CHAPTER 10 SECURING (Make web site) AND MAINTAINING PHPBB 299
CHAPTER 10 SECURING AND MAINTAINING PHPBB 299 If you are running the latest release of phpBB, you ll see a message in green stating that your software is up-to-date and that no further upgrades are available. If not, you ll see the message in Figure 10-3, colored in red, notifying you that a newer version is available. Tip If the Administration panel lacks the update check, as shown in Figure 10-3, you ll want to point your browser at phpBB.com to download the latest available version posthaste. Versions of phpBB earlier than 2.0.13 can be dangerously vulnerable to attack. If you prefer, you can have update notifications delivered directly to your Inbox. Simply visit http://www.phpbb.com/support/, and enter your e-mail address in the field for the mailing list. You will then be notified via e-mail of security fixes and new versions when they become available. Obtaining Updates You obtain upgrades to phpBB in a similar fashion to how you initially obtained the full phpBB package: through the phpBB.com Downloads page. Instead of downloading the full package, this time you ll want to download the changed files only package, which as you might expect, contains only the changed files leading up to the current version. Caution The changed files only package can be quite large in size, upwards of 4MB. This is because the package contains updates specific to each older version of phpBB 2, starting all the way with phpBB 2.0.0. If you connect to the Internet using a dial-up modem, you may find it easier to simply download the full package and remodify your board, or use the patch file only package. On the other hand, if you have a lot of modifications installed and have access to a UNIX command line, you may wish to spring for the patch file only package, which contains files specifically designed for use with the UNIX patchutility. This utility can save you a great deal of time when dealing with a heavily modified board. Upgrading with the Changed Files Only Package The changed files only package is generally the most straightforward and reliable method of upgrading your board. To download it, choose the file you wish to download (on Windows, the safest bet is the .zip file; on UNIX or Linux, either the gzip or bz2 compressed files will do) by clicking its icon. Download the file to a safe place, and then open it. Figure 10-4 illustrates what the changed files only package contains at the point of the latest release at the time of this writing.
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