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<td><img src="../templates/subSilver/images/logo_phpBB.gif" border="0" alt="phpBB 2 : Creating Communities" vspace="1" /></a></td>
<td align="center" width="100%" valign="middle"><span class="maintitle">phpBB2 FAQ</span></td>
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<p>This is a very basic Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page which attempts to answer some of the more commonly asked questions. It is by no means exhaustive and should be used in combination with the 'built-in' User FAQ within phpBB2, the community forums (particularly the Tutorials forum) and our IRC channel (see <a href="README.html">README</a> for details).</p>
<ol>
<li><b>My AOL based users keep getting logged out!</b></li>
<p>phpBB2 uses sessions to keep track of users as they browse the board. These sessions use a combination of a unique session id and the users IP to identify each user. We make use of the IP as an extra safe-guard to help prevent sessions being hijacked (by discovering the unique session id).</p>
<p>Unfortunately this only works when the users IP is constant as they browse the board. For most users this will be the case. However certain providers route their users via a cluster of proxys. In some cases, particularly AOL this results in different IPs being forwarded as the user moves between pages. We take account of this by not checking the entire IP but only the first "three quads". Again in most cases this will be fine. However again AOL uses IPs which can vary so much that checking only the first two quads results in a fairly static IP being available for session validation.</p>
<p>If you are experiencing problems related to this you can make a small change to the code. Please note that reducing the IP validation length does potentially increase the risk of sessions being hijacked (this is something for you to consider, phpBB Group takes no responsibility should anything happen!). The change requires you to open the file sessions.php in the includes/ directory of the distribution. Find line 250, it contains the following <pre>$ip_check_s = substr($userdata['session_ip'], 0, 6);</pre>change this to: <pre>$ip_check_s = substr($userdata['session_ip'], 0, <b>4</b>);</pre>You need to make exactly the same change to the number 6 in the next line. Save the file (and upload it if required). This should reduce or eliminate the problem noted.</p></li>
<li><b>I selected X for my timezone but the time is not correct!</b></li>
<p>I suspect the time is correct but that you may have switched (locally) to daylight savings time. At present we do not support daylight savings only standard local times. Therefore during summer months (depending on whether your nation/state switches to daylight savings) the board times may appear to be <b>one hour</b> behind the <i>real</i> local time. The solution is to either put up with it (just let your users know) or to move the timezone of everyone who is affected (remember that not all your users may be from nations who have switched to daylight savings) on one hour, eg. GMT becomes GMT+1. This requires running some SQL and you should search our forums for information.</p>
<p>If this is not the case then I suspect your servers time is at fault. phpBB 2 stores all times in the form of a unix timestamp. This is a 32bit integer value containing the number of seconds since the unix epoch event, 1st January 1970 00:00:00 GMT. This value is global in nature and will be the same wherever you are in the world. So, if your time is incorrect and you have selected the appropriate timezone chances are your server time is off.</p></li>
<li><b>I am seeing &amp;#nnnn; sequences output instead of what I typed!</b></li>
<p>To enable compliance with HTML and XHTML specifications as well as enabling browsers to automatically support a users selected language we enable a <i>charset</i> tag to be output to the browser. This identifies the primary character set the user has selected, eg. iso-8859-1 for Western European languages (English, German, French, etc.), windows-1251 for Cyrillic alphabets (Russian, Bulgarian, etc.) and so on. The downside to doing this is that most modern browsers (such as Internet Explorer) convert any character not present in that character set into what are termed <i>Numerical Character References</i> or NCR's. These take the form of &amp;#nnnn; where nnnn is the hexadecimal number of that characters UNICODE reference.</p>
<p>Unfortunately PHP (which effectively supports only iso-8859-1 at this time) does not appear to attempt to process this data back into normal characters. Therefore phpBB treats them as text the user has entered and wishes to <i>see</i>. phpBB enables this by turning the &amp; into &amp;amp;. This results in the characters appearing as they do. Although we could ignore &amp;#nnnn; (there are pro's and of course con's to doing so) at present we don't.</p>
<p>If you are finding this to be problem the solution is to remove the <pre>charset={S_CONTENT_ENCODING}</pre> text from <b>all</b> the _header.tpl template files in all templates. The downside to this is a users browser will not automatically switch its charset to that selected by the user (however this is unlikely to be a big problem since users typically run their browser by default in the language they wish to use). Alternatively you can modify the $lang['ENCODING'] entry in the appropriate language file. Until PHP (and all browsers!) trully support UNICODE these problems will persist across all boards.</p></li>
<li><b>I cannot search for certain words!</b>
<p>phpBB 2 uses a Fulltext search system, this has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that on large or busy forums it has far less impact on server load than <i>standard</i> search methods as used by many alternative forums (including phpBB 1.x). The disadvantage is that to reduce the size of the database (every post is examined and unique words stored in a table) we have to limit the size and type of words we store. By default words must contain at least three characters but no more than 25, they must be either alpha or combinations of alpha and numerals (numbers alone are not stored). In addition all non-alphanumeric characters are removed, eg. _, +, -, etc. This is standard practice for fulltext search solutions.</p>
<p>A further downside is that non-latin alphabets, eg. Cyrillic, Greek, etc. require proper locale support to be compiled in and available on the server your board is running on. If this is not the case it is quite likely that words will not be properly indexed for storage. In many cases this can be recified by altering the setlocale(LC_ALL, '[LOCALE_HERE]'); statement in the appropriate language file. If you are experiencing problems you should change whatever is currently in place of [LOCALE_HERE] with the locale as available on your server. If you do not know this please ask your hosting provider. Some examples may be ru_RU.WIN_CP_1251 for the codepage used for the Russian translation, ko.KOI8 for Korean, etc.</p>
