Administration and Setup Manual for

A n y b o a r d

WWW Message Board System Version 6

 

Thank you for choosing AnyBoard! After using AnyBoard, we're sure you'll find it to be the BEST Web message board system available anywhere.

AnyBoard is better by design. We worked with message board administrators and others who have used other web-bbs programs, and we incorporated their suggestions and ideas into AnyBoard to bring you the best program with the features you need. AnyBoard gives you complete control over the appearance and operation of your message board.

AnyBoard was designed to meet the needs of the most demanding live message boards, which have very heavy traffic and suffer from various abuses and attacks. It was designed to provide rich and reliable functionality to both users and administrators. AnyBoard is the most fully featured discussion board program you will find. We invite you to try it and see for yourself.


 

AnyBoard’s main advantages:

 

AnyBoard Features

From users point of view

(each of these features may be enabled by the administrator independently of the others)

  • Multi-page threaded or non-threaded message board
  • Register and protect your identity with a password
  • Auto fill-in of your name and e-mail address after you login for each session.
  • Once logged in, you do not need to enter your user name again during the session.
  • The ability to modify your own posts.
  • The ability to delete your own posts.
  • The ability to prevent replies to any of your posts
  • The ability to send/receive email notifications for new posts.
  • The ability to upload a file when you post, which is then automatically linked. If a .gif or .jpg image file, it will be displayed automatically.
  • Identify new posts easily (by different color)
  • The ability to use HTML in the message body (HTML will not work in the Subject field).
  • The ability to add link URLs.
  • The ability to add image links.
  • The ability for the message body to be empty, sometimes called NT (No Text)  posts.
  • Posts with an image are so indicated on the main page.
  • Register just once for multiple forums on the same site. Login and password for each user will work for all forums.
  • You can search message body (CPU intensive) as well as subject field for keywords (Find feature) within a date range.
  • You can use the Overview feature to read top level posts (without replies)
  • Easy access to information.Very readable layout. At a glance of the message line, a user knows whether the post is new (coloring), size of the message, whether it has an image link inside, rating of the message (if enabled), number of replies to it, and the number of visits to it (if enabled). One can also collapse or expand the threading.
  • Modifiable user profiles. Registered users can create and modify their profiles and passwords.
  • Rate posts or articles and see stars and vote counts next to them. Detects and rejects "double-rating" on the same page.

      From administrators point of view

  • Reliability.  Forget about crashes, lost data and other problems with other boards. Reliability is the first feature we built into AnyBoard.
  • Security. All aspects of AnyBoard are secure. Administrative work, such as message board creation and management, are authenticated from the beginning to the end. Unlike some other boards, which can easily be broken into by programmers who read the code, AnyBoard has no security holes.
  • Fast. Generated html pages are compact and fast to load through highly efficient algorithms and other means.
  • Easy to install and configure. Just set the paths to perl 5 and the master config directory, everything else is done through the web browser. Even a beginner can have a board up in a few minutes.
  • Multiple boards from a single program. No need to have different instalations of the main program. A single script can run all the different message boards you want.
  • Highly customizable. Have your AnyBoard forum match the rest of your site or make it look like anything you want, from style to colors you choose, with features you select and enable.
  • Use pre-configured templates or create your own. We make it easy for you to get started right away by choosing any of our stock settings
  • Frame / noframe interfaces. Make your choice. Change your mind? Easy to change your board and all messages, even those already posted.
  • Threading / no threading. Choose if you want messages to be threaded or not on the board.
  • Highly configurable. It allows you to set the depth of threading, whether text is inlined, number of articles per page, colors, fonts, backgrounds... With over 100 configurable parameters, you can create Internet forums of completely different styles at the click of a button.
  • Regeneration Board and existing messages can easily and rapidly be regenerated to reflect changed configuration.
  • Index recovery even after operating system crash.
  • Powerful and easy to use administrative functions, such as delete or archive by subject, IP address, date or author.
  • Admin activities are logged with IPs and resolved hostnames.
  • Forbidden word & name features can prevent posting of unsuitable language and names and automatically ban users who have a predetermined number of violations. Banned user will find it hard to get back in.
  • Detection and prevention of "posting bombs". E-mail alarm of possible attacks is sent to admin.
  • Two level administration - administrator and moderator. Administrator has all rights while moderator has those assigned by the administrator. Moderator rights always exclude the ability to configure the message boards.
  • Pre Moderation. When enabled, messages must be first reviewed and approved by moderator before showing up in the board.
  • User registration.  Users can be required to register and login to post and for other functions.
  • Email validation on user registration. If enabled, when user registers, an e-mail is sent to user provided e-mail addresses with a unique activation link to activate the account. The user may also need to acknowledge acceptance of the forum rules.
  • Users will find themselves exposed if they try to assume multiple identities. All names used by a poster are indicated on individual message pages posted by that same person.
  • Visit counters. AnyBoard can track and display number of visits to a message.
  • Email notification of new messages to a set of e-mail addresses, of responses to orginal posters.
  • Many more.... To see the complete list of features, simply create an AnyBoard forum yourself, go to the admin page, and look at the available Notification, Posting Policy, Control, Presentation and Label configuration parameters.

AnyBoard Usage

The AnyBoard Main Forum screen (see figure 1) is composed of several parts. It’s helpful to understand what the basic parts of the screen are, to assist you in understanding exactly what changes when you want to customize the display.

