• Registered: 2006-07-12
  • Posts: 9

Topic: Thank You PunBB

After a few years of using phpBB on my main site i've been hacked, spammed and found files I didn't upload in the forum directory tree.

So it was with great trepidation that I had to set up forums on a new site i'm managing now for a new project, I downloaded the latest phpBB and ran the setup ... It didn't work, i've done this before and I know what i'm doing ... There's gaps in my web knowledge sure but this should be trivial for me... I try again repeatedly for the next few hours then think...

OK I'll used that SMF thing i've seen, their site was down.  So out came google and I found PunBB.

What's this? There's naff all installation instructions ... This is either dead hard, or dead easy... What have I let myself in for?

It uploaded to my web site quicker than I could make a cup of coffee, so caffeineless I did the setup. It worked first go. Job done.

Wow.  It's so much faster than trying to view a phpBB forum, so much neater, so much ... better.

Only time will tell if it's more ressillient to the hackers and spammers i've been plauged with on my other forum, but in any case, it's already a huge improvement.


Thank you.

Becky Rose
http://www.simtouringcarcup.com
(Forums not linked until I update the site tomorrow so they're here: http://www.simtouringcarcup.com/talk

  • From: -8 GMT
  • Registered: 2004-05-04
  • Posts: 1,396

Re: Thank You PunBB

BeckyRose wrote:

Only time will tell if it's more ressillient to the hackers and spammers ...

the only thing in my opinion that makes PunBB more secure is updates come out VERY soon after exploits are found. sometimes within hours.

~James
FluxBB - Less is more

3 Reply by iatbm

  • iatbm
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Re: Thank You PunBB

The main reason why punbb is secure is that it is not bloated so less things can go wrong wink

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  • quaker
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Re: Thank You PunBB

becky can i offer my services in creating you a main.tpl that matches ur site??
a few site that i play with.

http://bunpai.com  <---------- i list the index.php and all the main.tpl in my forum..
http://ibt-media.com


Q

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

quaker's Website

  • Registered: 2006-07-12
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Re: Thank You PunBB

Of course you can offer, you just can't charge any money smile...

  • quaker
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Re: Thank You PunBB

that kewl
all i need is the index file and ill give you back the main.tpl
scot405583 on yahoo or aim

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

quaker's Website

7 Reply by BeckyRose (edited by BeckyRose 2006-07-13 12:03)

  • Registered: 2006-07-12
  • Posts: 9

Re: Thank You PunBB

I have a question regarding the installation, my domain is a secondary domain on the site, basically I have a web site hosting www.bansheestudios.com and i've put stcc in a subfolder and parked the www.simtouringcarcup.com to that folder.  This gives it two logical paths:

www.simtouringcarcup.com
and
stcc.bansheestudios.com

The problem i'm having is that the forum is setup to work as www.simtouringcarcup.com but when I go into edit signups access levels the URL has changed to stcc.bansheestudios.com - somehow punBB has picked up a different path ?

Is there a file somewhere that stores all paths, or is one of the .php files (perhaps the profile or view profile page) using an absolute path and not a relative one?

Currently this is really frustrating.  I have hunted through some of the most obvious files and can't see anything that stands out to me, but i'm not intimately familiar with the inside workings of punbb

  • quaker
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Re: Thank You PunBB

humm... for me i install the forum in the main www directory and rename the index.php to forum.php then do a search in the viewtopic and viewforum and funtions.php and change the index.php to fourm.php that way i can add my own index.php and other files. and have the whole site cookie and session with punbb to create a whole site that uses punbb i can make pages for member only by adding a few lines fo code at the top.
as a example http://bunpai.com
ops.. i guess that dont help you .. but u can try that...

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

quaker's Website

  • Registered: 2006-07-12
  • Posts: 9

Re: Thank You PunBB

It happens all sorts of places, it picks up the stcc.bansheestudios.com path from somewhere - even when making a post just now it did so.

I dont really want to make pages for members, I just want the forum not to have dead links because of a path issue hmm

10 Reply by quaker

  • quaker
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Re: Thank You PunBB

i know... check the main files .. it get to be a pain when i tried to create to many folders and stuff..
so that why i started to create my forum in my main www ..
after that just add the punbb cookie and session script

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

quaker's Website

11 Reply by quaker

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Re: Thank You PunBB

hey why not try a forward to one site from another so that it will fix it self.

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

quaker's Website

12 Reply by BeckyRose (edited by BeckyRose 2006-07-13 21:54)

  • Registered: 2006-07-12
  • Posts: 9

Re: Thank You PunBB

Domain parking doesn't work like that, www.simtouringcarcup.com and http://stcc.bansheestudios.com are the same thing, the site is actually on http://www.bansheestudios.com/stcc/.  I then setup a second domain name which creates the stcc folder as a subdomain of banshee studios and the domain points to that.

This bug seems a bit silly, but i've hunted through all the php files and cannot see the domain name mentioned anywhere.  I reset the site to use the bansheestudios subdomain and the forums work fine, but it's not viable to work like this - it's not why I bought the domain to not use it!

Is there any file in PunBB which uses an absolute path? And what files does install.php modify, particularly when it comes to paths?  How is PunBB picking up a path that it is never being given?  Pressumeably something somewhere is passing a path to another function and Linux is passing it as an absolute path.