<p>Please note that support for multibyte character sets remains very limited in PHP4 and therefore Japanese, Chinese, etc. may have difficulty getting the fulltext search working correctly at all.</p>
<li><b>My screen is filled with errors when I try to view the forum!</b>
<p>Are they errors? Are you sure they are not warnings? They probably are ... What you're seeing is PHP warn you about unset variables. Great care has been taken with phpBB 2.0 to ensure it is secure. Unset variables while being a potential security risk really shouldn't be in 2.0. Unfortunately some hosting providers have decided that any unset variables equal security problems and force PHP to output these warnings even though phpBB 2.0 is set to ignore them.</p>
<p>We have worked some way toward checking and/or setting all variables before use but this will take time to complete (if it can be). Therefore I am afraid for the time being you will have to manually modify the code or ask your hosting provider to be more realistic with their setup.</p></li>
<li><b>How do I use the avatar settings?</b>
<p>There are three types of avatar; upload, remote and local.</p>
<p><ul>
<li>Upload types require you to create a directory (the default is images/avatars) and to set this to public read/write (ie. chmod a+rw), users can then upload avatars (subject to width, height and size limits definable by you).</li>
<li>Remote avatars allow the user to supply a URI pointing to an image available on the internet, <b>PLEASE NOTE</b> that size limits do not apply to remote avatars!</li>
<li>Local avatars allow you to upload your own avatars to a set directory, users can then pick from this avatar gallery. The default location for this is images/avatars/gallery. PLEASE NOTE that avatars are categorised according to sub-folders in this location! ie. you <b>MUST</b> place your avatars in subdirectories, eg. images/avatars/gallery/cartoons, images/avatars/gallery/real-life, etc.</li>
</ul></p></li>
<li><b>No matter what I set the uploadable avatars to I cannot upload one from my computer!</b>
<p>There are two possibilities here, the first is you have not created the directory you specified as the storage location for avatars, ie. as specified in the Admin->General Configuration->Avatars section. If the directory does not exist uploadeable avatars are automatically disabled. You should create the required directory (ensuring it has global write access or other appropriate permissions to allow the webserver to write files to it).</p>
<p>The second possibility is that your provider has disabled file_upload support, possibly because of a recently found serious security issue with PHP before version 4.1.2. You should contact your provider and ask them if this is the case. It may be unrelated to the security issue and your provider has simply decided to disable such things in general. In either case I'm afraid there is not a lot you can do, there are still three other avatar settings left to choose from including uploading via a URL which will work fine</p></li>
<li><b>I just cannot get gallery avatars to appear!</b>
<p>Chances are you have not followed our instructions above. phpBB 2 categorises gallery avatars and it does this by reading through folders contained in the location you specified as being the gallery path. For example, if you set the gallery path to "images/avatars/gallery" phpBB 2 will expect to find a series of folders within that path, eg. "images/avatars/gallery/moviestars", "images/avatars/gallery/cartoons", "images/avatars/gallery/misc", etc. Placing images directly in "images/avatars/gallery/" will result in nothing being listed in your gallery.</p></li>
<li><b>How do I set forum permissions?</b>
<p>You set forum permissions from the administration control panel -> Forums -> Permissions. This system has two modes of operation; Simple and Advanced. Simple uses a set of pre-defined authorisation levels, these set each type of authorisation setting to a specific level. Advanced settings allow you to specify individual levels for each operation in each forum. Experiment!</p></li>
<li><b>How do I set user and group permissions?</b>
<p>These are set from Admin -> Users (Groups) -> Permissions. The system may appear strange but it's very powerful. When you look up a user or group it will give you basic information (at the top of the page) followed by the available forum listing and current settings for this user. You can assign moderator status to users and groups and if you have PRIVATE forums (or forums with any of their individual operations set to PRIVATE) you can also assign access.</p></li>
<li><b>How do I set a user (group) as moderator?</b>
<p>See above</p></li>
<li><b>Why are there no entries in the user (group) permission "Allow Access" column?</b>
<p>You can only allow (or deny) users access to PRIVATE forums, or forums which have one or more operations set to PRIVATE</p></li>
<li><b>I (or my users) cannot stay logged in to the forum!</b>
<p>If you (or your users) are, after attempting a login, being returned to the index (or other page) without appearing to be logged in the most likely problem is incorrect cookie settings. phpBB 2 uses cookies to store a session id and a small amount of user data. For this data to be stored correctly the cookie domain, path and secure settings must be correct. You can check this in Admin->General Configuration->Cookie settings. Typically the cookie domain can be left blank and the cookie path set to / (a single forward slash). Do <b>not</b> set the cookie as being secure unless your board is running over a secure sockets layer connection, ie. https://</p>
<p>If you still have problems try setting the cookie domain to your full domain name, eg. www.mysystem.tld, www.something.mydomain.tld. You <b>must</b> ensure the domain name contains at least two dots or browsers will be unlikely to recognise the cookie, eg. .mydomain.com, mydomain.com. Do <b>not</b> add http:// or anything else to the domain name!</p></li>
<li><b>My users are complaining about being logged out too quickly!</b>
<p>You can increase the default length of sessions (ie. how long before a users session is considered 'dead') in Admin->General->Configuration->Cookie Settings->Session Length. Set it to whatever value your users feel comfortable with, remember that security issues may affect your decision (ie. having too long a session may allow non-users to abuse your board should a user forget to logout or otherwise leave a current session on a public workstation).</p></li>
<li><b>I am having problems with HTML!</b>
