Hello everyone,
Having some time to do stuff for CentOS here at LinuxTag I've also being building FreeIPA packages for CentOS. The idea that this will be core part of a central authentication system. Meaning that you will only need 1 account that you can use to login into the website, forum, wiki, bugtracker, systems, ...
IMHO the most important system that needs to be attached to the central auth database are the forums. There are a lot of users there (and a lot of content). So I was thinking, why not fix 2 things at the same time. Migrate from the old forum to the new forum that is linked to the central auth system. And then later on couple the other existing apps to it.
My feeling is that the most productive way to get forward with the website/forum update is to split the forum from the website. In my experience the forum present in CMS tools aren't made for the amount of traffic we are having. So something dedicated sound like a better option. So I have been looking around for open source forum software that link to ldap without to much effort. I've looked at 3 projects (Phorum, phpBB and SMF). They all 3 are good looking, well featured and maintained. Though, only phpBB has a decent built-in LDAP integration (FreeIPA is built on top of LDAP).
So my proposal is to setup a FreeIPA instance, link it with phpBB and try to migrate a part of the current forums and see how all that works. And if it looks good migrate to that.
So what do people think, did I miss stuff, other suggestions, ...
Regards, Tim
Tim Verhoeven wrote:
Hello everyone,
Having some time to do stuff for CentOS here at LinuxTag I've also being building FreeIPA packages for CentOS. The idea that this will be core part of a central authentication system. Meaning that you will only need 1 account that you can use to login into the website, forum, wiki, bugtracker, systems, ...
IMHO the most important system that needs to be attached to the central auth database are the forums. There are a lot of users there (and a lot of content). So I was thinking, why not fix 2 things at the same time. Migrate from the old forum to the new forum that is linked to the central auth system. And then later on couple the other existing apps to it.
My feeling is that the most productive way to get forward with the website/forum update is to split the forum from the website. In my experience the forum present in CMS tools aren't made for the amount of traffic we are having. So something dedicated sound like a better option. So I have been looking around for open source forum software that link to ldap without to much effort. I've looked at 3 projects (Phorum, phpBB and SMF). They all 3 are good looking, well featured and maintained. Though, only phpBB has a decent built-in LDAP integration (FreeIPA is built on top of LDAP).
So my proposal is to setup a FreeIPA instance, link it with phpBB and try to migrate a part of the current forums and see how all that works. And if it looks good migrate to that.
So what do people think, did I miss stuff, other suggestions, ...
Regards, Tim
is phpBB the only alternative ? i remember we've already discussed about phpBB and it seems not a lot of people were phpBB 'lovers' ... due also to the fact that because it's the most known forum, it's more than the others subject to php attacks ... When there was a request to host a forum for the centos french community , a decision was taken to use punBB (now call fluxBB - http://www.fluxbb.org) and put a portal on top (5 minutes install) .. i don't know punBB more than than (i've just installed it once for fr.centos.org) but Guillaume (he's in CC) did the hooks on the punBB setup ... Guillaume : do you know if the next release (1.3 iirc) will handle external authentication mechanisms, like ldap ?
On the other hand, having a SSO solution will be easier for everybody, including giving rights faster to people in the wiki for example. But on the other hand, it will reduce the number of people able/allowed to do modifications (see the RPMRepo story using ldap for the wiki ...)
On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 2:33 PM, Fabian Arrotin fabian.arrotin@arrfab.net wrote: ...snip
is phpBB the only alternative ? i remember we've already discussed about phpBB and it seems not a lot of people were phpBB 'lovers' ... due also to the fact that because it's the most known forum, it's more than the others subject to php attacks ...
Probably not, but the 3 I mention seemed to be the 3 most popular. I probably mist some so that why I'm asking it here : -)
When there was a request to host a forum for the centos french community , a decision was taken to use punBB (now call fluxBB - http://www.fluxbb.org) and put a portal on top (5 minutes install) .. i don't know punBB more than than (i've just installed it once for fr.centos.org) but Guillaume (he's in CC) did the hooks on the punBB setup ...
Thanks for the pointer, I've had a look and the fr.centos.org site looks nice. I've also checked the fluxBB project itself and it look like the 1.3 version will have hooks that allow you to write some sort of plugin that allows you to link it with LDAP. So it is a option, although phpBB has that feature built-in which makes getting support for it somewhat easier :-)
Guillaume : do you know if the next release (1.3 iirc) will handle external authentication mechanisms, like ldap ?
On the other hand, having a SSO solution will be easier for everybody, including giving rights faster to people in the wiki for example. But on the other hand, it will reduce the number of people able/allowed to do modifications (see the RPMRepo story using ldap for the wiki ...)
