PHP bb upgrade flubbed

[Sheila]

I just discovered that the PHPbb verison that Fantastico is installing is 2.0 and that there's a security hole in it. After reading a bunch of stuff on their forum I took the plunge to upgrade. I messed it up and need some help. Here's the story...

I downloaded the 2.0 to 2.04 "changed files only" and copied them all over to my site per the instructions. Then the instructions said to "run install/update_to_204.php after you have finished updating the files." I wasn't sure how to do this. I copied the install folder to the forum directory then ran it. Now I'm at a setup window asking me questions I don't know how to answer about the database file, my login and password etc. It's not liking the login and password that I thought was correct from previous install. I don't know how to move forward from this screen! I'm not seeing any files that appear to be the database file. so I don't know what to put in that field. Shouldn't what was there have been preserved? That's what I thought I was doing by only copying over changed files. Of course I was totally stupid and don't have a backup of the data. Fortunately there were only a dozen posts on this board since it's brand new so it won't be the end of the world if I loose them but I was hoping to not loose them.


any help greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Jim]

If this happened today I can put the site back to the state it was in on the last daily backup. That is assuming it hasn't run since replacing the files. If you put in a help desk ticket with urls and other needed info I can look at the file for obvious mistakes.

[Sheila]

Thanks Jim. I've posted a help ticket. This would REALLY save my butt!

[Sheila]

I thought I should post an update so other may learn from my errors.

First off, I hope Jim will be correcting this problem but it turns out there's been a problem with the nightly backups and so when Jim did a restore, my site went back a month instead of a day! OPPS!

So now I'm restoring elements as best I can. It means reinstalling and setting up the gallery and the forum again. I didn't want to have to install the forum without using Fantastico. But of course Fantastico is installing version 2.0 which has the security leak in it. What I've just discovered is that when it installs it there is also a file called "update_to_202.php". When you run that it updates the install to 2.02 which has fixed the security bug. If I'd known that to start with I could've avoided this whole fiasco (that's not fantastico!) So now I just have to reconstruct all the areas of my forum and notify those members I know that they have to start all over again.

Then I'm going to install a different and better gallery then the one that Fantastico installs, since I'm having to start over anyhow. I'm really glad this all happened on a site that is not a paying client and didn't have many users on the forum yet since it was pretty new.

Sheila

PS: I just got this response from the fellow at Fantastico saying "if you have the latest autoinstall.tgz, Fantastico will install version 2.0.3 of phpBB. Don't care about the version shown on every page, it is hardcoded in the templates.

kosmo"

[fshagan]

Originally posted by Sheila
Then I'm going to install a different and better gallery then the one that Fantastico installs, since I'm having to start over anyhow.

I have two that integrate with phpBB, the open source (free) Gallery and Photo Post Pro ($100). You can click through to the Gallery integration at http://www.pondresource.com (not much there yet, other than the links ... click through to the "My Pond Gallery" link). The PhotoPost Pro integration is at http://www.messing-about.com/photopost

PhotoPost is hard to install, and if Jim here is the example of good support, their support qualifies as horrible. I asked for my money back after reading their support forums (which you don't get access to until after you purchase) and they refused. So I'm stuck with it. And it is very hard to install because their docs and set up program has some errors in it that took me a while to figure out. So if you decide to go with them, pay to have them install it too (another $50.)

Anyway, they both take a different approach to integration with phpBB. The PhotoPost integration is simply that it will use your usernames and passwords for the log in ... so your users won't have to remember a different log in and password. But they will still have to log in even if they are logged in with phpBB (there is a hack that fixes this, but its not from the folks at PhotoPost Pro). The Gallery integration is a tighter integration, as it uses the cookie info from phpBB and runs as a module of phpBB.

Obviously, I like the open source Gallery integration better, and may switch to it as soon as my bruised ego will let me admit I wasted $100 on PhotoPost Pro.

[Fireater]

Shiela, when you install any OS script with Fantastico, make it a point to open phpmyadmin or mySQL manager from cpanel and examine what databases have been created by fantastico for which script.. It will save you many a more headaches..

THe database Fantastico creates for oscommerce is 'your-page-zone-username_shop', for phpauction, its 'your-paga-zone-username_auction' and so on..
the Database users have similiar names too...
Most of the time, the database names fantastico creates is same as the directory it creates to install the scripts in..
If your phpforum is installed in bbforum, then, the following is true:

I copied the install folder to the forum directory then ran it. Now I'm at a setup window asking me questions I don't know how to answer about the database file, my login and password etc

Your database name is (for phpbb): 'your-pagezone-username_bbforum',
database login: same as above
database password: what you gave fantastico..
database server: localhost


my 2c.

[Sheila]

Thanks all. Yes, I've learned many a lesson today. The new forum is fully installed and functional. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the gallery I've installed to work. I appreciate everyone's help.

[Fireater]

Sheila, the typeface on your site.. the one that 'Newsletters' is written with....
looks great. What font is it?

[Sheila]

Thanks! I assume you mean on my business website. It's called American Typewriter and I believe I used the condensed version. It's an ITC brand typeface.

Sheila

[dtrumbower]

I find it just as easy to install the add on myself. It allows me to put the files where I want them and create dbs the way I want them.

It really isn't that hard to do it yourself, plus you get to understand what is going on.

[Sheila]

Easy for you to say. I'd never installed a php script before. I'd installed one or two perl scripts is all. With Fantastico it's just one click and it's done. I just spent today fussing with manually installing Gallery and I still don't have it working correctly. I untarred everything, uploaded, CMOD'd the files as the readme directed, ran the configuration utility, stalled awhile finding out what the assorted paths were that I needed to know on our host (for ImageMagick) and finally finished the configuration. Then it told me to re-CMOD the .htaccess, config.php and setup files to re-secure them. I did that. Now I'm stuck on the final configuration page that tells me to run CMOD. I can't tell what's wrong. Everything seemed to go correctly. And I can't access the Gallery. I've posted for help on their site. But I'm at everyones mercy for help. With Fantasticos gallery, it was up and running in less than half an hour. The reason I didn't use it again is that I didn't like it nearly as well as this one. C'est la vie. I'm slowing learning more and more. I come at this as a graphic designer not a programmer. In fact I started designing for print and resisted designing for the web for a long time. All this script stuff is a little more than I really want to have to deal with... but I'm learning...

[prince]

I recently installed 'gallery' and when it said to chmod the 'setup' directory to zero - my FTP program did not let me do it.

I don't know what FTP program you use - but WS-FTP LE lets you show dirinfo - so you can check the permissions for all files - such as the config.php, .htacess and setup (directory). If you did the default setup - these are in a 'gallery' directory.

When I check the permissions, I noticed that the permission on the setup directory was NOT zero - so I had to rename the setup directory to hide it. And then I also had to made sure I had set permission on the correct .htaccess (i.e. the one in the gallery directory)

Summary: The install script will not let you continue until you get the permissions set correctly.

btw: netpmb set up is not that difficult but the files are HUGE. There are instructions with a link to download the files on the Gallery site. Then you just upload them to a directory and chmod them (per the instructions)

Hope this helps

[Sheila]

John:

That did it. When I tried to set the setup folder to zero I thought it didni't let me and I went in and set all the files IN the directory to zero. This morning after reading your email I checked again and sure enough the folder was not set to zero but it allowed me to and now I can access teh gallery! YEAH!

Now I just have to learn how to upload all the photos I want there. Thanks so much.

Sheila