<p>If you want to allow your users to make use of HTML in posts you need to do two things. Firstly enable HTML in Admin -> General -> Configuration. Secondly to need to make sure that the tags your users will post are in the Allowed HTML Tags field (again Admin -> General -> Configuration). If users post using tags not on this list they won't be displayed as HTML! eg. to enable someone to post Flash you could add the embed tag to this field. Be careful which tags you allow, it is very easy to break the boards own output if the wrong tags are used in posts. </p></p></li>
<li><b>Can I suggest a feature for phpBB 2.2?</b>
<p>Yes you most certainly can, phpBB 2.0.0 is now feature frozen and only bug fix releases will be made from this line. However, work has already started on the next release of phpBB, phpBB 2.2. We already have a number of features in mind and these are listed on our task manager:</p>
<p><a href="http://sourceforge.net/pm/task.php?group_project_id=13524&group_id=7885&func=browse" target="_tasks">http://sourceforge.net/pm/task.php?group_project_id=13524&group_id=7885&func=browse</a>.</p>
<p>Some of these features will also be discussed on forums at <a href="http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/">http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/</a>.</p>
<p>To suggest a feature first consult the task list mentioned above, if your idea is already listed then the chances are good that it will appear in 2.2. If your suggestion is not listed please submit it to our feature request tracker:</p>
<p><a href="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?group_id=7885&atid=357885" target="_features">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?group_id=7885&atid=357885</a>.</p>
<p>Before submitting please read through the already present suggestions, if one matches or is similar to yours please add to it rather than creating a new entry.</p>
<p>We make no promises to the inclusion of features but we will endeavour to introduce the most requested or most interesting ones.</p></li>
<li><b>Why is phpBB 1.x faster than phpBB 2.0?</b>
<p>The original phpBB 1.0 saw a very large decrease in page generation times from version 1.0/1.2 to 1.4. This was achieved by rewriting many of the SQL queries and splitting the database. These changes came about from work on phpBB 2.0. With phpBB 2.0 we have introduced numerous additional functions and features, not least of which is full templating (the separation of page design from code). This results in a slowdown from phpBB 1.4, we suspect though that the new features will outweigh the small difference in page generation times.</p></p></li>
<li><b>My question isn't answered here!</b>
Feel free to search our community forum for the information you require. <b>PLEASE DO NOT</b> post your question without having first used search, chances are someone has already asked and answered your question. You can find our board here:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/" target="_new">http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/</a></p></li>
</ol>
<h2><u>Copyright and disclaimer</u></h2>
<p>This application is opensource software released under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html" target="_new">GPL</a>. Please see source code and the Docs directory for more details. This package and its contents are Copyright © 2002 <a href="http://www.phpbb.com/" target="_new">phpBB Group</a>, All Rights Reserved.</p>
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<td><img src="../templates/subSilver/images/logo_phpBB.gif" border="0" alt="phpBB 2 : Creating Communities" vspace="1" /></a></td>
<td align="center" width="100%" valign="middle"><span class="maintitle">phpBB 2.0.3 INSTALL</span></td>
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<p align="center"><b>Please read this document completely before proceeding with installation.</b></p>
<p>Please note these instructions are not fully comprehensive, a more thorough userguide will be available on the phpBB website in the near future. However, this document will walk you through the basics on installing the forum software.</p>
<p>A basic overview of running phpBB 2.0.3 can be found in the accompanying <a href="README.html">README</a> documentation. Please ensure you read that document in addition to this! For more detailed information on using phpBB 2 you should read <a href="http://www.phpbb.com/guide/phpBB_Users_Guide.html" target="_new">Userguide</a> now available online.</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="#quickinstall">Quick Install</a></li>
<li><a href="#require">Requirements</a></li>
<li><a href="#install">New Installations</a></li>
<ol type="i">
<li><a href="#fileext">Changing the file extension</a></li>
<li><a href="#phpBB1x">Replacing an old phpBB 1.x install</a></li>
<li><a href="#nonaccess">Installing on MySQL 3 and 4, PostgreSQL 7.x, MS SQL 7/2000 (inc. via ODBC)</a></li>
<li><a href="#access">Installing on MS Access 2000/XP</a></li>
<li><a href="#requireddata">Entering required data</a></li>
<li><a href="#completeinstall">Completing installation</a></li>
</ol>
<li><a href="#upgrade1.x">Upgrade from phpBB 1.4.x</a></li>
<li><a href="#upgradeb1">Upgrade from phpBB 2.0 beta-1</a></li>
<li><a href="#upgradeRC">Upgrade from previous Release Candidate versions of phpBB 2</a></li>
<ol type="i">
<li><a href="#langtempchanges">Changes in language pack format and templates</a></li>
</ol>
<li><a href="#upgradeSTABLE">Upgrade from stable releases of phpBB 2.0.x</a></li>
<ol>
<li><a href="#upgradeSTABLE_full">Full package</a></li>
<li><a href="#upgradeSTABLE_files">Changed files only</a></li>
<li><a href="#upgradeSTABLE_patch">Patch file</a></li>
<li><a href="#upgradeSTABLE_all">All package types</a></li>
</ol>
<li><a href="#postinstall">Important (security related) post-Install tasks for all installation methods</a></li>
<ol type="i">
<li><a href="#avatars">Uploadable avatars</a></li>
<li><a href="#safemode">Safe Mode</a></li>
<li><a href="#extras">Optional extras</a></li>
</ol>
<li><a href="#disclaimer">Disclaimer</a></li>
</ol>
<a name="quickinstall"></a><h2><u>1. Quick Install</u></h2>
<p>If you have basic knowledge of using FTP and are sure your hosting service or server will run phpBB 2 you can use these steps to quickly get started. For a more detailed explanation you should skip this and go to <a href="#require">section 2</a> below.</p>
<ol>
<li>Decompress the phpBB 2 archive to a local directory on your system.</li>
<li>Upload all the files contained in this archive (retaining the directory structure) to a web accessible directory on your server or hosting account.
<li>Change the permissions on config.php to be writeable by all</li>
<li>Using your web browser visit the location you placed phpBB 2, e.g. http://www.mydomain.com/phpBB 2, http://www.mydomain.com/forum/ etc.