Figure 1 - Example Main Forum Screen

 

The four basic parts of the AnyBoard Main Forum screen are:

  1. The Forum Header area
  2. The Navigation bar
  3. The Message Display area
  4. The Forum Footer area

 

Starting from the top, the first part of the screen is the Forum Header area. This board simply put the its name in the header area.

The background has been set to light gray. The background could also have been set to a tiled bitmap image with the <BODY BACKGROUND="...> HTML tag. The <BODY> tag is also the place for setting link and vlink colors.

The Navigation bar color has been set to an image with texture. It hosts the command links such as Post Message, these links can be set to use icons. The numbers 929-938/938 on the left edge of bar tell us that there are 938 messages in this board, and the front page is displaying #929 to #938. Older messages can be accessed from the Previous link on the bar. The Search forum command allows user to find messages based on search pattern and posting time. The Overview command collapses the links, so that only the top level threads are shown. The Register command is for new users to register their names. The Login command is for users to login to the board, so they don't have to type in their names each time they post.

Below the top navigation bar, there is a general message to users.

In the middle is the Message Display area, with the Topic lines (also called Subject lines) and Reply lines visible.

The Topic line background color and the Reply line background color have both been set to slightly different shades of gray, providing a contrast between them.

The message lines contain various information:

Depending on configuration, your board may display information. For example, if rating function is enabled, then there will be a Rate it! link at the end. If visit counter is enabled, the number of reads will be shown. You can also let anyboard display the size of the message body and use different date format.

Finally, at the bottom of the screen is the Forum Footer area. No changes have been made to the Forum footer area on this board.

This is just one example of how AnyBoard can be customized. With all the available AnyBoard options, the number of possible configuration styles runs into the thousands. The "look and feel" of AnyBoard is limited only by your imagination.

 

Post a message

Clicking on the Post message link on the navigation bar brings up the post message form

There is a password entry box right the the author name, this is because the board has regsitration feature turn on but the author did not go through the login process. If the author login first, he does not need to enter his name/password when making posts. AnyBoard can force users to login first in order to post messages.

Since this board has notification enabled (only available in Gold version), there are various checkboxes to allow the author to specify whether email notification is to be sent. If the author check the Email notification box right to the POST! button, an email will be sent to the board administrator.

Also, the author can attach a file along with the message by clicking on the Browse button and selecting a file on his/her PC.

Search messages

The Search forum link brings up the form below:

The search pattern must be a PERL regular expression, for example, to search for words delete OR remove, the pattern is delete|remove. The meaning of other fields are obvious.

Note, if you do not enter a value for a field, that field won't be used in the search criteria. For example, if you only specify a date range and no value for others, the search will return all messages posted in that date range. Another example, to find out all messages that contain images, check the "Only if contain image" box and clear out all other fields.

The result from a search looks like this

Overview of all messages

For a busy message board, there might be thousands of messages and it is impossible to show all messages on the front page, to get an overview of all the messages, one can use the Overview command, which shows the top messages only for all the threads. An overview looks like this

Note the 1-938/938 p.A label on the navigation bar, which means it is displaying all messages.

View previous pages

Click on the Previous link to with the next older page.

The generic command (link) to page N is ?cmd=view_page&pgno=N&depth=d, where N is the page number, and d the link depth to show. For example, to view page 3, but only show the top message of each thread, the link is ?cmd=view_page&pgno=3&depth=1.

Inside a message

AnyBoard Installation

Follow these steps to install AnyBoard (tm).

To be able to create new message boards via the Web, AnyBoard (tm) needs to have a Master Administrator, who has special privileges to create and delete message boards. Each message board has its own board administrator, who can configure the boards, delete or archive messages, delete or disable users, etc. AnyBoard needs one common directory to store crucial password information for Master Admin., which is called the Master Config Directory. This directory also stores user passwords if the user registration feature is enabled. You should choose a directory that is NOT accessible from the Web.

Installation procedure:

  1. Download anyboard.tar or anyboard.zip. Unpack anytboard.tar or anyboard.zip to extract the AnyBoard installation directory "anyboard_lite" to your disk.

  2. Follow instructions in the "install.txt" file.

  3. At this point you should have a script named "anyboard.cgi" (or with whatever extension you enter) in your working directory.

  4. Copy this script to your CGI directory. Make sure the permission for the CGI file is set to 755.

After these steps, AnyBoard is successfully installed and ready to use through the URL

http://yoursite/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi.

You may now proceed to create message boards.

Create Message Board

To create new board, you need to access the CGI with the URL:

http://yoursite/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?cmd=init

Examples:

http://netbula.com/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?cmd=init (system cgi)

http://netbula.com/~ydx/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi?cmd=init (user’s private CGI)

This URL should bring you to a form with the following fields:

This form asks you for the Master Admin name and password which you have entered during installation process, plus the information for the new forum. Each new forum must be in its own directory. The most important one is the Virtual Path to the directory of the new forum.

Forum Domain Virtual Path

The virtual path is the path name after the domain name in the URL. This is most important, since AnyBoard will figure out the physical path from the virtual path and create the directories for you. If the wrong virtual path is entered, it will most probably result in a directory creation error.

Examples:

http://netbula.com/products/powerrpc/ /products/powerrpc/

http://netbula.com/~ydx/test/ /~ydx/test/


If you choose the virtual path of /forum/, AnyBoard will create a forum that is accessed at http://mydomain/forum/index.html (or whatever extension you've chosen).

