admin option that will just use fopen, fread, and fwrite to checge the styles.

same with the templates.

maybe also have a backup, incase the user screws something up, he can restore the original one.


great work connorhd!

Indocron
$theQuestion = (2*b) || !(2*b);

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

for now its just going to be the same install for everyone

in 1.2 i'm going to add some stuff i'm thinking about your own style and your own template, and all it does is create a file subdomain_main.tpl then if thaty exists for your subdomain it uses it, if not it just uses the default, however for now thats gonna have to wait

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Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

This is an excellent idea, good job Connorhd! smile

Just wondering, can your server handle all the hits, loads and traffic?

23 (edited by Connorhd 2004-12-15 16:22)

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

yeh should be fine, its properly hosted not a home server or anything, i don't know how popular its going to be, if it gets alot of registrations i'll probably rethink the database setup, but it should work fine as it is,

things to do:
* clean up pages and registration [done]
* add more registration options e.g. forum admin username etc [done]
* add flood join control [done]
* make subdomains with a - work [done]
* see what happens with avatars - they didn't... fixed by prefixing with forum subdomain [done]

* do about page

* test it all
* get users wink


Future stuff:
* make admin controls for me, disable regisration, list and delete tables for a forum
* look at 1.2 (caching etc)
* look at making custom tpls, styles (maybe shove them in another folder and prefix with subdomain name then say if exists use custom one otherwise use standard)
* make a mypunbbig (e.g. a punbig for all the sites on mypunbb.com)

Re: mypunbb.com - free punbb hosting

ok its all done i think, well the registration stuff anyway, please if you want a forum go register if you have any problems requests etc, post them on the forums there or tell me here