<li>Fill out all the requested information and hit <i>Submit</i></li>
<li>Change the permissions on config.php to be writeable only by yourself</li>
<li>Click the <i>Complete Installation</i> button or revisit the location you entered above.</li>
<li>phpBB 2 should now be available, please <b>MAKE SURE</b> you read at least <a href="#postinstall">Section 8</a> below for important, security related post-installation instructions.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you experienced problems or do not know how to proceed with any of the steps above please read the rest of this document.</p>
<a name="require"></a><h2><u>2. Requirements</u></h2>
<p>Installation of phpBB 2.0.3 requires the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>A webserver or web hosting account running on any major Operating System</li>
<li>A SQL database system, <b>one of</b>:
<ul>
<li>MySQL (3.22 or higher)</li>
<li>PostgreSQL 7.0.3 or higher (preferably 7.1.x or 7.2.x)</li>
<li>MS SQL Server (7 or 2000) directly or via ODBC</li>
<li>MS Access (2000 or XP) via ODBC</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>PHP (3.0.9 and above or preferably a recent 4.x) with support for the database you intend to use above</li>
</ul>
<p>If your server or hosting account does not meet the requirements above I am afraid phpBB 2.0 is not for you.</p>
<a name="install"></a><h2><u>3. New Installations</u></h2>
<p>Installation of phpBB 2 will vary according to your server and database. If you have <i>shell access</i> to your account (via telnet or ssh for example) you may want to upload the entire phpBB 2 archive (in binary mode!) to a directory on your host and unarchive it there.</p>
<p>If you do not have shell access or do not wish to use it you will need to decompress the phpBB 2 archive to a local directory on your system using your favourite compression program, e.g. winzip, rar, zip, etc. From there you must FTP <b>ALL</b> the files it contains (being sure to retain the directory structure and filenames) to your host. Please ensure that the cases of filenames are retained, do <b>NOT</b> force filenames to all lower or upper case doing so will cause errors later.</p>
<p>All .php, .inc, .sql, .cfg and .htm files should be uploaded in <b>ASCII</b> mode, while all graphics should be uploaded in <b>BINARY</b> mode. If you are unfamiliar with what this means please refer to your FTP client documentation. In most cases this is all handled transparantly by your ftp client but if you encounter problems later you should be sure the files where uploaded correctly as described here.</p>
<p>Once all the files have been uploaded to your site you should point your browser at this location. For example if your domain name is <i>www.mydomain.tld</i> and you placed phpBB 2 in a directory /phpBB 2 off your web root you would enter <i>http://www.mydomain.tld/phpBB 2/</i> into your browser. When you have done this you should see the phpBB 2 Installation screen appear.</p>
<a name="fileext"></a><h3>3.i. Changing the file extension</h3>
<p>If the file extension used to execute PHP scripts on your server is <b>NOT</b> .php but for example .php3 or .phtml you should first rename <b>ALL</b> files ending in .php and change the value of $phpEx in <u>extension.inc</u>. In the vast majority of cases this step will be unncessary.</p>
<a name="phpBB1x"></a><h3>3.ii. Replacing an old phpBB 1.x install</h3>
<p><b>NOTE</b>, you should <b>NOT</b> place phpBB 2 files into the same directory as any previous installation of phpBB 1.x! Create a new directory (or move your old phpBB 1.x out of the way), failure to do this will result in runtime errors.</p>
<a name="nonaccess"></a><h3>3.iii. Installing on MySQL 3 and 4, PostgreSQL 7.x, MS SQL 7/2000 (inc. via ODBC)</h3>
<p><b>Before proceeding</b> with installation you should ensure you have a database available. Most good hosting accounts now come with at least one database as part of the basic package although it may need to be setup before first use. Ask your provider for details if you are unsure whether you do or not. If you are running your own server and are unsure how to create a database you should refer to your SQL servers documentation or website, e.g. <a href="http://www.mysql.com/doc/" target="_new">http://www.mysql.com/doc/</a>, <a href="http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/" target="_new">http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/</a>, etc.</p>
<p>If your database server is MySQL <b>PLEASE</b> ensure you select the appropriate version from the dropdown box. Do <b>NOT</b> select MySQL 4.x if you have MySQL 3.x (the most common type) installed, if in doubt select MySQL 3.x.</p>
<a name="access"></a><h3>3.iv. Installing on MS Access 2000/XP</h3>
<p>Before you install phpBB 2 you need to create a <b>Data Source Name</b> or <b>DSN</b>. The exact way to do this will depend on your hosting provider, if you are unsure you should check with them before proceeding. In general though you should create a System DSN which points to the location where you have stored an unarchived copy of the ms_access_primer.mdb file (this is contained in the ms_access_primer.zip which can be found in <u>db/schemas/</u>). The name you give this DSN will be used during installation. Do not proceed until this step is complete!</p>
<p>Please note that MS Access support is not designed for busy boards. If you anticipate more than one or two users being online at any given time you should upgrade to a more robust server solution.</p>
<a name="requireddata"></a><h3>3.v. Entering required data</h3>
<p>Once you have reached the installation page you need to fill out several fields. Be sure to select the right <u>database type</u>! If you do not have or do not know the <u>database name</u>, <u>database server</u>, etc. please check with your hosting provider. For <b>non-ODBC</b> databases the database server is typically localhost but this is <b>NOT</b> universal! If you are using an ODBC based database (such as MS Access or MSSQL via ODBC) you should enter the DSN here (see 2.iv.).</p>
<p>The <u>database prefix</u> allows you to enter a few characters, short name, etc. which all tables used by this installation will be prefixed with. The default (phpbb_) will usually be fine. However if you have more than one copy of phpBB 2 using the same database be sure to alter it or you will receive errors during installation.</p>
<p>The remaining information is personal to you and your site. You will need to enter a <u>username</u> and <u>password</u> for the initial administration account (more administrators can be created later). The <u>server name</u>, <u>server port</u> and <u>script path</u> are essential because all emails containing URLs will use these values. The installer will guess initial values, however they may not be correct so be sure to check them!</p>
<p>Remember that a domain (or server) name does <b>NOT</b> include http://! Enter just the domain name, eg. <i>www.mydomain.tld</i> and <b>NOT</b> <i>http://www.mydomain.tld/</i>. The server port can, in the great majority of cases be left as 80, this is the standard http port. However if your web server listens to a different port because for example port 80 is blocked then alter this appropriately. The script path is the relative path from your webroot where phpBB 2 is installed, e.g. if you install phpBB 2 into phpBB 2/ in your webroot then enter phpBB 2 (or /phpBB 2/) as the script path.</p>
<a name="completeinstall"></a><h3>3.vi. Completing installation</h3>
<p>Once you have checked all the data press submit. The installation script will create and populate all the necessary tables. It will then attempt to write to the <u>config.php</u> file which will contain the basic configuration data used to run phpBB 2. If the installer cannot write <u>config.php</u> directly you will be given the option of either downloading the file or even FTPing it to the correct location. If you choose to download you should then re-upload the file to your server, overwriting the existing <u>config.php</u> in the process. If you attempt to FTP via the install script you should supply the requested information. Should FTP fail you will be able to download the file and then re-upload as described earlier.</p>