I'm not really following the RPMRepo story, so I'm not aware on what is going one there. Bu the idea is that FreeIPA will allow us to work with groups and ACL's so that we control per user what he or she can do.
Anyway, more feedback, suggestions or comments welcome !
Regards, Tim
On Sun, Jun 1, 2008 at 4:49 PM, Tim Verhoeven tim.verhoeven.be@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for the pointer, I've had a look and the fr.centos.org site looks nice. I've also checked the fluxBB project itself and it look like the 1.3 version will have hooks that allow you to write some sort of plugin that allows you to link it with LDAP. So it is a option, although phpBB has that feature built-in which makes getting support for it somewhat easier :-)
I'd like to add a +1 for punBB (or now apparently fluxBB). One of the largest Dutch Linux forums (currently ~300,000 posts, 6,000 users) I used to be a moderator for, previously used phpBB. There were a lot of problems with vulnerabilities, posts that were disappearing, and performance. I suggested to migrate that forum to punBB (since I had good experiences with it), and since that migration all major problems disappeared. Pun was a lot simpler, and offered less features, but certainly worked better and faster.
Take care, Daniel
On May 31, 2008, at 7:39 AM, Tim Verhoeven wrote:
So my proposal is to setup a FreeIPA instance, link it with phpBB and try to migrate a part of the current forums and see how all that works. And if it looks good migrate to that.
+1 for this, sounds like a good idea to me. We recently setup a new phpbb forum here with mod_security enabled, which seems to be working well after a few small tweaks and takes off some of the worry of zero- day-type exploits.
-Jeff
Tim Verhoeven wrote:
IMHO the most important system that needs to be attached to the central auth database are the forums. There are a lot of users there (and a lot of content). So I was thinking, why not fix 2 things at the
Does this cover all the issues that were raised as requirements for a new forums system ? There should be a page on the wiki for website V2 that covers most of these issues.
- KB
On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 3:58 PM, Karanbir Singh mail-lists@karan.org wrote:
Tim Verhoeven wrote:
IMHO the most important system that needs to be attached to the central auth database are the forums. There are a lot of users there (and a lot of content). So I was thinking, why not fix 2 things at the
Does this cover all the issues that were raised as requirements for a new forums system ? There should be a page on the wiki for website V2 that covers most of these issues.
As far as I can see requirements for the forum, it looks ok. Only the email gateway to a mailinglist is not really there, but there is a nice forum to RSS gateway which the none-forum lovers may a usable alternative.
Regards, Tim
Tim Verhoeven wrote:
As far as I can see requirements for the forum, it looks ok. Only the email gateway to a mailinglist is not really there, but there is a nice forum to RSS gateway which the none-forum lovers may a usable alternative.
After doing lots of thinking on that topic, I don't even think that gating forum and mailing lists is such a good idea anymore, as you really are catering to two completely different mindsets of people.
Cheers,
Ralph
On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 6:53 PM, Ralph Angenendt ra+centos@br-online.de wrote:
Tim Verhoeven wrote:
As far as I can see requirements for the forum, it looks ok. Only the email gateway to a mailinglist is not really there, but there is a nice forum to RSS gateway which the none-forum lovers may a usable alternative.
After doing lots of thinking on that topic, I don't even think that gating forum and mailing lists is such a good idea anymore, as you really are catering to two completely different mindsets of people.
Indeed, that is way I like the idea of setting up the RSS gateway instead of a email gateway. Those people not into forums but that still like to follow it a bit can use the RSS feeds.
Regards, Tim
Ralph Angenendt wrote:
Tim Verhoeven wrote:
As far as I can see requirements for the forum, it looks ok. Only the email gateway to a mailinglist is not really there, but there is a nice forum to RSS gateway which the none-forum lovers may a usable alternative.
After doing lots of thinking on that topic, I don't even think that gating forum and mailing lists is such a good idea anymore, as you really are catering to two completely different mindsets of people.
But the differences are in how/when they access, not so much the content of the questions or answers. These guys seem to do a pretty good job at running forums with gateways to existing mailling lists with threads mostly staying together: http://www.backupcentral.com/phpBB2/. I'm on the backuppc mail list and don't see any difference if someone posts on the forum instead.
Les Mikesell wrote:
But the differences are in how/when they access, not so much the content of the questions or answers. These guys seem to do a pretty good job at running forums with gateways to existing mailling lists with threads mostly staying together: http://www.backupcentral.com/phpBB2/. I'm on the backuppc mail list and don't see any difference if someone posts on the forum instead.
Hmmmm.
How high is the traffic in the mailing lists? How high is the traffic on the forums?
