Do i need to reinstall? to have my forums

[MB1]

cool thankx alot for the info

[samad64]

My advice is quite simple - keep the forum and the shopping cart separate. It may seem a good thing to have one login for both, but this is a minor consideration when set against the downside, which is -

Forums are a hackers favourite target, because of their mass mailing facilities. phpBB are better now than they used to be in updating thir software but hackers still find exploits in phpBB (and other forum software) on a fairly regular basis. If you use phpBB then:

1. Keep it separate from your Zen Cart site. I'd even recommend you keep it on a separate domain hosted on a different server.

2. Sign up to the phpBB update notification service - so you get an email straight away when a hack or bug is found which needs patching.

3. Apply the patch straight away - don't delay.

Vger

Wouldn't simply not allowing anyone to access those mass mailing features be sufficient? Reason I ask is because I have installed SMF on my site and turned off all Personal Messaging options.. the only e-mails people can receive are from the administrator / registration page.

I put them into the same database -- I guess that's kind of stupid of me, so I may just divide them into two separate databases -- one strictly for the forum, one strictly for zen cart.

[samad64]

edit: forum and store are in two separate databases now.. just thought i'd add that :)

[Vger]

Having two separate databases is marginally better than using just the one, but in addition to what spammers do the other main problem with forum software is that hackers use exploits in them to get into the server and once in they can wreak havoc. Many hosts, for this very reason, won't allow forums on their servers at all.

phpBB, because it is the most well known, gets exploited one or more times a year in some way or other. They are much better at patching it now. Other forum software gets by with older, more outdated, coding simply because they are not that well known or widely used. Hackers and spammers look for software which, once exploited, gets them into hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of sites. What I'm saying is that I doubt if Simple Machines Forum is any more secure than phpBB.

Vger

[samad64]

Having two separate databases is marginally better than using just the one, but in addition to what spammers do the other main problem with forum software is that hackers use exploits in them to get into the server and once in they can wreak havoc. Many hosts, for this very reason, won't allow forums on their servers at all.

phpBB, because it is the most well known, gets exploited one or more times a year in some way or other. They are much better at patching it now. Other forum software gets by with older, more outdated, coding simply because they are not that well known or widely used. Hackers and spammers look for software which, once exploited, gets them into hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of sites. What I'm saying is that I doubt if Simple Machines Forum is any more secure than phpBB.

Vger

yeah.. the only reason i went with SMF for my forums is because its not as well known.. so there probably aren't that many hacks for it right now. I was thinking about going with phpBB for its ease of integration with zencart, but then figured theres no point compromising security with having it integrated with a shop

eventually I may even drop the forums idea all-together.. since theres already more than enough gaming forums out there. I just liked the idea of having people regularly visit and be able to promote my store along with talk to other people who play video games :)

[Vger]

The problems I've always found with forums is that you need a large enough customer base who are into using forums to get any real momentum going and to keep it going. Nobody wants to visit a forum which only gets three or four visitors a day.

Vger

[magicfun]

Hello everyone,

I think I am trying to do something similar. In version 1.3.0.2 (the newest version of zen-cart), it allows you to check out and create a new username for phpBB.

My question is, can you somehow checkout with a username that already exists in phpBB? When I try to checkout with my existing phpBB username, it just says it doesn't exist in the database.

Can the two work together to see that the user actually exists in the phpBB database and allow them to checkout using their existing username?

This would be very helpful so you don't have to sign up twice...

Any info would be helpful..thanks.

[magicfun]

Anyone have any advice?