<p>During the installation procedure phpBB 2 will check to ensure the relevant PHP database module is available and will not proceed if it cannot be found. Should this happen be sure to check you have selected the correct database and/or ask your hosting provider for advice.</p>
<p><b>Do not</b> proceed untill the installation is completed and (if necessary) you have uploaded the <u>config.php</u> file.</p>
<a name="upgrade1.x"></a><h2><u>4. Upgrade from phpBB 1.4.x</u></h2>
<p>Before upgrading we heavily recommend you do a <u>full backup of your database</u>! If you are unsure how to achieve this please ask your hosting provider for advice. One you have backed up your database you should follow the basic instructions given for <a href="#install">New Installations</a> above. <b>However</b> instead of selecting <u>Install</u> as the <i>Installation Method</i> you should select <u>Upgrade</u>.</p>
<p>As with install the upgrade is automated. The config.php will be written automatically (if possible, else you will be able to download a copy as with New Installation above). Once the config.php is in place everything should proceed without error. Please note that this upgrading process may take quite some time and depending on your hosting provider this may result in it failing (due to web server or other timeout issues). If this is the case you should ask your provider if they are willing to allow the upgrade script to temporarily exceed their limits (be nice and they will probably be quite helpful).</p>
<p>Once completed your board should be immediately available. If you encountered errors you should restore your original database and report the problems to our bug tracker or seek help via our forums (see <a href="README.html">README</a> for details).</p>
<a name="upgradeb1"></a><h2><u>5. Upgrade from phpBB 2.0 beta-1</u></h2>
<p>Sorry but no direct upgrade is available from beta-1 (we did warn you!). If you are reasonably confident with the use of SQL, etc. you may be able to make the required changes to the database manually. You will need to examine the CVS check-ins to determine what needs changing where.</p>
<a name="upgradeRC"></a><h2><u>6. Upgrade from previous Release Candidate versions of phpBB 2</u></h2>
<p>Upgrading from these versions is generally quite easy. First you should make a copy of your existing <u>config.php</u>, keep it in a safe place! Next delete all the existing phpBB 2 files, do not leave any in place otherwise you may encounter errors later. You can leave alternative templates in-place but you should note they may not function correctly with the final release. It is therefore recommended you switch back to subSilver if you are currently using a different style. With this complete you can upload the new phpBB 2.0.0 files (see <a href="#install">New Installations</a> for details if necessary). Once complete copy back your saved <u>config.php</u>, replacing the new one.</p>
<p>You should now run <b>update_to_202.php</b> which, depending on your previous version, will make a number of database changes. You may receive <u>FAILURES</u> during this procedure, they should not be a cause for concern unless you see an actual <u>ERROR</u>, in which case the script will stop (in this case you should seek help via our forums or bug tracker).</p>
<p><b>RC-2 and below MSSQL users</b>, please note that during the update procedure your existing forums table will be dropped and re-created. All data in standard fields will be retained. However if you have modified the forums table and added additional fields or altered existing ones these changes <b>WILL</b> be lost. If this is a significant issue for you we advise you comment out the "DROP FORUM TABLE" section in update_to_202.php and instead, manually alter the forum_id column to remove the IDENTITY setting (if it exists).</p>
<p>Once the update_to_202 has completed you <b>MUST</b> proceed to the Administration General Configuration panel and check all the values in General Configuration. This is essential if you were running any version before RC-3 since extra information needs to be entered to enable correct URLs to be output in emails.</p>
<a name="langtempchanges"></a><h3>6.i. Changes in language pack format and templates</h3>
<p>Please note that changes have been made to the format of language, image localisations and templates from previous RC's to FINAL. If you were running a release candidate prior to RC-3 you will <b>need</b> to download new language and image localisation packs. You can safely delete any existing <u>*_lang.gif</u> files in the subSilver/images directory since these are no longer utilised. If you are using or have installed any 3rd party template set you must either remove it or update it. Changes have been made to a number of template variables which will result in these not working unless they have been updated to meet phpBB 2.0.0 standards.</p>
<a name="upgradeSTABLE"></a><h2><u>7. Upgrade from previous stable (released) versions of phpBB 2</u></h2>
<p>If you are currently using a stable release of phpBB 2 updating to this version is straightforward. You would have downloaded one of three packages and your choice determines what you need to do.</p>
<a name="#upgradeSTABLE_full"></a><h3>7.i. Full package</h3>
<p>If you have downloaded the full package you should follow the same general upgrade path as for "<a href="#upgradeRC">Upgrade from previous Release Candidate versions of phpBB 2</a>". The exception to this being the need to switch or update styles.</p>
<a name="#upgradeSTABLE_files"></a><h3>7.ii. Changed files only</h3>
<p>This package contains only those files which have been modified since the 2.0.2 release. If you are trying to upgrade from a release prior to this you could either download the full package or obtain the files only releases of previous versions and upgrade each in turn, i.e. if you are upgrading from phpBB 2.0.0 you should first obtain the changed files from the 2.0.1 and 2.0.2 releases and upload each in turn.</p>
<p>The directory structure has been preserved enabling you (if you wish) to simply upload the contents of the archive to the appropriate location on your server, i.e. simply overwrite the existing files with the new versions. Do not forget that if you have installed any Mods these files will overwrite the originals possibly destroying them in the process. You will need to re-add Mods to any affected file before uploading.</p>
<a name="#upgradeSTABLE_patch"></a><h3>7.iii. Patch file</h3>
<p>The patch file is probably the best solution for those with many Mods or other changes who do not want to re-add them back to all the changed files. To use this you will need command line access to a standard UNIX type <b>patch</b> application. You should place the unarchived phpBB-2.0.3-update.patch in the parent directory containing all the phpBB 2 files (not the directory containing the folder where phpBB 2 files are located). With this done you should run the following command: <b>patch -p0 < phpBB-2.0.3-update.patch</b> This should complete quickly, hopefully without any HUNK FAILED comments.</p>
<p>The phpBB-2.0.3-update.patch will not work when upgrading from versions prior to phpBB 2.0.2. Additional patches have been included. These should be run in turn starting with the appropriate version patch, i.e. if you are updating from phpBB 2.0.1 you should first patch to 2.0.2 then to 2.0.3.</p>
