vb.org Archive - Miscellaneous Hacks - vbNetwork - share forums with other boards

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- - Miscellaneous Hacks - vbNetwork - share forums with other boards (https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=245942)

All set up here.
If anyone is interested in networking forums (General Off-topic stuff), send me a PM.

I run a Debate site (topics range from serious to fun : politics/religion/philosophy/current events - entertainment/sports/off-topic, etc...). I'm interested in setting up a network with other sites.

Not interested in trolling behavior though. We are fun, but respectful.

Can a board be using vbulletin 3 and another use vbulletin 4 with this add-on?

Very quiet in here....guess this thing never really took-off?

There was a lot more activity for the 3.8x version that I found. I finally got it installed and working after finding much better instruction in the other thread.

Quote:

vbNetwork Version 0.9.5
Requirements/Notes
________________________________________
This plugin is being developed on 3.8.X of vBulletin and has been tested on 3.6.X and 3.7.X
PHP's libcurl package needs to be installed on your server.
The usergroup "Unregistered / Not Logged" must be given permission to view network forums and in Usergroup Manager to post and reply, you can disable guest posting in the forum permissions but must be enabled in the usergroup settings.
It is recommended that your User Registration Options allow usernames up to 25 characters in length.
Installation
________________________________________
1. Upload all files in the UPLOAD directory, preserving the directory structure.
2. Create the following directories with the following permissions

./network/packets/incoming - chmod 777
./network/packets/outgoing - chmod 777
3. Go to your AdminCP and install the product's XML file (product-network.xml or product-network-3.5.X.xml if you're using vBulletin 3.5)
Instructions for Those Running a Network or acting as the central site
Steps for Creating a Network
1. Go into your Control Panel and under Network Management select "Add New Network"
2. Fill out the information accordingly. Make sure that the "Network Admin" and "SelfID" match.
3. Under "Network Manager" select the newly created network (click on network name).
4. Under "Add a New Messageboard" enter in the information for your messageboard/site (The primary Board/site).
The "Node Code" should match what you entered under "Add New Network" under Self ID
Click Save.
Steps for Creating a Network Forum (Share Forum)
1. Under "Network Forum Manger" select "Add Network Forum".
2. Enter in a unique numeric Network Forum ID (This can be anything I just use three digits say 199).
3. Your board will automatically be subscribed to forums set as network forums with this number, see next step.
4. Use the Forum Manager to assign this network forum to a forum on your board, open the forum (edit) and scroll to the bottom, you will see a dropdown with 2 choices – Local or Networked. Select networked then enter the Network Forum ID below such as 199 as is the case above.
You can do this for more than one forum and the satellite boards will use the same setting in the forum they wish to share.
Steps for Adding a Mesasgeboard/Site to Your Network
1. Go into your Control Panel and under Network Manager select the desired network, as per set up in step 1, click on the name to open/edit.
2. Under "Add a New Messageboard" enter the information (as per below) for the new messageboard and click "Save Board".
Node Code – for this I usually use an abbreviation of the board/site that is going to be joining, normally 3 letters.(eg abc)
Board URL is the URL of the other board/site.
Service URL is the location of service.php EG http://www.anothermessageboard.com/network/service.php or http://www.anothermessageboard.com/f...rk/service.php
depending on the site setup.
3. Use the "Network Forum Manager" to add the new board to the desired network forums.
Open Network Forum Manager, click “Add Board to Forum” under the corresponding Forum ID (eg The 199 we assigned earlier)
Enter the node code you assigned earlier for the new site/board (eg abc)
4. Once again select the desired network in the Network Manager.
5. Under "XML Update" copy the XML from "Network Nodes" and "Network Forums" and send it to the admin of the new site/messageboard. The admin will use this XML to update the network info on their board.
6. Using the Network Manager again, under "Network Updates" select the boards on your network to send an update. Every board on your network will need an update with the new messageboard's info, so you should probably select every board.
7. Click "Send Updates".
Instructions for Those Joining a Network
Steps for Joining a Network
1. Go into your Control Panel and under Network Management select "Add New Network"
2. The network admin should have supplied you with the information on this screen.
Network Name – set by central site
Network Admin – set by central site
Self ID – set by central site that would be the abc example above.
Network password – set by central site
Click Save
3. Get back to "Network Manager" under "Network Management" and open/edit the network you just added.
4. The network admin should have supplied you with XML for "Network Nodes" and "Network Forums". Paste the XML into the appropiate field and click "Save".
Your board is now configured to receive packets from the network, but you will have to assign a forum to receive and send posts see next step.
Steps for Adding/assigning a Network Forum
1. Notify your network admin that you wish to subscribe to a certain network forum, he will give you the Network Forum ID (The 199 example above) and add you to the share forum as well.
2. Once your network admin has confirmed that you have been subscribed to the network forum, use the "Forum Manager" to assign a local forum to the network forum (this can be any forum on your site, some people set up a specific forum for this purpose). These options are near the bottom of the forum configuration under "Network Options".
Select Networked Forum from the drop down and enter the Network Forum ID (eg 199) below, then save it.
Posts from both sites will now appear in that forum.
Final Notes
When adding boards, removing board, adding network forums, removing network forums, adding messageboards to and removing messageboards from network forums, all the boards on your network will need to be updated with this new information.
Open the Network Manager, open/edit the affected network.
Check the boxes in the list of subscribed sites to select those that will receive updates.
Click “Send Updates”
Go to 'Scheduled Task Manager' and set your network delivery to run (you may have to enable it) as often as you need it to. (find the network and open/edit, if everything is set to * it will send/receive every minute)
To run a test, make a post in the shared forum, then go to 'Scheduled Task Manager' and click “Run Now” under the edit button.

