Forum newbie needs a little guidance

[cothse]

Hi,

I just implemented a phpbb3 forum, and considering I only have the one day's experience with forum programming, I'm really not sure if I did it correctly, or securely.

pekingese-dogs.net/forums

What are some things I should be aware of in terms of security and overall stability? If it is not too out of your way, I was wondering if some of the members here would try cracking it and let me know what vulnerabilities there are I could work on? (Try not to go tooo wild.)

This is also my first time working with MySQL, and I just have one question about it presently. Is it better to create a new database for every website I do, or for multiple websites to share a single database using different prefixes? I don't know much about this, but my general programming background suggests a database shouldn't be too large since that can lag simple queries, while, on the other hand, my web host suggests more databases means more cost. How do you guys have it set up? I expect probably a few hundred users per website.

Thanks again,
Eugene

[Chris]

A new DB for each website, easier for backups. IF a site cannot cover it's own hosting costs, generally you need to tweak it. You only need about 30 cents a day really for hosting.

Also, I would highly recommend trying for vbulletin instead of phpbb. Phpbb is notorious for getting hacked. Just a couple weeks ago half a million phpbb forums were hacked.

Vbulletin costs money, sure, but it is money very well spent.

[Blue Cat Buxton]

Vbulletin are putting their prices up as well from the begining of June, so now is the time to buy, rather than putting it off for a couple of weeks.

[Chris]

Really? I don't remember hearing a price increase, what is the new price going to be?

[Xander]

Really? I don't remember hearing a price increase, what is the new price going to be?

They announced a few weeks ago http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=268714, as said now is the time to get one I guess.

[Chris]

Ya... I just went and got another year update access for all mine, saves me $30 each down the road... and I have 10.

[cothse]

A new DB for each website, easier for backups. IF a site cannot cover it's own hosting costs, generally you need to tweak it. You only need about 30 cents a day really for hosting.

Also, I would highly recommend trying for vbulletin instead of phpbb. Phpbb is notorious for getting hacked. Just a couple weeks ago half a million phpbb forums were hacked.

Vbulletin costs money, sure, but it is money very well spent.

Now that you mention it, I can imagine the headache with backup/restore; thanks for the heads up on that.

I'd love to use vbulletin, but I'm not monetizing well yet and my forum posts are predominantly my own schizophrenic conversations since I have hardly any traffic, which makes vbulletin a pretty inefficient purchase for me.

Are the security issues pretty typical of free forums? I'm using phpbb based on its popularity, i.e. development, but if you know if a free forum better than phpbb, or a compromise between it and vbulletin, I'll certainly look into it.

Thanks