<p>If you do get failures you should look at using the <a href="#upgradeSTABLE_files">Changed files only</a> package to replace the files which failed to patch, please note that you will need to manually re-add any Mods to these particular files. Alternatively if you know how you can examine the .rej files to determine what failed where and make manual adjustments to the relevant source.</p>
<p>You should of course delete the patch file (or files) after use.</p>
<a name="#upgradeSTABLE_all"></a><h3>7.iv. All package types</h3>
<p>If you have non-English language packs installed you may want to see if a new version has been made available. A number of missing strings have been added which, though not essential, may be beneficial to users. Please note that at this time not all language packs have been updated so you should be prepared to periodically check for updates.</p>
<a name="postinstall"></a><h2><u>8. Important (security related) post-Install tasks for all installation methods</u></h2>
<p>Once you have succssfully installed phpBB 2.0.3 you <b>MUST</b> ensure you remove install.php, upgrade.php and update_to_202.php files. Leaving these in place is a <u>very serious potential security issue</u> which may lead to deletion or alteration of files, etc. Additionally you <b>MUST</b> remove the contrib directory once you have utilised any files it contains. This directory may include files which though very useful, could compromise your board or account. Beyond these <b>essential</b> deletions you may also wish to delete the db/schemas and docs/ directories if you wish.</p>
<p>With these files deleted you should proceed to the administration panel. Depending on how the installation completed you may have been directed there automatically. If not, login as the administrator you specified during install/upgrade and click the "<b>Administration Panel</b>" link at the bottom of any page. Ensure that details specified in General -> Configuration are correct!</p>
<a name="avatars"></a><h3>8.i. Uploadable avatars</h3>
<p>phpBB 2 supports several methods for allowing users to select their own <i>avatar</i> (an avatar is a small image generally unique to a user and displayed just below their username in posts).</p>
<p>Two of these options allow users to upload an avatar from their machine or a remote location (via a URL). If you wish to enable this function you should first ensure the correct paths for uploadeable avatars is set in Admin -> General -> Configuration -> Avatars. By default this is <u>images/avatars</u> but you can set it to whatever you like, just ensure the configuration setting is updated. You must also ensure this directory can be written to by the webserver. Usually this means you have to alter its permissions to allow anyone to read and write to. Exactly how you should do this depends on your ftp client or server operating system.</p>
<p>On UNIX systems for example you set the directory to a+rwx (or ugo+rwx or even 777). This can be done from a command line on your server using chmod or via your FTP client (using the Change Permissions, chmod or other Permissions dialoge box, see your FTP clients documentation for help). Most FTP clients list permissions in the form of User (Read, Write, Execute), Group (Read, Write, Execute) and Other (Read, Write, Execute). You need to tick all of these boxes to set correct permissions.</p>
<p>On Windows system you need to ensure the directory is not write-protected and that it has global write permissions (see your servers documentation or contact your hosting provider if you are unsure on how to achieve this).</p>
<p>Please be aware that setting a directories permissions to global write access is a potential security issue. While it is unlikely that anything nasty will occur (such as all the avatars being deleted) there are always people out there out to cause trouble. Therefore you should monitor this directory and if possible make regular backups.</p>
<a name="safemode"></a><h3>8.ii. Safe Mode</h3>
<p>phpBB 2.0.3 includes support for using uploadable avatars on systems running PHP in safe mode. If this applies to your hosting service you will need to create a sub-directory called <u>tmp</u> in the directory you specified for storage of uploaded avatars (by default this is images/avatars as explained above). Give it the same access rights as for uploadable avatars above.</p>
<p>This safe mode support includes compatibility with various directory restrictions your host may impose (assuming they are not too restrictive and that the PHP installed is version 4.0.3 or later). There is generally no need for any manual setup for safe mode support it is typically handled transparantly.</p>
<a name="extras"></a><h3>8.iii. Optional extras</h3>
<p>Included with this package are two extra (optional) files, you will find them in the <u>contrib/</u> directory. These extras, <i>template_file_cache.php</i> and <i>template_db_cache.php</i> address concerns over server load and page generation times on slower or heavily loaded systems. These updated template modules compile each template and uses this rather than compiling each file everytime it is viewed. Tests seem to indicate a noticeable decrease in page generation times and more importantly a significant decrease in overall server load in virtual hosting environments.</p>
<p>You should see the <a href="../contrib/README.html">README</a> contained within the contrib directory for more details.</p>
<a name="disclaimer"></a><h2><u>9. Copyright and disclaimer</u></h2>
<p>This application is opensource software released under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html" target="_new">GPL</a>. Please see source code and the Docs directory for more details. This package and its contents are Copyright © 2002 <a href="http://www.phpbb.com/" target="_new">phpBB Group</a>, All Rights Reserved.</p>
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<p>Thank you for downloading phpBB 2, the long awaited re-write of the popular phpBB 1.x online community forum. This README will guide through the basics of installation and operation of phpBB 2. Please ensure you read this and the accompanying documentation fully <b>before</b> proceeding with the installation.</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="#install">Installing phpBB 2</a></li>
<li><a href="#run">Running phpBB 2</a></li>
<ol type="i">
<li><a href="#i18n">Internationalisation (i18n)</a></li>
<li><a href="#styles">Styles</a></li>
<li><a href="#mods">Mods</a></li>
</ol>
<li><a href="#help">Getting help with phpBB 2</a></li>
<ol type="i">
<li><a href="#userguide">Userguide</a></li>
<li><a href="#website">Community Forums</a></li>
<li><a href="#irc">Internet Relay Chat</a></li>
</ol>
<li><a href="#status">Status of this version</a></li>
<li><a href="#bugs">Reporting Bugs</a></li>
<ol>
<li><a href="#securitybugs">Security related bugs</a></li>
</ol>
<li><a href="#curbugs">Overview of current bug list</a></li>
<li><a href="#php">PHP compatibility issues</a></li>
<ol type="i">
<li><a href="#phpsec">Notice on PHP security issues</a></li>
</ol>
<li><a href="#disclaimer">Disclaimer</a></li>
</ol>
<a name="install"></a><h2><u>1. Installing phpBB 2</u></h2>
<p>Installation and upgrade instructions can be found in the <a href="INSTALL.html">INSTALL</a> document contained in this distribution. If you are intending to upgrade from a previous phpBB 1.4.x installation we highly recommend you backup any existing data before proceeding!</p>
<p><b>Please note</b> that users of Release Candidate (RC) versions of phpBB 2 should run the update_to_202.php script <b>BEFORE</b> attempting to access your board. Failing to do so may result in errors and unexpected behaviour! While these won't do any damage they will prevent you using your board.</p>
<p>If you are using RC-1 (pre) you may find some other DB changes have occured and should examine the schemas to see if your installation requires any modifications (note that most of these have already been discussed on the phpBB 2 forums and are handled by the update script). If you are uncomfortable doing any of this we recommend you re-install (you may backup your existing data if you wish, re-install phpBB 2 and then insert your backup).</p>