I dont know what the punbb cookie and session script is?  I've just installed the thing and am impressed with it, but this URL issue is bugging me.

13 Reply by quaker

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Re: Thank You PunBB

oh ok.. first off i would of would of made a a sub directory like bunpai.com/hi
it would of shown like this.. hi.bunpai.com or people can go to it bunpai.com/hi
by u doing a domain parking.. something not working right.
undo parking and just do a forward to the forum. by making a subdomain first and point the other name to it.
something in the php.ini file that calls the files in order is not working right..

wow.. i almost believe what im saying..hahaha..

Q

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

quaker's Website

  • Registered: 2006-07-12
  • Posts: 9

Re: Thank You PunBB

I think you missunderstand quaker, although thanks for the effort. smile

The site is in a folder "/talk".  However the entire STCC website is stored on the www.bansheestudios.com server in the folder "stcc", the forum is in "stcc/talk".  It site has it's own domain name pointing to "www.bansheestudios.com/stcc".  So entering "www.simtouringcarcup.com" takes you to "www.bansheestudios.com/stcc" but whatever route you take to view the website stays in the URL at the top.

So if I enter www.simtouringcarcup.com and I browse through the site then that domain name stays in the URL at the top - because all paths are relative.  Even though if I enter the site with stcc.bansheestudios.com or www.bansheestudios.com/stcc again the domain I use stays with me as I browse through the site (great for getting round cache servers btw smile).

The install.php has the default forum URL as stcc.bansheestudios.com which I changed to www.simtouringcarcup.com.

The problem is that if I enter the forum using www.simtouringcarcup.com the URL at the top changes for no apparent reason, i've not narrowed down exactly when this occurs, it seems editing a post does it, going to administer a user does it.  Just entering the forum from the link on the front page seems to do it.

For now I have set the forum options to make the path stcc.bansheestudios.com - but this is not what I want at all.  I dont want the STCC site to have any connection with banshee studios, they are unrelated projects.

You know when you register for a hosting account from a host you dont have a unique machine and it is shared on multiple machines?

That's what i've done, but within my own hosting account.  I have a fully featured hosting service with no limits so I can slap on as many websites as I like and store them on the same hosting account.  The primary domain name is www.bansheestudios.com, all my other sites are secondary domains.  This works fine - usually, and with my other sites and indeed the STCC website itself all is ok - but somehow PunBB is picking up the subdomain path of the primary hosting account.

I dont understand why punbb is having problems at all.

I will find and look at this php.ini file you mention, up until now the only prefs file i've found for punbb just had the database data in.  Thanks for that i'll take a peek smile

  • Registered: 2006-07-12
  • Posts: 9

Re: Thank You PunBB

I've realised that the URL descrepancy might be an ISP cache server issue, so i've set the forums up in "break" mode and will leave them until my ISP clears their cache at around 2am tomorrow ... then we'll see.

16 Reply by quaker

  • quaker
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Re: Thank You PunBB

that kewl.. I tried... oh by the way im not blonde...lol.. but i still will help ya with the main.tpl if ya need me to..hahahaha


Q

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

quaker's Website

  • Registered: 2006-07-12
  • Posts: 9

Re: Thank You PunBB

Well it wasn't a cache server issue, i've left the forum on the banshee subdomain as at least it works there.  Somewhere inside PunBB or my configuration of the board it seems to get the URL from the wrong place hmm

  • Jansson
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  • Registered: 2003-01-06
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Re: Thank You PunBB

To me it seems like there's some webserver configuration issue. When I put "http://www.simtouringcarcup.com/talk" in my browser, I'm "redirected" to "http://stcc.bansheestudios.com/talk/". But when I put "http://www.simtouringcarcup.com/talk/index.php" (complete address) I stay on the domain.

  • From: Kortrijk, Belgium
  • Registered: 2006-05-17
  • Posts: 11

Re: Thank You PunBB

I'm having the same problem.

My forum is in bliip.zzillezz.net/forum/. But i have a parked domain www.bliip.com that links to bliip.zzillezz.net.

ONLY when you type the full url http://www.bliip.com/forum/index.php ... does the "bliip.com" url stay in the address bar.

zzillezz's Website

  • Registered: 2006-07-12
  • Posts: 9

Re: Thank You PunBB

zzillezz, if you link people directly too http://www.bliip.com/forum/index.php does the URL flip back to www.bliip.com when people edit their posts or if you administrate a member from the user list?  Because that's the trouble i'm having, otherwise this would work as a fix.

21 Reply by quaker

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Re: Thank You PunBB

is it a redirect script? that send it to a right addy?

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

quaker's Website

22 Reply by ameenullah (edited by ameenullah 2006-07-17 12:25)

  • From: India
  • Registered: 2004-06-03
  • Posts: 435

Re: Thank You PunBB

buddy this site http://ibt-media.com/about.php shows lot of errors... the design element is scattered... Pls have a look again...

God wisely designed the human body so that we can neither pat our own backs nor kick ourselves too easily

23 Reply by quaker

  • quaker
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Re: Thank You PunBB

yea i kow im about to redo that whole site that was my attempt of mixing punbb with a css template...lol

My stuff or my style might sux, but atleast I'm willing to help when I can.
Don't be stupid and help ! We are the stupid one's !!!

quaker's Website