After entering the information, submit the form. AnyBoard will try to create the directory for the new forum. If successful, it will bring you to the Admin Login page for the new forum. If there is an error, it will display the error, which is probably due to lack of permission for the script to create directories. In that case, chmod the top directory (change the mode, or set permission).

Initially, there is no password for the forum admin, simply enter the username you chose (leave password empty) and submit the form, and you will be brought to the administration page for the new forum.

You must now change the password for the admin immediately, then login again.

Optional Setting variables

These are variables that are at the top of the script.


 

AnyBoard Administration

Administer Admin and moderators

Change Admin Login and Password:

This allows you to change the Admin login name and the password associated with it.

Change Moderator Login and Password:

This allows you to change the Moderator login name and the password associated with it. From this screen you may also select whether or not Moderators are allowed to delete users and/or messages.

 

Regeneration and backup

 The html pages are all generated from the data files and indexes, the regeneration function can regen the html files. For example, when you move a forum from one server to another, you don't need the html files under the posts directory, instead, just copy the postdata/ and archive/ directory, and you can regen the files under the posts directory.

AnyBoard does not regen individual messages at configuration change, but you can force it to do this by checking the first box in the above.

The recover function is for restore a board after a fatal operating system failure which resulted in the corruption of the index file.

Backup uses the archive command set in the script (default is zip) to pack/compress the board files and return it to your browser, you should save this file with zip extension.

Deletion and archive of messages

The delete function remove messages and their associated files from the server, deleted messages can't be restored.

The archive function compact and move the messages to the archive directory, archived messages can't brought back to live discussion and can't be modified (at least, not from AnyBoard).


When delete by subject, you can specify optionally a match pattern for the subject/author and a thread depth to display. For a board with thousands of messages, it is time consuming for your browser to render a page with large and complex structures, by setting these restrictions, you can reduce the size of the page for the delete form.


The delete by subject form looks like this,

to delete the unwanted messages, check the boxes left to the subject, and then click the submit button (not shown). If the "include whole thread" box is checked, then the messages and their replies are all removed, otherwise, only the messages themselves are deleted. Once the form is submitted, a window pops up with the detailed information about the messages that were deleted.

The Archive and Moderate message screens look similar to the figure above.

The delete by author form looks like this:

Other functions

Sample admin login record

If you checked the "Disable it" box when deleting a user, the username is added to a .kill file and it can't be reused.

Configure board options

The administrator can configure the board by selecting one category and click on the Configure button.

For instance, a portion of the presentation configuration screen looks like this


This page list all the configuration parameters, and their meaning are explained in more detail below.

Configure Control Options

The "Control" screen allows configuration of the following options:

Require posters to enable Cookies:

When enabled, users cannot post if they do not enable cookies. AnyBoard uses cookies for several functions, including registration, counting user violations, allowing users to edit messages, tracking and exposure of posters with multiple identities, and more.

Display Posters Alias’s:

By tracking the IP Address of a user, AnyBoard can determine when a user is creating multiple user accounts and "expose" the user. Tracking still occurs even if this feature is turned off.

Auto fill E-mail address:

Automatically fill in the email address for registered users when they post.

Do NOT show link to forum on login/register form:

When this is checked, there will be no link to the forum on the login and register form.

Enable user registration with name and password:

Allows users to register so they can "claim" a particular User Name. A registered user will have an (R) sign after the name.

Enforce user password registration:

This forces Users to register to be able post messages.

Enable moderation function:
Posts must be approved before showing up. When this is enabled, an additional button, the Approve button will be displayed.

Require e-mail validation on user registration:

When enabled, an email with validation information will be sent to the user when they register. A user account is not activated until he/she accesses the activation link. You must setup the SMTP server information during installation for this to work.

CC validation e-mail to admin:

CC the validation e-mail, which contains user's password in plain text to admin.

Do not share user/password among different forums:

If unchecked, username password are shared among all forums, otherwise, a user has to register for each forum.

Enable user login:

Once logged in, the user does not need to enter their user name again, AnyBoard will enter it for them automatically. This can be enabled with or without tuning on the registration function.

Require user to login first:

This option forces a user to Login before they can post any messages.

Require user to login first to read message:

As it says.

Allow user to search message body:

This option allows users to do text-searches on the message content and author’s names. This is very handy for finding a specific post, or for finding posts on a specific subject..

List of forbidden names separated by |:

This text-box is where you would the list user names that you don’t want to be able to Register, Login or Post. Applies to the "Subject" or "Posted by" fields.

(For example, "Test|Make Easy Money|Make Money Fast!"

Disallow user after this many violations:

After this number of violations (using Forbidden Words), the poster will be locked out from the message board. Setting this number to nothing (leaving the field empty) will effectively turn this function off.

Automatic purge when number of messages is greater than:

This number sets the maximum number of messages that will be kept. When the number of messages is greater than this number, AnyBoard will delete the excess messages automatically.

Archive purged messages:

Works in conjunction with "Automatic Purge". Instead of deleting excess messages, AnyBoard will archive them.

Log errors:

Determines whether or not AnyBoard will record errors to a log file for later viewing.

Enable file locking for maximum system integrity:

Most UNIX servers have file-locking capability (flock). This prevents messages from being overwritten or merged if server traffic is heavy (or if many users are all posting at the same time). ALWAYS use this feature if your system supports it. AnyBoard will check for the availability of file locking and return an error if it is not available on your server.

 

 

Configure Posting Policy Options

The "Posting Policy" screen allows configuration of the following options:

Disallow posting. Freeze the forum:

Just what it says. Nobody can post new messages when this option is selected.