Cron Configuration
________________________________________
Your board will periodically send out updates (mostly new posts/threads). This is done through a cron, either a vBulletin "Scheduled Task" or a standard Unix cron.
In 'Scheduled Task Manager' the installer will create a task that is by default disabled.
You must enable to the scheduled task and set it to run as often as you like.
Alternatively, you can run a system cron. The cron must be run from the directory of the deliver.php script and passed the 'console' parameter. An example is below:

cd /directory/of/your/forum/network; php -f deliver.php console
Contributors
________________________________________
1. ChairmanTroll at www.theranter.com
2. Hambil at www.theranter.com
Thank you!
Other
________________________________________
Currently support for this plugin is minimal. I can be contacted at zethon@gmail.com.
I hope to one day add network voting support and pm support.
This plugin was originally developed in Summer 2006 and has undergone a lot of revision and bug fixing since. Please send me any bugs you find in the network software and I will do my best. Feel free to contribute code as well.
If you are interested in joining your board to our existing network, send me an email and we'll be happy to have you. But please realize that the content of our network is based on trolling and may not be suitable for some message boards.
If you need some help starting up your own network, let me know and I'll do my best to help out.

I am joining tonight.

1 potential problem.

For my site, new members registered names must be letters and/or numbers with no special characters or spaces in between. It uses this regular expression: ^[A-Z0-9]+$

I have this rule set in place because my host said it would break MediaWiki which I have installed (but down at the moment).

Will this be a problem?

Google indexes all pages under multiple urls. :( Is there any way to fix this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alfa1 (Post 2198260)

Google indexes all pages under multiple urls. :( Is there any way to fix this?

By making your network subforum private. You should anyway as it may contain not safe for work material.

I want to join the network for pure entertainment value. I've seen some threads. Their funny enough to warrant trying it.

Anyone run automotive website... I have one pm me

Damn forgot all about this.

Anybody whants to share forum boards with me?

my site is www.gamerhut.us

I like your site's layout. You need more members. Go to theadminzone.com or something and join their network. Also, make sure your put your site's link in your sig. I let people do that on my forum, as long as they aren't spamming.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Octavius. (Post 2216870)

thats your site?

we should network =D

I am trying to reach out to gamers etc.

I want to network with everybody on here..

what do u do.. what doyou add in the spots?

Network Name
This is the unique name for the network of boards you are creating or joining.
Network Admin
This is the node code of the network admin. If you are creating your own network, this is the same as self-id. Otherwise, this will be supplied to you by the network admin.
Self ID
This is the node code of YOUR messageboard. If you are creating your own network, this is the same as network admin above. Otherwise, this will be supplied to you by the network admin.
Network Password
This is the network password. If you are creating your own network, select a password and remember it, there is no way to retrieve it. This cannot be blank but has a minimum of 1 character. If you are joining a network this will be supplied to you by the network admin.

Anybody can help meout wiht this network thing man

I am still looking for others

I'm back in the network with birdoprey5's juot.net forum and max's AMB forum.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamerhut (Post 2222742)

I am still looking for others

What happened to your site?

