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330 CHAPTER 11 MODIFYING PHPBB Table 11-1. Continued Name Description URL* Global Announcement Hack Permits authorized users to make an announcement that is seen in all forums, a feature conspicuously absent from phpBB 2.0. http://www.phpbbhacks.com/ download/345 Karma Hack Permits authorized users to give users a karma rating and make comments justifying the rating. It can be useful in large communities where an assessment of http://www.phpbbhacks.com/ download/5317 problem users is needed. It can also be used to foster a reward system on your community. Email Topic to Friend Enables users to e-mail links to topics, with a personal message enclosed. Again, this is another startling omission from the phpBB 2.0 feature set. http://www.phpbbhacks.com/ download/936 Birthday Hack Permits users to optionally enter their birthday, and displays their age on their posts. Additionally, when the users birthday arrives, they get greetings directly from your phpBB! http://www.phpbbhacks.com/ download/187 Restrict Guest Access Denies guest access to profiles, user groups, the member list, the search function, and similar information. This can be incredibly useful when fending off illegitimate bot registrations and when your board is under high load. http://www.phpbbhacks.com/ download/1415 *These hacks were available from the listed URLs at the time of this writing, but their URLs may change in the future. Installing a Hack Now let s try installing a hack. You ll install a popular modification, Quick Reply with Quote, which was written and released by phpBB community member Smartor. You can retrieve this hack from phpBBHacks.com, at http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/540. This modification will place a Quick Reply box on each View Topic page, permitting users with permission to post in a forum the opportunity to write a response without clicking Post Reply. This particular flavor of Quick Reply (several exist) permits you to quote the previous message in the thread. This hack is one of the easier ones to install. In addition to modifying core phpBB files, it also adds a couple lines to the English language file and a couple lines to a template. Thus, this hack serves as a fairly well-rounded demonstration of modifying your board, not only through code, but through styling as well. (Chapter 12 covers styling in more depth.) Opening the Hack You ll notice the hack came in a .zipfile. A lot of hack sites distribute hacks as compressed files, normally in .zipformat, to save bandwidth and for convenience. While the Quick Reply with Quote hack is only one file, some hacks contain multiple files (such as additional .phpfiles).
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CHAPTER 11 MODIFYING PHPBB 329 Using the Two Top Hack Databases The phpBB Group operates its own hack database, located at http://www.phpbb.com/mods/. If you already use phpBB.com for supporting your board software, it can be quite convenient to have your modification support in the same place. You can also find development guides and coding standards here as well, if you are adventurous enough to create your own hacks. The official phpBB hack database has a fair selection of hacks for you to choose from, divided into several categories. You can also download development tools from their database. Note that support on this site is limited to the hacks available in the official phpBB MOD Database. If you are looking for a wider selection of hacks to download, visit phpBBHacks.com, located at http://www.phpbbhacks.com/. (Full disclosure: I do consulting with phpBBHacks.comand was once a support team member there.) This site offers a full array of modifications for all versions of phpBB, including the deprecated 1.x series. The support forums are top-notch as well, with a team of hack developers waiting to assist. The signal-to-noise ratio at phpBBHacks.com s support forums is generally lower, mainly because it is not the official phpBB site, and thus concentrates most of its energy on modifying phpBB. phpBBHacks.comalso offers a Site of the Month, which is usually a great example of a modified, professional-looking phpBB in action. I found it to be a wonderful resource when I was getting started with phpBB. Getting Recommended Hacks Some hacks out there really should be regular features of phpBB. Until that happens, you ll probably want to install those hacks on the phpBB boards you run. Other hacks provide cool features that you might find interesting. Table 11-1 lists some hacks that I recommend. Caution A vast majority of hacks that use the database are written primarily for the MySQL database, as that is the most common database system used with phpBB. As a result, if you are using another system such as PostgreSQL or Microsoft SQL Server, you may run into differences in SQL syntax from MySQL and will need to port (or find a knowledgeable user to port) the necessary commands to the other database system. Table 11-1. Some Recommended Hacks Name Description URL* Log Registration IP Records the IP address of users when they first register. It provides elaborate cross- referencing tools inside the Administration panel, as well. http://www.phpbbhacks.com/ download/2975 Last Post Topic on Index Displays the topic title of the thread where the last post was made on the forum index page, in addition to the date and the user. It uses permissions to ensure that privacy of forums is not breached, and also uses the word-censoring feature, if enabled, to curb offensive language. http://www.phpbbhacks.com/ download/566 Continued
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328 CHAPTER 11 MODIFYING PHPBB base, and of course, an administrator, more than massive data loss. The age-old adage applies: better safe than sorry! Avoiding Excessive Downtime When you modify your board, a little downtime is inevitable. Something may not work quite right, or you might have missed a line and caused something to go wrong. It happens to the best of us. While eliminating outages completely is probably impossible, you can do a few things to make your downtime short-lived and as little of an inconvenience as possible. Use a test installation, separate from your production forums. Having a test board is a great idea, especially if you are just getting started with modifying phpBB. You can freely test features you wish to add and thoroughly test your modifications, without disturbing the day-to-day operations of your production site. Plus, you can simply upload the modified test copy of the board to your production site once you know it is stable, which will put in all the necessary modifications. (If your modifications require that you perform some updates to your database, you will still need to do that in addition to uploading the test copy.) Since phpBB 2.0 permits you to install multiple copies in the same database, there is no reason not to have a test board, especially if you plan to do a lot of modification work. Schedule modification work for off-peak hours. If you have some time when your board is not heavily accessed, use that time to make changes to your board, if at all possible. That way, potential problems that can arise will have less of an impact on your operation. Let your members know what s happening. Finally, let your members know that you will be adding new features to the board during your scheduled time window, and make them aware of the possibility of outages or other issues during that time. This is especially critical if you must perform your modifications during times of higher activity. It s a nice, common courtesy, and can help in advertising some of the new features you may add. Acquiring Your Hacks After your preparatory routine, it s time to start looking around the Internet for the modifications you wish to add. Most, if not all, phpBB administrators look at a few select hack databases from which they download modifications and get support for them. These sites offer modifications and templates listed by category. You can often find many new features to add to your installation at one of these sites. Also, any hack database worth your time also has a support forum, where many of the authors and other experienced phpBB administrators can assist you with problems you may encounter along the way. Tip If you are browsing around the Web and see a phpBB board with a few nice modifications, but don t know what they might be called, feel free to ask the administrator. Most phpBB administrators will be happy to help you and point you in the right direction toward acquiring those modifications. It s a community for a reason!