Disable follow-up:

Prevents posters from replying to messages, but allows then to post a new top-level message.

Disable message link threading

Shows message links linearly, rather than threaded.

List of forbidden words/patterns, separated by | (or any Perl RE):

This text-box is where you list any words or word-patterns that you don’t want a user to be able to use in a post. If they do use any of these words, a configurable message is displayed, warning the user. Each time the user does this, it counts as a "violation" against them. Once the violation count is met, the user is automatically banned from the forum. NOTE: "RE" stands for "regular expression".

List of blocked IP addresses, separated by | (or a general RE):

This text-box is where you list any IP Address’s that you do not want to be able to use the forums. IP Addresses in this box will be "screened out" and will not be able to access the message board.

Warning message when forbidden words are detected:

This is where you set the "Forbidden Words" error message you want displayed to an offending user. HTML is allowed in this text-box.

Warning message when failed admin login is detected:
Put some warning message here.
Note: failed admin logins are logged.

Allow HTML in message body:

Sets whether or not user may embed HTML code in the message body. This a very desirable feature for the advanced user, as it allows them to display images, make selected text bold or italic, etc. With this set, any legal HTML tag is allowed in the message body.

Do NOT carry subject line over in reply

By default, when user reply to a message, AnyBoard carries the original subject over, prepended with "RE:", uncheck this box to disable this.

Quote original text when reply:

By default, AnyBoard does not quote the original text in the reply form, checking this box enables the quoting.

Allow user to add link URL:

With this checked, the user is provided a text-box at the bottom of the "Post Message" screen, where they may enter a "clickable" URL that will be available to anyone who reads the message. The URL could, for example, lead to the posters homepage or a website of interest.

Allow user to add image:

With this checked, the user is provided a text-box at the bottom of the "Post Message" screen, where they may enter a URL to an image file. Users that view this message will see the image specified in the URL.

Allow user to upload file:

With this checked, an additional text-box appears at the bottom of the Post form, which allows a user to select an attachment file to be sent along with the message text. The uploaded file is stored in the uploads/ directory for a forum. If the attachment is a GIF/JPEG file, it will be automatically linked with a <IMG> tag.


Allow user to modify message body after posting:

If set, the username on the main page will be linked to an "Edit message" page, which allows the user to go back and edit the messages that they post. This is an excellent feature for things like correcting spelling mistakes, adding additional text to the message, etc. To use this feature, you must also enable the registration feature, because the user must be authenticated to modify his/her message.

Message can be modified only if posted by registered user:

If registration is optional on your forum, checking this box disallow the messages posted by a unregistered user to be modified, even if the user register the name later.

Allow user to delete message after posting

When this is set, a registered user can delete his/her own posts.

Allow message body to be empty:

When checked, users can fill out the Subject line without having to put any text in the message body itself. This is very handy for quick, one-line replies to a message or to ask a simple question that doesn’t require any explanation.

Allow user to disallow replies to his/her posts:

If checked, the user has the ability to make his/her message stand alone, so that others can't post a reply for it.

Allow duplicated subject

By default, AnyBoard rejects a post which has identical subject line with one of the last 20 posts (maybe the user posted the same message twiec?). Check this allows duplicated subjects, always.

Allow user to rate the posts:
When enabled, a user can rate the messages in 5 star rating scheme. AnyBoard detects attempts by a user to rate the same article two or more times.

Show rating only after this many votes
Don’t display the average rating until this many votes have been received.

Maximum length of message subject:

Sets how many characters maximum the Subject line can contain.

Maximum length of author name:

Sets how many characters maximum the user’s name can be.

Maximum length of message body:

Sets how many characters maximum the message body can contain. Use this setting to prevent posters from pasting in 500K of text, for example.

Minimum time interval (in seconds) between two posts from the same IP:

Used for detecting "message bombing", where a malicious poster uses a program to "flood" the board by sending (for example) 1000 messages. A good base setting is in the range of 30 to 60 seconds. Set to 30 seconds, an e-mail robot will only be able to send two messages a minute.

E-mail Admin if 20 messages arrived within less than this many seconds:

Sets the number of seconds that 20 messages can arrive in before AnyBoard will notify you by email. This feature is used to detect a suspicious "flood" of messages that suddenly begin arriving. (From a "posting bomb", for example.)

Allow user to view configurations of the forum:

Lets the users see how the board is configured, but does not allow them to change any of the settings.

Physical path (not URL) to the forum usage agreement (rules) file:

Enter the physical location to your "Rules" file into this text-box. This is the file that AnyBoard will show to new users, who must view and agree to the contents when the "email registration" feature is turned on. (For example, "No flaming", no advertising", etc.)

The path is NOT an "http:" location, but is the server’s directory path to the file (for example, "/usr/home/yourdomain/newuserfaq.htm")

Configure Presentation

 

The "Presentation" screen allows configuration of the following options:

Separator between topics:

May be set to an image of your choice, a horizontal rule <HR>, a line of text, or may be left blank.

Depth of links on main page:

Sets how "deep" links will be displayed on the main forum page. Typical settings are from 4 to 128.

Show subject in bold text:

Shows the "Subject:" line in bold text so it stands out more clearly.

Show dates in short format

This makes the message link lines shorter.

Show size of message body:

Adds a small text line in the Subject line that indicates how big the message body is.

Show number of followups to a message

When set, a message topic has a +n sign to indicates that it has n immediate followups.