Can I link my two vBulletin forums together? One runs 3.8 and the other 4.1.5?

I'd like to see some screen shots or more links with the networks actively intergrated...

The 1st link above, you have to register, 2nd is empty and 3rd is not in use anymore.

On mine (the 2nd one) you have to register to see it: http://www.juot.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=50

Same with AMB which is on the same network.

8th Legion is the newest one on this network (of 3 boards) I think they are open: http://www.the8thlegion.com/forums/70-The-Trollarium

Tagged because I might be interested in looking to add this option.
The thing is, sometimes some of the content can be inappropriate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thecore762 (Post 2245017)

Tagged because I might be interested in looking to add this option.
The thing is, sometimes some of the content can be inappropriate.

Only thing bad I've seen so far was a thread about a sex toy. Other than that, the Network seems to be full of random rants and youtube links. I've noticed that some of my members are viewing the threads and only a few occasionally post. Looks like they have to get used to it first. I like it because it is a nice break from the average forum thread on my site.

The point of this mod is you can network any boards together, if you network with admins you trust you can trust the content of your network. It just so happens my forum and zethon's forum who have been networked for over a year have kind of "anything goes" off-topic so discussion of sex toys and other not-family-friendly topics are the usual on our network. Using this mod does not mean you get our threads- you can network with someone else.

What about from a SEO point of view? Duplicated content?

Quote:

Originally Posted by thecore762 (Post 2245183)

What about from a SEO point of view? Duplicated content?

One solution is to make the forum not visible to search engines... However my personal opinion is- I don't really care what Google thinks, my main concern is making a forum my members want to visit- SEO is a secondary concern.

User experience > SEO

I took a lot of old threads from the forums I used to post on and re-posted them on my site.

Instead of SEO going down, it went up. SEO is pretty unpredictable at times, so you shouldn't always depend on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AtomicAcidbath (Post 2065031)

Oh yes, this has wonderful possibilities.
Anyone remember FidoNet from the BBS days?

I've been wanting this for a LONG time.

Any progress on other platforms? (phpBB would be nice)

Anyone have technology forums that would like to have a general geek networked forum?

I run geekhack.org :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by mavherzog (Post 2246330)

Anyone have technology forums that would like to have a general geek networked forum?

I run geekhack.org :)

I'll join it.

Do you have a network setup already?

-----

Hey BOP, can different networks share the same subforum or does a new subforum have to be created?

You'd have to make a different (sub)forum for each network...

This thread has been active more recently than the thread for vb3.8, so from that thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by I.M.O.G. (Post 2249408)

I'm receiving a lot of XML parser errors (error code 3 when running the scheduled task) when using this mod.

For example, a post with regular quotes is fine:

I'm Matt, AKA "I.M.O.G."

But a post with these quotes is not:

I’m Matt, AKA “I.M.O.G.”

I'm running a network with 8 nodes, so I'm working at improving the parsing code to be a bit more liberal. I've also noticed you have to be careful about the settings on each board - depending on the image settings and such, you may receive errors if one board in the network has more liberal settings configured than another.

Anyone have experience resolving issues like this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Octavius. (Post 2246356)

I'll join it. Do you have a network setup already?

Don't have one setup yet. But will do so once I get the time (perhaps this weekend).

For anyone using this plugin, you may want to make the following changes to improve the way vbnetwork handles special characters:

Line 320 of "/forums/network/function_network.php" should read:
$xmlstr = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>'."\n";

The line just below that should change "=" to ".=".

With that small change, you will eliminate a lot of "error code 3" instances, where the XML feeds are corrupted due to the use of special characters in posts.

I have installed and created a new network. For those wanting to join and network with geekhack.org, please drop me an email at: me [at] imav [dot] org

mavherzog, or anyone else sharing public sections, are you doing anything to address SEO concerns? Not sure if duplicate content is something you are concerned with.

Currently I have 9 of my own sites in a network, however we are syncing internal/private sections not accessed by search robots.

I plan to create new forums specifically to be networked. I have had no takers so far regarding other sites willing to network with me. (which I find quite odd considering geekhack is quite busy and can only help those that choose to network with us)

Quote:

Originally Posted by mavherzog (Post 2280841)

I have this installed on a test site only. Not sure if it work or not, but willing to test it if you are.

How does this work?

I need this installed on both vb forums?

Yes both sites must be setup... One site because the "network admin" and sets up a network password- the other site needs to enter the password (and have the URL of the admin forum) among other settings.

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