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 VII. Configuration:

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Now you have to configure the software. Open up "config.inc.php" in your favorite text editor and make sure it is loaded as a plain text file.

 

The contents of the configuration file should be straightforward, but I'll give some hints on how to edit the variables now.

 

  $cfgBoardDisabled        - Enter either TRUE or FALSE to disable of enable the forum completely.
                             Tip: edit 'outOfOrder.ybt' to show a descriptive message of the reason
 
  $cfgAnonymousUser        - Enter the nickname of the user account which will be used for anonymous posts.
                             This account must in fact exist in the database for this to work.
                             By default there already is a 'guest'-account available in the database.
 
  $cfgValidateSettings     - Enter either TRUE or FALSE to make YapBB validate it's settings.
                             You can set this to false when everything works to speed things up just a little.
 
  $cfgSiteHomeURL          - The URL of the home page associated with this forum.
                             Any valid URL is acceptable.
 
  $cfgDocumentRoot         - A directory on the harddisk of the server.
                             Note there has to be a trailing forward slash (' / ') in the string.
                             Windows: something like "C:/Program Files/Apache/htdocs/YapBB/"
                             Linux: something like "/home/www/YapBB/"
 
  $cfgBaseDirectory        - This is the URI of YapBB visible from the server.
                             This option is available because under some circumstances the server
                             mappings are not equal to values derivable from $cfgBaseDirectory.
                             This string has to start AND end with a forward slash (' / ').
                             Eg: "/YapBB/"
 
  $cfgForumTitle           - The title to be displayed in the title-bar.
  $cfgSiteTitle            - The title for the link to the home page.
  $cfgEmail                - The email from which emails will appear to come and which will be included on every page.
  $cfgSiteHostName         - In some circumstances you must fill in the hostname of the server on which YapBB is installed.
                             You may leave this empty if everything works ok.
  $cfgSiteHostPort         - In some circumstances you must fill in the portnumber of the server on which YapBB is installed.
                             You may leave this empty if everything works ok.
 
  $cfgServerHost           - MySQL server hostname (usually localhost)
  $cfgServerPort           - MySQL server port (leave empty for default, which is 3306)
  $cfgServerUser           - MySQL user account to use
  $cfgServerPassword       - MySQL password to use
 
  $cfgDatabase['database'] - This contains the name of the database in which YapBB's tables are stored.

 

A little further down in the config file is a section which contains the list of names of the tables to use. Also make sure that list is correct.

 

There are many more options, but the ones listed above are the most important ones. They need to be correct in order to let YapBB work properly.

 

-Optional:-----------------------------------------------------------------

 

The following values are correct by default, but may be changed to tweak the forum:

 

  $cfgIncludeDirectory  - Directory in which the YapBB include-files reside
  $cfgTemplateDirectory - Directory in which to look for templates
  $cfgTmpDirectory      - Directory to store temporary files in.

 

These directories are all supposed to be subdirectories of YapBB, but you may be able to move these below even the document-root of the webserver, so that they are no longer visible to webbrowsers and such. Just prepend as many "../" parts as needed. Note that NONE of these 3 variables have a "/" as a first character and that the last character MUST be a "/". By default this is the case.

 

-Optional:-----------------------------------------------------------------

 

The following are an other kind of directories than the ones mentioned above. These directories will become part of a full URL and should therefore be visible on the webserver.

 

  $cfgImageDirectory   - Normally a subdirectory of $cfgDocumentRoot
  $cfgAvatarDirectory  - Normally a subdirectory of $cfgImageDirectory (not used in this version)
  $cfgSmiliesDirectory - Normally a subdirectory of $cfgImageDirectory

 

As with the previous directories, these ones do no not start with a "/", but do end with one.

 

-Optional:-----------------------------------------------------------------

 

A special note about $cfgAdminPage: If you change the name of the file 'controlPanel.php' (which you are encouraged to do, as a safety measure), you have to change the name here as well, or you'll won't be able to administer the forum on the admin pages when the board has been 'turned off' (see $cfgBoardDisabled in 'config.inc.php').

 

If you wish, you can take a look at the rest of the contents of the configuration file. The rest of the options allow you to change the way how YapBB looks and feels. It may be worthwhile if you'd like to customize it to your special wishes.