Indicate on main page whether the user is registered:

If checked, a registered user will have a (R) sign after their name on the front page.

Indicate if there is an image link in message:

Allows users to see if a particular message has an image link in it. Ref: img label in label configuration.

Don't show author's email address in message:

If checked, author's email address is not shown in the message. The email information is still captured and stored, so the user can receive notifications.

Show number of visits to a message

Display number of visits to each message.

Show message which has more than this many visits as hot:

Messages has more this many reads will show the number of visits in red color.

Show navigate/command bar at bottom:

Adds an additional Navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. Mainly a convenience for users so they don’t have to scroll back to the top of the page.

Show forum name on nav bar

If unchecked, the forum name won’t show up on the navigation bar.

Show message less than this many minutes old as new

Set the number of minutes a message is considered to be "new". Messages marked as "new" have the time and date field shown in a dark green color.

Text color for the date of new messages:

Default color for new posts are dark green, but can be set to a different color with this configuration.

Inline follow-up messages:

Put the contents of a message and the contents of its follow-up messages into the same HTML file.

Inline all messages (like a guest book):

Put the contents of all messages into the main page of the message board.

Thread inline message text:

The inlined message text will be indented according to its depth just like message links on the main page.

Adopt orphan message:

When you delete a message in the middle of a thread, you are breaking the links to any messages above or below it. The message below the now deleted one is "orphaned" and would normally become a top level message. However, when this option is enabled, the orphaned message will be placed under a "zombie parent", maintaining the threading.

Add link to URL in the message

Automatically make a hyper link to URLs present in the message.

Replace newline with <br>:

If a user’s PC sends a "newline" character, AnyBoard will change it to the HTML "<BR>" tag. This box would normally be left "checked".

Indent the follow-up links/texts:

Pushes replies to a message "in" from the left edge so they can be easily distinguished from the parent message This box would normally be left "checked".

Width of the message area

With the message links area in percentage or absolute value.

Color Selection Settings

The following items are all color selections, their meaning should be obvious. All are set with an RGB-hex format number tag, such as "#00FF00" for pure blue, or "#FF0000" for pure red.

Play with these settings to give your message board a unique look, with your own personalized color scheme. Remember, that in general, dark text on a light background is easiest on the eyes. Try to avoid garish or contrasting color combinations that will give your users headaches.

Background color of next topic header (This one may be set to empty)

Background color of topic header

Text color of topic header

Text color of next topic header

Background color of follows:

Background color of follows of next topic

Background color of the navigation bar

background color of the followup links in message

Background color of the post message form

background color of the command forms

 

HTML Code Boxes

The following text-boxes allow you to place HTML tags in the AnyBoard screens. This is where you can really customize the look and feel of the message board. Any legal HTML tag is allowed. This means you may put text, images, tables, or any other HTML formatting you want on to the AnyBoard screens listed. The first three are grouped together- think of them as the "beginning" and "ending" location where your HTML code goes.

 

Forum header html, starting from <html>

Html between top navigation bar and message list

Html between message list and bottom navigation bar(if present)

Forum footer html

Message header html, starting from <body>

Message footer html, ending with </body> </html>:

Post form header html, starting from <body>

Post footer html, ending with </body> </html>

Separator between message header and message body: (Typically set to a horizontal rule <HR> or to nothing.)

Delimiter at the end of message body

Appears at the bottom of the message text. This is often set to a horizontal rule <HR>.

Number of message links per page

Controls the maximum number of links that will fit on the Main Forum page. Older messages go on separate pages, accessed from the "Previous" link.

Use frame interface

As it says.

Frame set attribute

Attributes of the frameset. Default is COLS="40%, *", for a two column frameset. Change COLS to ROWS for horizontal frames.

URL of the welcome page

Url of the right or bottom frame. Default is about:blank.

 Forum Font Configuration

This section allows you to set font attributes for various texts.

Suppose you enter the font atttribute as

size=-1 face="Arial"

AnyBoard will wrap the affected text with the tag

<font size=-1 face="Arial"> </font>


The following font settings are available

The last font setting allows the admin/moderators to have a different font in their names, so their posts stand out.

 

Configure Label Options

The "Label" screen allows configuration of the text on the links or command labels that the users will see. Note that some of these labels/links may be used in more than one place in the message board screens.

Any of these labels may also be set to display a graphical image (like a button) by using the <IMG SRC=...> tag, referencing an existing image file on your server. The image URL you provide should be an absolute URL to the image file, for example http://site/images/image.gif or simply "/images/image.gif".

Alternatively, labels and their associated links may be hidden by simply deleting the text in the corresponding text field.

"(N)" next to a command label indicates that this command link appears (or could appear) on the Navigation bar.

"(P)" next to a command label indicates that this command link appears (or could appear) in the Post Message screen.

"(R)" next to a command label indicates that this command link appears (or could appear) in the Read Message screen.

 

 

 

Command Label

Affected Item



Label for Post Message
(N)
Sets the text in the Navigation bar for the "Post a new message" function


Text for Reply
(R)
Sets the text in the link for the "Reply to message" function


Label for Register
(P)
Sets the text in the link for the "Register" function so the user can get a password


Label for Login
(N)
Sets the text in the Navigation bar for the "Login" function


Text for Re
Sets the text for the "Reply To" field in a message


Text for Star used in rating:
This is used to show the stars for the rating of a message. By using a <IMG> tag, you can make it look very nice. Default is *.


