Rearrange PunBB folders - prevent Bad HTTP_REFERER errors

Thanks deadram!

This does sound like the kind of solution I'm looking for, but you're a little cryptic. What do you mean "I just quickly grep'ed HTTP_REF"? What's that line of code?

The baseurl is set in the admin options and probably stored in the database (I'd have to check). I've already changed the baseurl to the root (to fix one referrer error) and strangely enough viewing the forum in '/forum' seems unaffected so far.

You can do a lot by editing define('PUN_ROOT', './'); I'm just worried I'm messing up the "integrity of the system" and will get punished for it with Bad HTTP_REFERER errors.

And what about the admin_ files? Is it possible to put them in their own '/admin' folder? Why aren't they? Has anyone tried that?

Thanks, but what does that line do? What are you saying?

I don't even know what a "Bad HTTP_REFERER error" is exactly. I'm not a PHP coder. I don't know Linux. I use Macromedia Homesite to search and replace text strings.

I know keeping PunBB's folder structure intact is the "best" solution, but my question is what if I want to rearrange them? What if I don't want all those Pun-files at the root of my site?

Is it at all possible to change the folder structure? How should I approach it? Would I be OK if I edit the PUN_ROOT define at the top of pages? Or is the key in that $redirect_url line of code?

if your not a php coder, move everything to the root directory. If you're willing to spend some time learning, then you won't have to.

because

. Clearly, the text HTTP_REFERER had something to do with the error you were getting.

$redirect_url = (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']) && preg_match('#^'.preg_quote($pun_config['o_base_url']).'/(.*?)\.php#i', $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'])) ? htmlspecialchars($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']) : 'index.php';

This line shows some of the logic HTTP_REFERER is used for. It would look clearer like this:

// If $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] exists, and is within the $pun_config['o_base_url']
if ( isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']) && preg_match('#^'.preg_quote($pun_config['o_base_url']).'/(.*?)\.php#i', $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'])) )
{
    $redirect_url = htmlspecialchars($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']);
}

// Else if "Bad HTTP_REFERER, just use index.php for our redirect
else
{
    $redirect_url = 'index.php';
}

Clearly that line is not giving you "Bad HTTP_REFERER error"'s it does show you the logic to have one though. $redirect_url is used to send your browser back to whatever page you came from, wqhen you click on login (if i remeber correctly). When your configured $pun_config['o_base_dir'] doesn't contain $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] you get an error. $_SERVER is a php variable that contains all kinds of information. google it for more information.

I'd have to disagree with you: it really is helpful, especially when looking to figure out what a PHP variable or function is (not necessarily a PunBB specific one). In this case, the first result was http://us2.php.net/reserved.variables, which gives a rundown of every element of $_SERVER.

It's not as simple as just rearranging the folders for various reasons: there would be code editing involved

I'm not convinced that you have to let PunBB "take over your entire site" in order to have integration. Why can't you just disable/remove PunBB's register.php page, add an insert statement to your registration page that creates a matching forum account, and add a set_cookie bit to your login page so that the user is logged into the forum as well?
And out of curiosity, what features of PunBB would you consider "bloat"? With regards to the language files, I'd say they really don't add another complicating layer: instead, they have all the output strings in one place so you only have to edit a string once to change it throughout the site.

All that stuff only makes sense if you know PHP and yes, I'm not going to learn PHP from scratch because I have a thousand other things to do. But that doesn't mean I'm a complete moron. I have a general idea of what the code does, know html/css very well and have already rearranged and replaced a lot of code by copy/paste, trial/error. All I need is a few hints here and there, in plain English if possible.

I don't need 'a rundown of every element of $_SERVER'. My basic question is still if it's theoretically possible to rearrange folders, with a few systematic address changes of course, or are there other issues involved, security maybe, that I have to be aware of.

I think that was my starting point, but I couldn't make it work and was adviced to just use PunBB registration. PunBB has a lot of interconnected files, many of which have little to do with the code I need, like the language files and the templating system. So everything is now sucked into the root of my site and headers and footers etc.

At the end I want to have a system that's somewhat logical and transparant. I'm trying to put all the common site elements in one folder (with sub-folders) and have seperate folders for 'forum', 'blog', 'rsvp', 'admin', etc. I couldn't integrate my header and footer into PunBB because the templating system doesn't allow php includes - I know there's a workaround - so that was one reason to start to rearrange stuff. Also function redirect clashed with another php script on the same page, so I had to edit functions.php

Yes, I know about this workaround. I have used it in previous versions of my project. This include method only works with files in the same folder, so you have to create files that don't do nothing but pull in other files from somewhere else. Like I said, I'm trying to put together a system that's logical and transparant and want to avoid this type of silliness.

Ideally I would like to get rid of all the templating systems and language files from the different php scripts I'm trying to put together, just keep the functional code and my own html and css. PunBB is great, but I wish there was an even liter php forum script like this ultralean CMS. BTW, he uses PunBB for his forum!

I will use sNews for several small company websites. It seems perfect for that.

I'm looking for scripts that I can use to build a transparant, solid basis for a site that I can add to and expand on later if necessary. What exactly are the limitations of a script liked sNews? Structural database issues?

Getting back to my original topic, is it possible to set a "base url" for a php page? I've moved the admin files to an admin folder (and replaced all admin_index.php links with admin/index.php etc). It would probably save me a lot of trouble if I could add a line of code at the top of those php files to tell the system to treat them as if they are still at the root.

I am trying to google the answer, but have trouble coming up with the right keywords... Any help is appreciated. If I find the solution I'll post it.

Probably. Thanks!

I'm now trying to systematically use the define('PUN_ROOT', '../'); trick throughout my site, hoping that will help fix the admin folder as well. If not I'll try @chdir(../). I'll update with the results...

edit: I think I now got the /admin folder working. @chdir('../'); seems to prevent Bad HTTP_REFERER errors in this case.