Omegaboard 1.0 Beta 4 Readme

    Please note this is not a complete userguide.  I have no clue when a complete userguide will be ready but keep checking Omegaboard's website for one.

    Anyways, thank you for choosing Omegaboard as your forum solution.  It is currently in beta so there maybe bugs in it.  Omegaboard is basicaly a modified phpBB 2.0.10 released under the same license.  It has the following modifications made to it:



Enough with all this feature stuff and lets get this board installed.  The Simple Installation is recommened for people who just want to get their board working and don't plan on using the template cacheing, data cacheing, avatar uploading, and sub templates features on their board.  The Advanced Installation is for people who want all features of their board fully functional.  If you already have phpBB 2.0.x installed and wish to convert it to Omegaboard you can skip the installation stuff and go on to Converting From phpBB 2.0.x.  Please note not to upload config.php over your existing config.php if you are converting from phpBB 2.0.x.  If you do, upload the backup of config.php you made over the config.php you uploaded.

Requirements For Installing Omegaboard

    If any of the fallowing requirements aren't met, you will not be able to install Omegaboard.

* - See Notes For People On Servers Running PHP in Safe Mode.

Simple Installation

  1. Decompress the phpBB 2 archive to a local directory on your system.
  2. Upload all the files contained in this archive (retaining the directory structure) to a web accessible directory on your server or hosting account.
  3. Change the permissions on config.php to be writeable by all (666 or -rw-rw-rw- within your FTP Client)
  4. Using your web browser visit the location you placed phpBB 2 with the addition of install/install.php, e.g. http://www.mydomain.com/phpBB2/install/install.php, http://www.mydomain.com/forum/install/install.php etc.
  5. Fill out all the requested information and hit Submit
  6. Change the permissions on config.php to be writeable only by yourself (644 or -rw-r--r-- within your FTP Client)
  7. Click the Complete Installation button or revisit the location you entered above.
  8. Omegaboard should now be available, please MAKE SURE you read at least the Security Notes below for important, security related post-installation instructions.
    1. Advanced Installation

      1. Decompress the phpBB 2 archive to a local directory on your system.
      2. Download all the files in your phpBB 2.0.x installation to your system. This way, if you screw up, you have a backup you can upload.
      3. Upload all the files contained in this archive (retaining the directory structure) to a web accessible directory on your server or hosting account.
      4. Change the permissions on config.php, templates/subSilver/sub_templates.cfg, includes/def_icons.php, includes/def_themes.php, includes/def_tree.php, includes/def_words.php, profilcp/def/def_userfiels.php, profilcp/def/def_usermaps.php, and language/lang_english/lang_extend.php to be writeable by all (666 or -rw-rw-rw- within your FTP Client)
      5. Change the permissions on cache and images/avatars to be exicutable by all (777 or drwxrwxrwx within your FTP Client)
      6. Using your web browser visit the location you placed phpBB 2 with the addition of install/install.php, e.g. http://www.mydomain.com/phpBB2/install/install.php, http://www.mydomain.com/forum/install/install.php etc.
      7. Fill out all the requested information and hit Submit
      8. Change the permissions on config.php to be writeable only by yourself (644 or -rw-r--r-- within your FTP Client)
      9. Click the Complete Installation button or revisit the location you entered above.
      10. Omegaboard should now be available, please MAKE SURE you read at least the Security Notes below for important, security related post-installation instructions.

      Converting From phpBB 2.0.x

      1. Decompress the phpBB 2 archive to a local directory on your system.
      2. Upload all the files contained in this archive except for config.php (retaining the directory structure) over your phpBB 2.0.x installation.
      3. Change the permissions on templates/subSilver/sub_templates.cfg, includes/def_icons.php, includes/def_themes.php, includes/def_tree.php, includes/def_words.php, profilcp/def/def_userfiels.php, profilcp/def/def_usermaps.php, and language/lang_english/lang_extend.php to be writeable by all (666 or -rw-rw-rw- within your FTP Client)
      4. Change the permissions on cache to be exicutable by all (777 or drwxrwxrwx within your FTP Client)
      5. Using your web browser visit the location you placed phpBB 2 with the addition of install/phpbb_converter.php, e.g. http://www.mydomain.com/phpBB2/install/phpbb_converter.php, http://www.mydomain.com/forum/install/phpbb_converter.php etc.
      6. Omegaboard should now be available, please MAKE SURE you read at least the Security Notes below for important, security related post-installation instructions.

      Upgrading From Beta 2 to Beta 3

          Read the list of changed files in OMEGABOARD-CHANGED-FILES.html and upload those over the current ones in your current Omegaboard installation.  Then using your web browser visit the location you placed Omegaboard with the addition of install/upgrade2.php, e.g. http://www.mydomain.com/phpBB2/install/upgrade2.php, http://www.mydomain.com/forum/install/upgrade2.php etc.

      Security Notes

          Once you have succssfully installed omegaboard you MUST ensure you remove the entire install/ and contrib/ directories.  Leaving these in place is a very serious potential security issue which may lead to deletion or alteration of files, etc.  Please note that until these directories are remove Omegaboard will not operate and a warning message will be displayed.  Beyond these essential deletions you may also wish to delete the docs/ directories if you wish.

      Notes For People On Servers Running PHP in Safe Mode

          Omegaboard 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 tmp 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. Also, if you or any of your board members get any permission deigned message on your board, changed the permissions of the file or directory the board can't access to 777 or drwxrwxrwx with your FTP Client.  This may cause some security problems as that anybody would be able to exicute it but it will get rid of the error message.