Ralph
Ralph Angenendt wrote:
But the differences are in how/when they access, not so much the content of the questions or answers. These guys seem to do a pretty good job at running forums with gateways to existing mailling lists with threads mostly staying together: http://www.backupcentral.com/phpBB2/. I'm on the backuppc mail list and don't see any difference if someone posts on the forum instead.
Hmmmm.
How high is the traffic in the mailing lists? How high is the traffic on the forums?
I don't have any idea since it isn't obvious where anything originates. I'd guess most of the posting happens on the lists (at least on backuppc where it is mostly people who were on the list before the forum gateway existed) but there might be a lot of people who read/search the forums and some new user questions might come from there.
Ralph Angenendt wrote:
After doing lots of thinking on that topic, I don't even think that gating forum and mailing lists is such a good idea anymore, as you really are catering to two completely different mindsets of people.
But it does not need to be like that, a unified system would / should go a long way in bridging the gap that exists at the moment.
Tim Verhoeven wrote:
As far as I can see requirements for the forum, it looks ok. Only the email gateway to a mailinglist is not really there, but there is a nice forum to RSS gateway which the none-forum lovers may a usable alternative.
iirc, its one of the main issues behind wanting a better forum system. Otherwise, are there any major benefits of moving to another s/w ? At the moment, and a very real option for the future, is to just stay with an integrated CMS / Forum / News etc system.
Karanbir Singh wrote:
Tim Verhoeven wrote:
As far as I can see requirements for the forum, it looks ok. Only the email gateway to a mailinglist is not really there, but there is a nice forum to RSS gateway which the none-forum lovers may a usable alternative.
iirc, its one of the main issues behind wanting a better forum system. Otherwise, are there any major benefits of moving to another s/w ? At the moment, and a very real option for the future, is to just stay with an integrated CMS / Forum / News etc system.
One of the big benefits I see on other forum software is the ability to jump to the first unread post in a thread, something I haven't noticed a way of doing on the current system. It's extremely time consuming to have to reread a whole thread to find out where you last read to and find the new posts in a thread since your last visit.
Ned Slider wrote:
One of the big benefits I see on other forum software is the ability to jump to the first unread post in a thread, something I haven't noticed a way of doing on the current system. It's extremely time consuming to have to reread a whole thread to find out where you last read to and find the new posts in a thread since your last visit.
a mail gateway will solve that problem :D
Tim Verhoeven wrote:
My feeling is that the most productive way to get forward with the website/forum update is to split the forum from the website. In my experience the forum present in CMS tools aren't made for the amount of traffic we are having. So something dedicated sound like a better option. So I have been looking around for open source forum software that link to ldap without to much effort. I've looked at 3 projects (Phorum, phpBB and SMF). They all 3 are good looking, well featured and maintained. Though, only phpBB has a decent built-in LDAP integration (FreeIPA is built on top of LDAP).
<snip>
So what do people think, did I miss stuff, other suggestions, ...
A thread has started at the forums for forum users to let folks know what they would like to see in terms of features/usability:
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14921&forum=4...
Obviously this is approaching the issue from an end user PoV, but it may be helpful in understanding what the community wants when choosing what software to use. Personally I would think any of the major dedicated forum software would be an improvement in terms of features/usability compared to the current system and provide many of the features that users are looking for as standard.
Ned Slider wrote:
A thread has started at the forums for forum users to let folks know what they would like to see in terms of features/usability:
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14921&forum=4...
Is someone going to consolidate this into the wiki page ?
Karanbir Singh wrote:
Ned Slider wrote:
A thread has started at the forums for forum users to let folks know what they would like to see in terms of features/usability:
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14921&forum=4...
Is someone going to consolidate this into the wiki page ?
Yes, I could certainly do that.
Unless there is a great urgency, lets leave it for a week or two to collect responses (plus I'm away from the 3rd-7th) and I'll get on it when I get back. Unless anyone wants to jump in and do it in the meantime...
Karanbir Singh wrote:
Ned Slider wrote:
A thread has started at the forums for forum users to let folks know what they would like to see in terms of features/usability:
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14921&forum=4...
Is someone going to consolidate this into the wiki page ?
No Wiki page yet (I haven't forgotten), but here is a quick summary of points raised/features requested so far by forum members:
Major * Persistent logins * Remember read/unread posts across multiple PCs/logins (per user, not per machine) * The remember me, keep cookie for 1 year option looks broken (relates to the above) * View first unread post within thread feature * Ability for users to change registered email address.
Minor * Thank User button/feature * Better management of subscribed threads * Quick links feature
Most of the major issues revolve around having to constantly re-login every 24 hours and the lack of a view first unread post within thread feature. One would hope that both of these issues would be addressed as standard in most major forum software packages. Basically our forum users just want the features they have come to expect as standard on other forums, but appear to be lacking in our current software.
