I’ve been wrangling over the best online tool to get some collaboration going with upcoming OK Drill (www.okdrill.org). I thought of this tool before, but didn’t really pursue, so I’m giving it another shot.
I was considering a tikiwiki, but that maybe overly too much for now — I’m just looking for basic comm.
It’s called phpBB (www.phpbb.com) and it’s a full-fledged BBS that allows all kinds of communication between people and groups.
The idea will be to have various people withn Ojai Valley communicate about upcoming OK Drill, including drawing in other CERT and Comm groups to assist.
Seems pretty easy to install. Created a subdomain, uploaded files, and then need to create a Sql Database:
Decompress the phpBB3 archive to a local directory on your system.
Upload all the files contained in this archive (retaining the directory structure) to a web accessible directory on your server or hosting account.
Change the permissions on config.php to be writable by all (666 or -rw-rw-rw- within your FTP Client)
Change the permissions on the following directories to be writable by all (777 or -rwxrwxrwx within your FTP Client):
store/, cache/, files/ and images/avatars/upload/.
Using your web browser visit the location you placed phpBB3 with the addition of install/index.php or pointing directly to install/, e.g. http://www.mydomain.com/phpBB3/install/, http://www.mydomain.com/forum/install/ etc.
Click the INSTALL tab, follow the steps and fill out all the requested information.
Change the permissions on config.php to be writable only by yourself (644 or -rw-r–r– within your FTP Client)
phpBB3 should now be available, please MAKE SURE you read at least Section 6 below for important, security related post-installation instructions.
So far so good after running install — except it flagged:
PHP setting register_globals is disabled:
phpBB will still run if this setting is enabled, but if possible, it is recommended that register_globals is disabled on your PHP install for security reasons.
RESOLVED re: Register Globals
Note: I did a quick web-search and found this forum link — http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=2090472
The install is fine as is and the setting would have to be changed by 1and1 anyway.
Cool!! Very cool BB — just need to learn how to Administer and then roll out.