Text for the label that indictes image presence
Default is img in red color. Change it to a small icon may be cool.


Text for Rate:
The label for the rating command. Default is "Rate it" in small font.


String for Posted by
(R)
Sets the text for the "Posted By" field in a message


Text for Post button
(P)
Sets the text for the Submit button used for submitting a post to the message board


Text for Reset button
Sets the text on the Reset button of the Post Message form


Text for Submit
Sets the text on the Submit button of other forms such as the configuration screens


Text for Reset
Sets the text on the Reset button of other forms such as the configuration screens


Text for E-Mail label
(R)(P)
Sets the text that indicates an e-mail address field in a message or reply screen


Text for name label
(R)(P)
Sets the text that appears before the "Name" field in a message or reply screen


Text for password label
(P)
Sets the text that appears before a password box (for login, post, etc.)


Text for Subject (P)
Sets the text used in the message and reply screens for the "Subject" line


Text for Message
(R)(P)
Sets the text used in message and reply screens


Text for Message body
???????????????


Text for Link
(P)
Sets the text in the Post Message screen "Link" field (if used)


Text for URL
(P)
Sets the text in the Post Message screen "URL" field (if used)


Text for Title
Sets the text used in message and reply screens


Text for Original
Sets the text in the link that takes you to the current messages


Text for Image
(P)
Sets the text in the Post Message screen "Image" field (if used)


Text for Main Forum link
(R)(P)
Sets the text for the link to go back to the Main Forum


Text for link to earlier messages
Sets the text in the link to previous messages


Text for Overview
(N)
Sets the text in the Navigation bar that "collapses" the Main Forum screen to show only top level Subjects (see "Newest message link")


Text for Find
(N)
Sets the text in the Navigation bar for the "Search" function


Text for Options
(N)
Sets the text in the Navigation bar to allow users to view the board’s configuration settings


Text for Newest message link
(N)
Sets the text in the Navigation bar that expands the Main Forum screen to show Subjects and all Replies (see "Overview link")


Text for Follow-ups
Sets the text in the message screen that indicates replies to the currently displayed message


Text for Admin
(N)
Sets the text in the Navigation bar for the Admin Login screen. (You may want to hide this text or use a transparent .GIF file so users don’t see the command link.)

 

Configure Notification Options

The "Notification" screen allows configuration of the email Notification settings.

Enable e-mail notification on new message:

Sends an email to the addresses in the "List of e-mail addresses" text-box every time a new message is posted. This can be useful when your message board is for technical support (notify support), or for work discussions (notify people in a mailing list).

Let user decide whether to send notification (if enabled):

Gives the user the option of whether or not AnyBoard will send e-mail notification. This option is only seen when e-mail notification is turned on.

Message telling user choose notification admin

As it says.

Include full message body in notification:

When selected, the entire message is put into the notification e-mail that is sent.

Inform posters about notification email delivery status:

When enabled, lets posters know their message has been delivered.

List of e-mail addresses to be notified, separated by comma:

Enter the e-mail addresses to be notified in this text-box. (For example: joesmith@somedomain.com,billjones@anotherdomain.com, programmers@internal). Entries must have a comma separating them or no mail will be sent.

E-mail address from which notification is sent.

Notification e-mails will have this as the return address. This is also used as the FROM address of validation emails to the users when e-mail registration is turned on.

Allow user to choose to receive e-mail notification of responses (suggest use only if e-mail validation is set)

When a user posts a new message, he/she can check a box to indicate that e-mail notification of replies to the message is requested. Note, if the user is registered, she/he does not need to input an email address, as AnyBoard can take the email from his/her profile, however, if an email address is specified in the post, it is the one that will be used.

Allow responding author to send e-mail notification to original author

This allows a replying user to optionally notify the author of the message which is being replied to.

SMTP server for sending email (override script setting):

This allows the admin to specify a SMTP server name different from the one set in the script.

Configure Name Options

The "Configure Name" screen allows you to set the forum name that appears on the left side in the navigation bar. Note that HTML tags are NOT allowed in this field. It also sets the file name of the main forum page (default is index.html), and the extension of all other html pages.

For instance, if you want to add SSI (server side includes) tags into the pages, you should use shtml for the file extension.

Other Administration Options

 

"Reconfigure With … Options"

Resets the message board with the stock options.

"Delete User" (and "Disable?")

This button does just what you’d expect- it deletes a user account, when the Disable box is checked, the user is banned forever. Note: This feature is disabled in the distribution version of AnyBoard.

"Show User List"

This allows you to view the user list, you can enter an optional regular expression to display only users that match the pattern.

"Delete Message By: Subject Pattern (*) Depth (*) Date IP Author "

This option allows you to selectively delete messages based on the Subject line, reply depth, the date of post, IP Address or author. If "Subject" is selected, all current messages will be shown, you can limit the number of messages displayed by supplying an optional match pattern and an optional limit for the depth of the links.

"Archive Message By: Thread Date IP Author"

Allows you to archive all messages that meet the criteria selected, such as a specific thread, or by date, IP Address or author. Note: This feature is disabled in the distribution version of AnyBoard.

Regenerate forum

In some case, you need to manually regenerate the forum from data and index files. For example, when you change an inline option, you need to regen both the main page and individual messages html files.

Recover from data files

The indexes from which main page is generated are stored in a separate file, this function allows you to regen the index from the individual data files. For example, if you had a operating system crash and the index is lost, you can recover using this function.