<p>Users of phpBB 2.0 Beta-1 cannot directly upgrade to phpBB 2.0 RC-2, 3 or 4, sorry.</p>
<a name="run"></a><h2><u>2. Running phpBB 2</u></h2>
<p>Once installed phpBB 2.0 is easily managed by both admin and moderator control panels. If you need help or advice with phpBB 2 please see <a href="#help">Section 3</a> below.</p>
<a name="i18n"></a><h3>2.i. Internationalisation, i18n</h3>
<p>A number of language packs and subSilver localisations are now available. You can find them on our official download page:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.phpbb.com/downloads.php" target="_new">http://www.phpbb.com/downloads.php</a></p>
<p>This is the <i>Official</i> location for all support language sets. If you download a package from a 3rd party site you do so with the understanding that we cannot offer support. So please, do not ask for help in these cases!</p>
<p>Installation of these packages is straightforward, simply download the required language pack and unarchive it into the languages/ folder. Please ensure you retain the directory structure when doing this! To install the subSilver image packs you should unarchive the file/s into the templates/subSilver/images directory, again you must retain the directory structure. Once installed the languages will become immediately available.</p>
<p>If your language is not available please visit our forums where you will find a topic listing translations currently available or in preparation. This topic also gives you information should you wish to volunteer to translate a language not currently listed</p>
<p><b>Please note</b> that users who have upgraded to 2.0.3 from versions prior to RC-3 should will <b>need</b> to download new versions of the language/subSilver image packs. Any package downloaded prior to the availability of RC-3 will <b>not</b> function correctly with this version of phpBB 2.</p>
<p>If you have upgraded from 2.0.0 and make use of non-English language packs you will benefit from downloading updated versions which will become available shortly. These introduce a number of strings which went missing from the first version plus a few updates and additions.</p>
<a name="styles"></a><h3>2.ii. Styles</h3>
<p>Although phpBB Group are rather proud of the subSilver style (which has influenced many of our competitors boards <i>updated</i> designs!) we realise that it may not be to everyones tastes. Therefore phpBB 2 allows styles to be switched with relative ease. Firstly you need to locate and download a style you like. We maintain such a site at</p>
<p><a href="http://www.phpbb.com/styles/" target="_new">http://www.phpbb.com/styles/</a></p>
<p><b>Please note</b> that 3rd party styles downloaded for versions of phpBB 2 prior to its final (2.0.x) release will <b>not</b> function correctly. You should either remove these styles or (if available) update them to meet changes in 2.0.x.</p>
<p>Once you have downloaded a style the usual next step is to unarchive (or upload the unarchived contents of) the package into your templates/ directory. You then need to visit Administration -> Styles -> Add, you should see the new style available, click add and it will become available for all your users.</p>
<a name="mods"></a><h3>2.iii. Mods</h3>
<p>Although not officially supported by phpBB Group, phpBB 2 has a thriving mod (formerly known as <i>hacks</i>) scene. These third party modifications to the standard phpBB 2 extend its capabilities still further and can be found at:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.phpbb.com/mods" target="_new">http://www.phpbb.com/mods</a></p>
<p><b>Please remember</b> that any bugs or other issues that occur after you have added any modification should <b>NOT</b> be reported to the bug tracker (see below). First remove the modification and see if the problem is resolved.</p>
<p>Also remember that any modifications which modify the database in any way may render upgrading your forum to future versions more difficult unless we state otherwise. With all this said many users have and continue to utilise many of the mods already available with great success</p>
<a name="help"></a><h2><u>3. Getting help with phpBB 2</u></h2>
<p>phpBB 2 can seem a little daunting to new users in places, particularly with regard the permission system. The first thing you should do is check the <a href="FAQ.html">FAQ</a> which covers a few basic getting started questions. If you need additional help there are several places you should look.</p>
<a name="userguide"></a><h3>3.i. phpBB 2 Userguide</h3>
<p>A comprehensive userguide is now available online and can be accessed from the following location:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.phpbb.com/guide/phpBB_Users_Guide.html" target="_new">http://www.phpbb.com/guide/phpBB_Users_Guide.html</a></p>
<p>This covers everything from installation through setting permissions and managing users.</p>
<a name="website"></a><h3>3.ii. Community Forums</h3>
<p>phpBB Group maintains a thriving community where a number of people have generously decided to donate their time to help support users. This site can be found at:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.phpbb.com/" target="_new">http://www.phpbb.com/</a></p>
<p>If you do seek help via our forums please be sure to do a Search before posting. This may well save both you and us time and allow the developer, moderator and support groups to spend more time responding to people with unknown issues and problems. Please also remember that phpBB is an entirely volunteer effort, no one receives any compensation for the time they give, this includes moderators as well as developers. So please be respectful and mindful when awaiting responses.</p>
<a name="irc"></a><h3>3.iii Internet Relay Chat</h3>
<p>Another place you may find help is our IRC channel. This operates on the Openprojects IRC network, <b>irc.openprojects.net</b> and the channel is <b>#phpbb</b> and can be accessed by any good IRC client such as mIRC, XChat, etc. Again, please do not abuse this service and be respectful of other users.</p>
<a name="status"></a><h2><u>4. Status of this version</u></h2>
<p>This is the second stable release of phpBB 2. The 2.0.x line is essentially feature frozen, point releases will see only bugs and such like fixed. Our next major release will be phpBB 2.2 and work is progressing on this (the unstable development version is 2.1). Please do not post questions asking when 2.2 will be available, no release date has been set. Feel free to suggest new features for phpBB 2.2, we already have a number of improvements in mind and these can be viewed using our task tracker:</p>
<p><a href="http://sourceforge.net/pm/task.php?group_project_id=13524&group_id=7885&func=browse" target="_new">http://sourceforge.net/pm/task.php?group_project_id=13524&group_id=7885</a></p>
<p>We do not guarantee that all these will appear in 2.2 but we will do our best! If your idea does not appear on this list please visit our feature request list:</p>
<p><a href="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=357885&group_id=7885&func=browse" target="_new">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=357885&group_id=7885</a></p>
<p>Before submitting your idea please <b>ensure</b> you have read through the entries in that list. If your idea is similar to an existing one please feel free to add a comment to it. Please <b>do not</b> submit duplicate suggestions!</p>
<p>For some suggestions we may ask for your feedback via our forums. For those interested in the development of phpBB 2.2 you should keep an eye on the community forums (particularly the Feature Discussion forum) where you may be able to influence the direction we take with certain new features. Finally you may like to visit our development forum to see how things are progressing:</p>
