Joomla! 1.5 plugin for Phorum integration

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sphelan
That phorum module sounds great! I'll be sure to get it all tested on my site this weekend and give you any feedback.

That would be great, any feedback is more then welcome.

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sphelan
There is one question I've been mulling over that we might need to ask next... For existing user bases that are only in one place (either phorum or joomla), what's the best way to propagate or synchronize them?

If the user account already is available in Joomla! the only thing the user needs to do is change his/her password. The Phorum API will create the user automatically if I am right. I have not implemented this the other way around, the Phorum module simply returns when there is a mismatch.

Wat could be implemented is a user synchronisation option. Within Joomla! this would mean that an component needs to be created (the plugin alone would not be sufficient). I could also create such an option from within the Phorum module. The problem that cannot be solved here is the password issue since the password is encrypted in Joomla using salt and in Phorum using md5, so there is no way we could synchronize the user passwords.

I would like to consider a method that is as easy as it comes, but is also as secure as it needs to be. Something to consider here is to create the user account in Joomla or Phorum when the user is able to login in one of the systems, and create a user record when it is not available. This way the synchronisation is almost automatically done. Not sure this is the best way, any feedback/suggestions are welcome.

If someone with more in depth knowledge also could do a code scan on the Phorum code part, especially sanitizing the features Phorum has, I would be very happy.

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Joe Curia

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Marian

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Wilco Jansen
New user registration logic of Phorum also works towards Joomla! The user account will only be accessible from within Joomla! after the user has confirmed the registration mail (if configured).

Just a quick question: to me, this doesn't sound like single sign on for new users (only old users will have single sign on). Or is this an option?
Ideally, the users shouldn't care about where they log in, right?

Cheers,
Marian

I believe he is simply saying that new users will not be able to log in to Phorum or Joomla! until after they have responded to the confirmation email (thus verifying their account).

That is indeed how it has been implemented.

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Wilco
Wat could be implemented is a user synchronisation option. Within Joomla! this would mean that an component needs to be created (the plugin alone would not be sufficient). I could also create such an option from within the Phorum module. The problem that cannot be solved here is the password issue since the password is encrypted in Joomla using salt and in Phorum using md5, so there is no way we could synchronize the user passwords.

Right... I had the same problem synching the phorum user base with the Zen Cart user base for our site store - different encryption methods. In that case, I got around it by rewriting Zen's authentication logic - effective, but not upgrade-friendly.

My first thought, from a practical standpoint, is that a site probably should not support logins to BOTH systems, but rather just to the one - either phorum or joomla. Since the other system supports single sign-on, this should eliminate the need to have true password synchronization up-front.

My second thought would be that it would not be hard to "expire" a user's password, ie make them change at the next login - then issue bulk expirations for every user, which would then force the synchronizations in an orderly fashion.

If changing a password would instigate a user sync for a user that does not exist in the other system, then that should be good enough - no real need for a full-on component to run that synch from a web-based button.

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Sean Phelan
Sites By Sequoia - Web Marketing ... The Experts at Building Your Success Online

Wilco,

I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your Joomla plugin and Phorum module. Like you, I think that Phorum is a great alternative to the other forums available to the Joomla community. They work great, we just went live this weekend at www.t34classic.org using both. So far no issues from the users side (we are a small site with fewer than 200 users).

I did have one problem with the installing the module that has to do with setting the path to Joomla. I had a typo in the path and when I turned the module on it locked my out of the admin page with a path error. It was simple to remedy by reinstalling a copy of the backup Phorum database and reinstalling the module, getting the path right that time. I was trying to figure out where the path name could be checked and a message sent back to note that the path name was wrong. It is beyond my programming skills.

Thanks again for the great work....
Tom

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tphart
Wilco,
I did have one problem with the installing the module that has to do with setting the path to Joomla. I had a typo in the path and when I turned the module on it locked my out of the admin page with a path error. It was simple to remedy by reinstalling a copy of the backup Phorum database and reinstalling the module, getting the path right that time. I was trying to figure out where the path name could be checked and a message sent back to note that the path name was wrong. It is beyond my programming skills.
Tom

Re-installing was not required, you could have tweaked the config manually...anyway, think it is good to add a basic check in the main config before we can proceed, should not be that hard. Will add this in the next beta.

Did you get it to run?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2009 03:46PM by Wilco Jansen.

Yes, we now have our users in sync across both Joomla and Phorum, have been adding, deleting, and setting active status with no problems. We work mainly with the Joomla user manager, but have tried it both ways and it works fine.

Hello.

First, thank you very much for your work !

I have one problem, though.

First the phorum module. I turn it on and then want to change the settings.

In the box stands /var/www . Do I have to delete that and enter [www.myjoomlainstall.com]

If I want to do that I get following error: "There are no settings for this module."

Any suggestions? Thank you very much.

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I use phorum 5.2.7 and joomla 1.59
joomla is on www.home.com
phorum is in www.home.com/phorum

Are you putting in the URL? I'm guessing you needed to put in the actual file path on the machine, not the URL.

EX:
- /var/www
- /var/www/mydomain.com
- /usr/www/account/mydomain.com

Something like that.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, try editing your Joomla PHP configuration file and temporarily add the following line of code:

die(getcwd());

That's probably the path you want.

Brutal, but effective.

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Sean Phelan
Sites By Sequoia - Web Marketing ... The Experts at Building Your Success Online

I tried all versions but still get the error. See picture.

I get the message everytime I press&want to SAVE.

The adress /var/www also does not get changed after pressing SAVE.

So saving a new adress does not work.

regards.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2009 03:12PM by diwolf.

Can you post a screenshot of the page where you try to change the /var/www ?

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Sean Phelan
Sites By Sequoia - Web Marketing ... The Experts at Building Your Success Online