Please note, some of the features are disabled in the AnyBoard distribution version downloadable from the Netbula site. The rating, moderation, delete user, and archive functions are not available.

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions

There are many message board programs out there, why did you create AnyBoard?

We used to use a very popular message board, but that one crashes frequently, and it is almost impossible to recover from the corrupted file. We also looked at other message boards, but they lack the features/look we need, so we decided to write our own.

Why the name AnyBoard?

It means it can be configured as any style message board and works perfectly. 

What distinguish AnyBoard from others?

Total access, total control, total configuration, total integrity... for both administrators and users.

What are the system requirements?

Perl 5 and http server compliant to the CGI standard.
Note: IIS is not compliant to the CGI standard, we have a special code to handle it.

I am using Windows NT and IIS server? Does AnyBoard support them?
IIS has a broken CGI implementation, the normal installation procedure won't work for IIS. Follow the IIS installation instructions.

How did you make it reliable?

When two or more users are trying to post messages at the same time, they will be updating the main forum page simultaneously.  If this is not handled properly, the message board will be corrupted. Message boards like WWWBoard suffer from such problems. Whenever two people are modifying the WWWBoard at roughly the same time, the whole board will be corrupted and the information on the board becomes inconsistent or totally lost.

AnyBoard is designed to be robust under race conditions. In addition, on systems with flock, AnyBoard uses flock to protect all critical sections. With our superior design, even on systems which do not have flock, the risk of corrupting the whole message board is also zero (though individual messages may get corrupted). AnyBoard has built-in triple fault-tolerance and error recovery. Even if you delete the crucial index files by accident, it can still recover.

How do you make it fast?
AnyBoard is designed and written by software engineers who have in-depth knowledge of operating systems, networking, and Perl 5. It does things as fast as possible. Firstly, don't be scared by the size of the AnyBoard script. When AnyBoard is executed, not all of its near 5000 lines of code is compiled by Perl. Instead, the code is compiled as needed. You can time the compilation time by doing a dry run of the script on the command line, it is fast. Secondly, AnyBoard uses very efficient algorithms to do things.

How do you make it secure?
AnyBoard uses the UNIX password checking mechanism: passwords are one-way encrypted. All vital operations are authenticated with username and passwords before they are performed. Passwords are sent using a cookie, which makes the authentication process transparent. The cookie is destroyed upon the end of your browser session.

I want to edit the script to change some look & feel, can I do that?

You are strongly discouraged from doing that. 1) Almost every aspect of AnyBoard can be configured from the admin page. 2) Editing the code can easily break the program.


I installed AnyBoard, but got an "internal server error" from my http server.

The internal server error could be caused by syntax error in the script or missing modules. Make sure that Perl 5 is used and that there are no simple typos in editing the script. If you have command line access at the server, run the script on the command line, and see what errors Perl reports.

Netbula can install the script for you at a small cost (to be determined).

I want to download the passwords anyboard stored, but I can't access the files.

This problem is caused by the fact that your system's CGI is runing as a user different from your ftp/shell login. To solve the problem, write, install and then run a one line CGI script to change the permissions. Example:

#!/bin/sh
chmod 777
a_file_or_directory


What is the meaning of the URL

"http://site/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi/dir1/dir2/?cmd=log ?"

Here, the /dir1/dir2/ is merely an additional parameter passed to the script. It is called PATH_INFO. AnyBoard uses this to identify different message boards.

How do I setup a list of forbidden words or names?

The exclusion pattern must be a Perl regular expression. If you want to disallow a list of words, you must separate them by |. You can use other Perl expressions that will allow you to exclude groups of words without entering each one. \sex.* for instance, will exclude sex and any word starting with it, like sexy, sexual, etc.

I changed the inline message options in the Presentation settings, but I can't access the old posts.

AnyBoard only regenerates the main forum page on configuration changes. You need to let it regenerate forum pages AND individual messages.

What does "Require posters to send Cookies" actually do? I know what cookies are, but what purpose are they used for with AnyBoard?

When enabled, people can't post if they do not enable cookies. AnyBoard uses a cookie for several functions, registration, editing, exposure of multiple identities, and more.

What does "Disallow user after this many violations" do? What exactly is a violation? Can this be turned off?

It means that AnyBoard will lock out any user that has used banned words as specified in the forbidden words list, after a predetermined number of times. You can simply set that number to a large number or leave the field blank to turn it off, in effect.

How can I tell if my system can use the "Enable file locking" feature?

AnyBoard will try to see if it is possible to enable file locking, and will return an error message if it can’t. If it can't, you’re probably missing the "Fctnl" module. Ask your system administrator to fix or install it, as this is a standard module on most UNIX systems. You should ALWAYS use file locking if it is available on your server.

If my system does not have flock or I do not enable flock, will AnyBoard crash?

NO! AnyBoard will not crash. Without flock, it is possible that the some individual html files or even the main forum page get corrupted, but that is not the end of the world, since these files are merely products from the data files. You can regenerate them easily: just login to the forum and click the regenerate button.

I changed the inline message options in the Presentation settings, and I can't access the old posts.

AnyBoard only regenerate the main forum page on configuration changes. You need to let it regenerate forum pages AND individual messages.

How does a moderating message board work?

When you enable the moderating feature, a new message is placed in a queue for review before showing up in the message board, the administrator can then click the "Approve" button to view and approve the pending messages, or click the "Delete" button to delete unwanted messages.