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Modifying phpBB CHAPTER 1 1 One of the key advantages of using a package such as phpBB to power your forum solution is that you can add modifications to the software. Your modifications can range from small changes to the software s behavior to adding entirely new features that you can offer your members. The hacking scene not the scene commonly associated with malicious users breaking into computer systems, but rather the community of forum administrators who author and release such modifications commonly known as hacks has thrived for each major piece of forum software for years. Some hacks add features so popular that they are officially added to subsequent releases of the software. This chapter covers two aspects of modifying phpBB. The first section will discuss the mechanics of installing modifications to your phpBB software, and the second section will detail how to create hacks for your board and prepare them for release to the community, if you so desire. Installing Modifications A vast number of modifications are available for the phpBB software. The advantages to using existing modifications are numerous. You do not need to be an expert in PHP coding to install these modifications, and they have likely been put through a series of tests to make sure they work as advertised. Plus, you will have a whole community to consult if something goes wrong, which may not be possible if you write your own modifications. Getting Ready to Install a Hack Before you jump into modifying your board, you should perform a few tasks to make the modification process as smooth and uneventful as possible. You will be delving into phpBB s underlying source code now, so it does not hurt to be prepared! Making Backups When you install modifications, you change the behavior of your phpBB setup in some fashion by editing the source code. The gravity of this task means that you should make a backup of your existing phpBB script files and store it in a safe location. If something goes wrong, you can revert to the old copy immediately. It also is a good idea to make a backup of your database s structure and data, as described in Chapter 10, as some modifications alter the database s tables. Nothing angers a member
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CHAPTER 10 SECURING AND MAINTAINING PHPBB 325 Summary The focus in this chapter was to make your board ready for the public. By using the permissions system and setting other critical options, you can harden your board s security to minimize disturbances. You ve learned how to tune the forum s performance via pruning, archiving, and optimizing the database. And, you ve seen an additional option in reducing load by introducing template caching. In Chapter 11, I ll discuss the ins and outs of modifying the phpBB software. I ll introduce you to common modifications that I like to use whenever I set up a phpBB. I ll show you the best places to obtain modifications and get support for them. Additionally, for the curious and code- savvy, there will be an introduction to the phpBB codebase and database abstraction system, so that you can fashion your own modifications. Finally, I ll discuss how to document those modifications so you can contribute them to the phpBB community.
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324 CHAPTER 10 SECURING AND MAINTAINING PHPBB Figure 10-25. User pruning, a new feature in phpBB 3.0 Backing Up and Restoring Databases in phpBB 3.0 Finally, the backup and restore functions have undergone improvements. You now can compress data in bzip format, which is another popular and tight compression algorithm on UNIX machines. A great new feature for those with limited bandwidth has been introduced as well. You no longer need to download backups to your hard drive, as phpBB 3.0 offers the usage of a /store directory, where you can direct your backups to be saved. Dial-up users, rejoice! You also have the option to include or exclude (leading to a significant size savings) the search index. Note To use the /store directory to hold your database backups, you will need to make it writable. You can do this using your FTP program or by issuing the chmod ugo+w command at a UNIX command line. Restoration is still as simple as in earlier versions, with the additional option to load backups directly from the server.
