Vag BBS copyright (c) 2002-2003 Hollis Potter
www.akgames.com
Version 1.13
subparseform.lib is from the book "Perl and CGI for the World Wide Web"
by Elizabeth Castro.
Released under the GNU General Public License version 2 (and all versions after.)
Use at your own risk.
1. About / Features / Requirements
2. Installation
3. Configure
4. Using
5. Known Bugs
6. License
1.ABOUT.
FEATURES: Private messages User icons
Tree-based layout Admin control
Dual-name mode User config
New message highlight Complete color customization
Full log with IPs IP banning
REQUIREMENTS: Perl 5 & CGI module (installed by default)
Per-session cookies enabled
I wrote this about a year ago (late 2002) for a D&D game I was in at the
time. Don't ask. Anyway, it did the job, so I've updated it for security and
I'm releasing it to the public under GPL. Enjoy. If you're reading this, and
you are using Vag BBS, please drop me a line at www.akgames.com sometime :)
version 1.13: Distro-fix: The tarball was missing the two jpegs. I'm a negligent bugger.
version 1.12: Bugfix: User icons work again (how bout that?) and the improper login link when no meta-refresh available fixed
version 1.11: Bugfix release (admin could see all private messages, but not view)
version 1.1 : IP logging & banning implemented and some minor code changes
version 1.01: Minor bug fix (false no-cookies message at login)
version 1.0 : First public release.
2.INSTALLATION.
Unpack vagbbs.tar.gz in your cgi-bin directory and CHMOD *.cgi to
executable. EX:
# gunzip -c vagbbs.tar.gz | tar -pvxf -
# chmod 755 ./vag/*.cgi
Now make a directory somewhere NOT in your web path and make it
write-accessible by the scripts (EX: /etc/vag). This is $rootpath in
'config'. If you have root access and apache, you can do this:
# chown apache [directory]
Or if not,
# chmod 777 [directory]
Inside that, make a directory called 'forums' and more inside of 'forums'
with the names of the forums you want. An example final path would be
/etc/vag/forums/News Make sure these are all write-accessible for Vag.
(NOTE: Some browsers have problems with spaces in forum names when posting)
Now, if you want user icons enabled, make a web-accessible directory with
write-permissions and copy the two jpegs there (EX: /var/www/html/vagimg).
Otherwise, just copy them to any path reachable via URL (EX: /var/www/html).
This is $webpath and $localweb in 'config'.
Now configure.
3.CONFIGURE.
First thing you need to do is open all the .cgi files and make sure the
first line is pointing to where you have Perl installed!
Open 'config' and set up your paths. $admin needs to be set for privacy
mode 4 and the 'delete user' function (appears in your user config screen).
It also lets you see any and all private messages posted. If you want to
boost security and disable the delete-user feature, 'chmod 600 admin.cgi'
See 'config' for more.
4.USING.
Surf to tree.cgi to get a login page with an option to create a new user.
If you want to make your own login page somewhere else, just copy&paste
this code and replace /cgi-bin/vag/ with the right URL-
and for a new-user link-
Create New User
Make a user, log in, and start posting. User icons must be GIF as
that's the only format I had the specification for here in front of me, though
if folks really want it I'll put in jpeg some day.
Dual mode: You can let users post as different names than their username,
specifically for things like roleplaying and all that. If it's enabled, just
type the name you want to appear in the box above 'subject'. Username is still
displayed in parenthesis.
Privacy: Depending on what you have set, you can open a drop-down box
of usernames, enter the username directly, or only allow users to send
private messages to the user specified in $admin. As admin, the private
message box will come up as a text-input line instead if the latter is used.
Log: You can keep an eye on who logs in and posts by tailing the file
access.log in your $rootpath directory. EX: tail -f /etc/vag/access.log
User IPs can be found here.
Banning: In $rootpath (/etc/vag by default) create a plain text file called
banned-ips and on each line put either a full or partial IP. It will be denied
access to all scripts, even from logging in at all.
Admin: As administrator, the message ID will appear in parenthesis any time
you view a message (plain ascii files sitting in the forum directories) and
'Delete User' will appear in the User Config menu.
That's it. I probably left out a bunch of things, so drop me a line if
you have questions and/or can't get it working. File specs are in 'specs'.
-Hollis, 10/22/03, 12/21/03, 03/11/04
www.akgames.com
5.BUGS.
- Spaces in forums names -
Some web browsers will not properly follow the meta-tags for refreshing if
you have spaces in a forum name. IE is known to have this problem.
SOLUTION: Don't use spaces, use underscores _
6.LICENSE.
VAG BBs
Copyright (C) 2002-2003 Hollis J. Potter
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Full GNU GPL can be found in gpl.txt