Regarding "Physical path (not URL) to the rules file"- What is a rules file? What is it for and what does it do?

When you enable the "email validation on registration" feature, an email will be sent to the user with a validation link. The user needs to click on the link to activate his or her account. After the user clicks on the link, they will be taken to a page that has the "Rules file" in it. These are the conditions for participating on the board (whatever you want them to agree to). The user must check a box indicating that he or she accepts the rules, and only then can the account be activated.

If you do not want the email validation/activation, then this will not come into play (default).

What is the format of the "Rules" file?

It can be a text file, or a file containing html tags, but not the <html>...<body> header and the corresponding closing tags. AnyBoard simply copies the whole file and displays it in an html page.

AnyBoard can't send email notifications, it got error XXX.

1) check if Socket module is there.

2) check SMTP server setting

3) check Notifier email address, SMTP servers do not allow email to be sent from an outsider.

4) If got "550, relaying denied", ask your sys admin for help...

In "Overview" mode, the background image does not appear as it does in "Newest" mode where you see all the messages. Is there a way to set this?

You must specify an absolute URL (start from / ) for the image.

When reading the actual messages, is there a way to set the background image or color of these pages?

Use the message header configuration. Since it starts from <body> you can specify everything like color, font, background image, link color, etc. The same applies to the main page and the post message form.

How do I detect a "posting bomb"?

Set the minimum interval between two posts from the same IP address to some number, for example, 30 seconds. If set to 30 seconds, a posting robot can only post 2 messages a minute. You can also let AnyBoard send an alarm e-mail if new messages arrive too fast.

How do I ban a user?

You can ban users by userid or IP address.

What are the names shown in parentheses after the poster's name?

Those are the names he or she used in the past. You can disable this by unselecting the "Display aliases" feature.

How do I use image icons for the labels (such as Post Message)?

In the Configure Label section, set the labels to a <img src="..."> tag.

How do I remove the "Admin" link on the front page?

In the configure Label section, set the "Admin" label to empty.

How do I upgrade to a new version of AnyBoard?

You DON'T need to go through the installation procedure again. Simply edit the new anyboard.cgi file to set the few variables (perl path, master_cfg dir, etc) specific to your configuration and replace the existing anyboard.cgi with the new one.

Where is the configuration stored? When I upgrade AnyBoard, does the configuration remain unchanged?

The configuration is stored in a file named .forum_cfg under the forum directory. AnyBoard tries to maintain backward compatibility as much as possible, therefore the configuration will be mostly kept on upgrade. To be sure, backup your configuration files, and test any upgrades with a test board before upgrading your existing forums.

I created a forum with a good set of settings. How do I duplicate it instead of creating new forums afresh?

Simply copy the existing forum (with all its sub directories) to another directory and regenerate the forum main page for the new forum. You can do this by logging in to the new forum using the URL

http://site/cgi-bin/anyboard.cgi/new_forum_virtual_path/?cmd=log

then configure the forum name. The forum pages will be regenerated.

How do I make my cool configuration show up as a optional setting for other forums?

Copy the .forum_cfg file to the master configuration directory, rename it to a file with extenstion .conf. For instance, if you name it blue-fancy.conf, then blue-fancy will show up as a stock configuration for all forums to choose.

Can you explain the purposes of the directories for a forum?

postdata/: directory that keeps the posted data, from which html pages are generated.

posts/: directory that contains the html pages for individual posts, these are generated from data files, therefore, you can delete all the files in this directory and have anyboard reproduce the forum main page and individual pages.

archive/: directory that contains the archived pages. The archived pages no longer have their corresponding data files, and one cannot respond to posts in the archives. If you delete the files in archive, they are gone forever, unlike those in the posts/ directory, which can be regenerated.

uploads/: directory that holds the uploaded files.


Where are passwords stored?

They are stored in the .fYz directory under the master config directory or the forum directory, depending on whether passwords are shared among forums. By default, there are 32 password files, a hashing algorithm is used to decide which file is used to store a user's password and profile. This hashing is needed to reduce the size of each password file and improve performance. For example, if a forum has 3200 users, then each file would contain 100 entries only.

I lost the admin password, what can I do?

Don't panic. You can manually edit the .forum_cfg file to nullify the admin password. Afterwards, you can login (without a password) and then add a password for admin. (more detailed instruction will be provided on request).

How do I make file X (or directory X) inaccessible from the Internet?

Most web servers provide you with the mechanism to protect a page or directory. Consult your web server manual or service provider.


AnyBoard License Terms & Conditions

AnyBoard is NOT free software, use of AnyBoard requires licenses issued by Netbula LLC.

Please visit http://netbula.com/anyboard/license.html for details.

*The license terms listed above may change without notice, always check our web page for most recent information.

To obtain the Gold or Platinum Editions of AnyBoard, you must register and purchase the respective license. Only the Silver version can be downloaded directly.

In all cases, the licensee must retain the program's CGI file basename (anyboard) to allow users to identify the program.

 

About Netbula

Netbula is technological leader in RPC (Remote Procedure Call) development tools for distributed computing, its flagship products are PowerRPC for UNIX and Windows NT/95, ONC RPC for Win32, and ORPC for Java (to be released soon). Its customers inlcude big enterprises such as CompuServ, Fujitsu, Nokia, Sony and Tektronix. Netbula has strong technical capabilities in areas of operating system,, networking, compiler, and general software development in C++/C and PERL. AnyBoard and AnyEMail are also strategic internet products for the company.