<p><a href="http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB 2/" target="_new">http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB 2/</a></p>
<p>Please note that this forum should <b>NOT</b> be used to obtain support for or ask questions about phpBB 2.0.x, the main community forums are the place for this. Any such posts will be locked and go unanswered.</p>
<a name="bugs"></a><h2><u>5. Reporting Bugs</u></h2>
<p>The phpBB Group uses a bug tracking system to store, list and manage all reported bugs, it can be found at the location listed below. Please <b>DO NOT</b> post bug reports to our forums, they will be locked. In addition please <b>DO NOT</b> use the bug tracker for support requests. Posting such a request will only see you directed to the support forums (while taking time away from working on real bugs).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.phpbb.com/bugs/" target="_new">http://www.phpbb.com/bugs/</a></p>
<p>While we very much appreciate receiving bug reports (the more reports the more stable phpBB 2 will be) we ask you carry out a few steps before adding new entries:</p>
<ul>
<li>Firstly determine if your bug is reproduceable, how to determine this depends on the bug in question. Only if the bug is reproduceable is it likely to be a problem with phpBB 2.0 (or in some way connected). If something cannot be reproduced it may turn out to have been your hosting provider working on something, a user doing something silly, etc. Bug reports for non-reproduceable events can slow down our attempts to fix real, reproduceable issues<br /><br /></li>
<li>Next please read or search through the existing bug reports (remember to check open <b>AND</b> closed reports!) to see if <i>your</i> bug (or one very similar to it) is already listed. If it is please add to that existing bug rather than creating a new duplicate entry (all this does is slow us down).<br /><br /></li>
<li>Check the forums (use search!) to see if people have discussed anything that sounds similar to what you are seeing. However, as noted above please <b>DO NOT</b> post your particular bug to the forum unless it's non-reproduceable or you are sure it's related to something you have done rather phpBB 2.0<br /><br /></li>
<li>If no existing bug exists then please feel free to add it</li>
</ul>
<p>If you do post a new bug (i.e. one that isn't already listed in the bug tracker) firstly make sure you have logged in (your username and password are the same as for the community forums) then please include the following details:</p>
<ul>
<li>Your server type/version, eg. Apache 1.2.22, IIS 4, Sambar, etc.</li>
<li>PHP version and mode of operation, eg. PHP 4.1.1 as a module, PHP 4.0.1 running as CGI, etc.</li>
<li>DB type/version, eg. MySQL 3.23.32, PostgreSQL 7.1.2, MSSQL Server 2000 SP1, etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>Please also be as detailed as you can in your report, if possible list the steps required to duplicate the problem. If you have a fix which you are <b>VERY SURE</b> works (and is consistent with our coding guidelines) and does not introduce further problems or incompatibilities please let us know. However only include it in the bug report if you really must, if we need it we'll ask you for it.</p>
<p>Once a bug has been submitted you will be emailed any follow up comments added to it. <b>Please</b> if you are requested to supply additional information, <b>do so</b>! It is <u>extremely frustrating</u> for us to receive bug reports, ask for additional information but get nothing. In these cases we have a policy of <u>closing the bug</u>, which may leave a very real problem in place. Obviously we would rather not have this situation arise.</p>
<a name="securitybugs"></a><h3>5.i. Security related bugs</h3>
<p>If you find a potential security related vulnerability in phpBB 2 please <b>DO NOT</b> post it to the bug tracker, public forums, mailing lists, etc.! Doing so may allow unscrupulous users to take advantage of it before we have time to put a fix in place. All security related bugs should be sent directly to one or more of the developers.</p>
<p>This can be done in one of three ways; email <a href="mailto:security&#64;phpbb.com">security&#64;phpbb.com</a> this is forwarded to all developers, PM one of the developers (see Developer usergroup list for usernames of all developers) or email them directly (either use their listed email address if available or username&#64;phpbb.com where username is their board username). If emailing or PM'ing developers individually please send the message to several and not just one. If you obtain no response in a reasonable timeframe (a day or two) try the other listed developers.</p>
<a name="curbugs"></a><h2><u>6. Overview of current bug list</u></h2>
<p>This list is not complete (see above link for full list) but does represent those bugs which may effect users on a wider scale. Other bugs listed in the tracker have typically been shown to be limited to certain setups or methods of installation/upgrade.</p>
<ul>
<li>Cannot post very large messages when using PostgreSQL 7.0.x (limitation of Postgresql 7.0.x)</li>
<li>By default cannot post very large messages with MSSQL (this can be configured within MSSQL)</li>
<li>Use of non-latin charsets with MSSQL may result in post data being cropped unexpectedly</li>
<li>Upgrade may fail to complete on large boards under some hosts</li>
<li>PHP 3 compatibility issues remain and we recommend you upgrade to PHP4 as soon as possible ( phpBB 2.0.x will be the last version to support PHP 3 )
</ul>
<a name="php"></a><h2><u>7. PHP compatibility issues</u></h2>
<p>Please remember that running any application on a developmental version of PHP can lead to strange/unexpected results which may appear to be bugs in the application (which may not be true). Therefore we recommend you upgrade to the newest stable version of PHP before running phpBB 2. If you are running a developmental version of PHP please check any bugs you find on a system running a stable release before submitting.</p>
<p>This board has been developed and tested under Linux and Windows (amongst others) running IIS and Apache using MySQL 3.23 and 4.0.0, MSSQL Server 2000, MS Access 2000 and XP and PostgreSQL 7.x. Versions of PHP used range from 4.0.6 to 4.2.0 without problem. There may be unconfirmed issues with PHP 4.0.1 including patch level releases. If you experience problems with phpBB and have this PHP version installed it is recommended you upgrade it before posting bug reports.</p>
<a name="phpsec"></a><h3>7.i. Notice on PHP security issues</h3>
<p>At the end of February 2002 a <a href="http://security.e-matters.de/advisories/012002.html" target="_new">major security issue</a> was found with PHP 3 and 4 which has resulted in many hosting providers disabling file uploads (although patches fixing the security issues are available and new versions of PHP 4 have been released).</p>
<p>Because of this, and to cope with situations where hosts didn't allow such uploads anyway we have implemented various checks in phpBB 2. These checks prevent you from enabling or making use of functions which will not operate correctly on PHP as installed on your server. At this time this includes locally uploaded avatars and DB restore.</p>
<p>Third party mods may also be effected but these are outside our control, you should contact the mod writer for more information.</p>
<a name="disclaimer"></a><h2><u>8. Copyright and disclaimer</u></h2>
<p>This application is opensource software released under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html" target="_new">GPL</a>. Please see source code and the Docs directory for more details. This package and its contents are Copyright © 2002 <a href="http://www.phpbb.com/" target="_new">phpBB Group</a>, All Rights Reserved.</p>
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