How to run a forum smoothly - forum experts column

[Naan-Kadavul]

How to run a forum smoothly - forum experts column

Hi all,

I am very tired with my forum. Alot of problems in my forum. Such as database errors, fatal errors, login problems, torrent stats problem, site loading slowly etc. Its been 4 months since i started out my site. And its really making me too tired of problems. I am running my site in a windows server 2003 - 32 bit with 100mbit/speed.

I want to know more tricks and tips from forum building experts. That's why i started out this thread. I want to know what can i do for my forum security to protect from hackers.

Secondly.. how can i prevent these type of errors ? and how can i maintain my site properly to avoid such problems in future ?

And as all of us know : backups are our great friend. So besides backups..what are other ways to maintain a site-forum smoothly..

Share your experience, views, opinions and your skills right here....

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Just to let you all know..

My forum has been hacked 1 time which caused me to loose everything. And i re-started back with hopes and now i am nearly crossing 10k members within 4 months of hardwork.

As mostly, my forum is running in a windows server.. how can i protect my server ?
Is there any specific software/applications to be installed in server ?

And i also would like to know.. not only me i think a lot of people want to know more matters from forum experts.. vbulletin staffs..can join here too.. !!

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Come on guys...give me your helping hand....!!

[metalguy639]

I answered your other thread with some info that you can implement on your forum to help you with some issues.

Personally if I were you I would drop windows and put the server on linux. Linux is faster, more stable and better rounded dealing with php and various other applications for a web host server than windows.

[Naan-Kadavul]

Thank you metalguy.. It really helps me alot...thanks for your sayings..

Regards,
Bharath

[toolmanwill]

i have to concur with metalguy on moving to linux server and it's ability to better handle php/mysql, especially if you are using a torrent tracker mod.
I know my tracker mod can use windows XBT, but i have rarely seen it work efficiently.
Plus seems like everyone has a bone to pick with micro$oft so hackers tend to go after windows OS rather than linux based ones.

I must add too, i noticed you were using Olaf's vbxbt tracker mod. While i am not putting him or his work down, his mod uses a cron task to duplicate data across xbt/vbulletin tables, this can slow your board down at times the more users and attachments you have(noticed from pervious experience with users of his mod).

[Naan-Kadavul]

Oh, thanks toolmanwill...

I want to ask a question.. can we run torrents in utorrent using Linux server ?
Mainly i want to use server to host my site there and also i want to seed torrents
via linux servers..

Regards,
Bharath

[toolmanwill]

i don't think you can use utorrent but you could use torrentflux on a linux server to seed for sure

[metalguy639]

Not sure about uTorrent either however I know that when I've had Linux installed before on my PC, I've installed Wine as well and ran uTorrent just fine. I'm not sure that this would be the case though in a server set up.

[Naan-Kadavul]

Thank you guyz... very useful !!