On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 12:14 PM, Ned Slider ned@unixmail.co.uk wrote:
Karanbir Singh wrote:
Ned Slider wrote:
A thread has started at the forums for forum users to let folks know what they would like to see in terms of features/usability:
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14921&forum=4...
Is someone going to consolidate this into the wiki page ?
No Wiki page yet (I haven't forgotten), but here is a quick summary of points raised/features requested so far by forum members:
Major
- Persistent logins
- Remember read/unread posts across multiple PCs/logins (per user, not per
machine)
- The remember me, keep cookie for 1 year option looks broken (relates to
the above)
- View first unread post within thread feature
- Ability for users to change registered email address.
Minor
- Thank User button/feature
- Better management of subscribed threads
- Quick links feature
Most of the major issues revolve around having to constantly re-login every 24 hours and the lack of a view first unread post within thread feature. One would hope that both of these issues would be addressed as standard in most major forum software packages. Basically our forum users just want the features they have come to expect as standard on other forums, but appear to be lacking in our current software.
I would like to resurrect this topic after one month of no movement. For those who recently joined the maillist, the original post was on May 31:
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2008-May/004685.html
which continued on:
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2008-June/004687.html
and then on:
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2008-June/004790.html
With a growing number of CentOS forum users we need a better piece of software. Let's push forward this movement, shall we?
And this relates to the establishment of the planned internationalized centos.org sites for ja, es, de, ru, etc etc. The idea is to use the same software for all these sites to make management easier. So far, fr.centos.org is the only one that is already in place (using punBB). So, developers, can we resume activities on setting up the next target ja.centos.org which was started sometime ago? If this should be a separate subject, I will be happy to start a new thread.
Akemi
Akemi
Dear Akemi.
With a growing number of CentOS forum users we need a better piece of software. Let's push forward this movement, shall we?
Maybe.
And this relates to the establishment of the planned internationalized centos.org sites for ja, es, de, ru, etc etc. The idea is to use the same software for all these sites to make management easier. So far, fr.centos.org is the only one that is already in place (using punBB).
I would welcome a wiki based site (as most work is already done in the wiki) with i18n support, instead. A lot of guys and girls are currently working on translating content and the already existing structure ($HOST/$LANG/$SITE) and a simple language switcher could be added easily.
In my POV there are only a few aspects that cannot be handled with a wiki system:
- (maybe) planet.centos.org - dynamic mirror list - the forums ...
An option could be to add language specific forums or at least forum sections for commonly used languages. Localiced forums could also be handled by user groups in foreign countries (like we already do on gcug.de).
It is important to keep the content synched for all languages which would be nearly impossible on splitted sites, you suggested. I was also a bit shocked that the fr.centos.org sited completly breaks with the rest of the CentOS.org style.
Best Regards Marcus
On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 7:20 AM, Karanbir Singh mail-lists@karan.org wrote:
Akemi Yagi wrote:
With a growing number of CentOS forum users we need a better piece of software. Let's push forward this movement, shall we?
With the number of things going on at the moment, can we defer this conversation to perhaps the first week of Sept ?
- KB
Certainly.
/me is marking the calendar. :-D
Akemi
Ned Slider wrote:
My feeling is that the most productive way to get forward with the website/forum update is to split the forum from the website. In my experience the forum present in CMS tools aren't made for the amount of traffic we are having. So something dedicated sound like a better option. So I have been looking around for open source forum software that link to ldap without to much effort. I've looked at 3 projects (Phorum, phpBB and SMF). They all 3 are good looking, well featured and maintained. Though, only phpBB has a decent built-in LDAP integration (FreeIPA is built on top of LDAP).
<snip>
So what do people think, did I miss stuff, other suggestions, ...
A thread has started at the forums for forum users to let folks know what they would like to see in terms of features/usability:
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=14921&forum=4...
Obviously this is approaching the issue from an end user PoV, but it may be helpful in understanding what the community wants when choosing what software to use. Personally I would think any of the major dedicated forum software would be an improvement in terms of features/usability compared to the current system and provide many of the features that users are looking for as standard.
Why not hook up whatever these guys are using as an email<->forum gateway so you don't have to log in all the time to reply: http://www.backupcentral.com/phpBB2/two-way-mirrors-of-external-mailing-list.... There was really no impact at all on the backuppc list when it was added other than perhaps a few more beginner-type questions. I don't know specifically what the gateway software is, but it is independent from the mail list and appears as a single subscriber.
-
Akemi Yagi -
Daniel de Kok -
Fabian Arrotin -
Jeff Sheltren -
Karanbir Singh -
Les Mikesell -
Marcus Moeller -
Ned Slider -
Ralph Angenendt -
Tim Verhoeven