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CHAPTER 10 SECURING AND MAINTAINING PHPBB 323 Pruning Forums The updated forum pruning utility is illustrated in Figure 10-24. Note some of the new features it offers. Figure 10-24. phpBB 3.0 s pruning utility, operating on Test Forum 1 In Figure 10-24, I ve selected Test Forum 1 as the forum I want to prune. You ll notice that phpBB 3.0 now permits you to prune old announcements and sticky topics, in addition to the regular topics. Previously, phpBB did not permit you to prune such topics. You can also prune topics by last view time, so that topics that no one reads can also go by the wayside. These options are also available when setting up automatic pruning in the forum s options. Pruning Users phpBB 3.0 introduces the option to prune inactive users. See Figure 10-25 for an illustration of this new utility. You have a number of criteria to choose from, all of which can be combined. You can target specific usernames and e-mail addresses for pruning, or do mass-pruning of users based on last activity, join date, or post count. You have the option to simply deactivate accounts that the pruning utility finds, so that no data is lost. And, if you need to shrink the database, you can remove the accounts entirely. Caution Deleting accounts is permanent. Have a backup handy if you use the prune feature to remove users!
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322 CHAPTER 10 SECURING AND MAINTAINING PHPBB Performance Tuning in phpBB 3.0 phpBB 3.0 enables easier tuning of the board to favor performance. You are now able to set the board to disable certain features under specific load conditions, or always disable some features. You can even tell phpBB not to operate until high-load situations subside. This is accomplished in the Server Settings control panel, shown in Figure 10-23. Figure 10-23. The Server Settings control panel The options are relatively self-explanatory. You have a lot of flexibility in shutting down phpBB features that you may find to be performance-sapping. Additionally, phpBB 3.0 gives you unparalleled control over the search indexing feature, which is a major change from phpBB 2.0, as it did not permit you to manage the feature at all. You now can tweak some of the indexing settings to further improve performance, or even disable searching entirely if it becomes a major performance problem. Pruning in phpBB 3.0 As you might expect, the pruning feature is much improved over phpBB 2.0 as well. There s now the option to prune users as well as forums, and forum pruning has been expanded nicely.
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CHAPTER 10 SECURING AND MAINTAINING PHPBB 321 The following is a sampling of the new security features: Auditing features: phpBB 3.0 now takes stock of all actions performed by administrators and moderators and places them in a system log. As shown in the example in Figure 10-22, you are now able to see exactly when administrators log in to the Administration panel and what actions they perform. This is an obvious boon to security and helps to provide accountability for when something goes wrong in the Administration panel. Similar logging exists for moderator actions, as well. In addition to these logs, phpBB also takes stock of all board errors that are encountered to aid in troubleshooting. Figure 10-22. An administration log from phpBB 3.0 Authentication plug-ins: Authentication plug-ins are another new option to phpBB 3.0. Previously, the only method provided was to use phpBB s own database. That has all changed in the 3.0 world, with the addition of Apache .htpasswd authentication, as well as authentication against an LDAP server that you specify. A phpBB installation that authenticates against a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory would be nothing short of sweet, particularly in an enterprise setting, and that is theoretically possible with this version. Validation options: The phpBB 3 Server Settings panel permits a few new validation options to be set for sessions. The option exists for setting a minimum threshold for how much an IP address can change in a session without the session being invalidated. This is incredibly useful for combating problems with America Online users, who sit behind rotating proxy servers, which sometimes change their IP addresses on each click. This has caused problems in the past, and you are now free to customize the feature (or even disable it). You can now restrict sessions to one browser; if the user opens a new session on another browser, she is logged out of the original browser.
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320 CHAPTER 10 SECURING AND MAINTAINING PHPBB Introducing phpBB 3.0 Security and Maintenance Enhancements phpBB 3.0 features a vastly improved set of options for hardening your board as well as performing maintenance. Additionally, the new version offers incredible performance improvements plus more tuning options. Caution The standard disclaimer applies: as of this writing, phpBB 3.0 is still in prerelease form, with the permissions system under heavy construction. Screen shots and information here can and likely will change between now and final release. Managing Permissions in phpBB 3.0 Back in Chapter 8, I introduced you to the new phpBB 3.0 permissions system with regard to working with forums. Additionally, you will be able to restrict all facets of a user s interaction with the board, including limiting access in the Administration panel, restricting private messages, and much more. Per-user and group permissions have been expanded considerably and are far more flexible than ever before. Here are a few of the permissions enhancements: The Founder: A new security feature in phpBB 3.0 designates the user who set up the forum as the community Founder. The Founder cannot, under any circumstances, lose administrative privileges. The Founder has the right, by default, to all objects, and other administrators cannot edit these preferences. This prevents malicious users from demoting every administrator and holding a board hostage, so to speak. Administrative permissions for user groups: A glaring omission from phpBB 2.0 is the ability to assign a user group administrator rights. This is no longer the case in phpBB 3.0. As before, you can use user groups to assign moderator permissions, and also assign supermoderators in the same fashion. User groups have become much more useful in this release as a result of these changes, and they are my preferred method for designating permissions in phpBB 3.0. Piecemeal administrative/moderator power: phpBB s permissions system breaks the mold of one-size-fits-all permissions for moderators and administrators and now permits you to assign or revoke individual rights to users or groups. For example, you can set someone to be able to access the Administration panel to ban users and edit user accounts, but not view the system logs. Using Strengthened Security Features in phpBB 3.0 phpBB 3.0 offers a dazzling array of enhancements to other facets of security beyond the permissions system. There are now logging features that record activity by your staff, temporary banning, post reporting, and much, much more.
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