rouge admin
 

I have an admin on my website, that I thought I could trust. He's been with us for about 2 years now, but as of today he has broken trust with my admin team. This admin had access to ftp and the cpanel. My admin team got into an argument that I thought settled quite well. But when I woke today, my forum was over taken by the rouge admin. This admin renamed my admincp directory and changed my passwords for ftp and cpanel. These are my questions:

1. I still have access to the database so is their anything I can do to turn off the forums. Not take them down but to turn them off?

2. Is their any way I can find out what the admincp directory is since I can't access ftp nor cpanel. As I stated earlier I am an admin, and can access the database. I just need some way to turn off the forums so we can settle this.

I was not the only one affected by this rouge admin. The admin staff consists of 3 Admins that take care of the forums, Me and a fellow admin don't have access. My fellow admin actually bought the vbulletin license. The rough admin is just the founder of the site (name and idea). If anyone has any suggestions that would be nice. Thanks

Have you thought of emailing the guy and seeing if you two can talk on the phone about this issue?

Even if you manage to get to the database and turn the forums off, you know he can just go turn them on again, so it would probably be best to just resolve the issue rather than have a tug-of-war over turning the forums on and off.

We have tried calling, but he's most likely sleeping at this point.

I am the licence holder and we would like to resolve the issue, but at this point it doesn't seem to be an option.

seems both the two admins are here right now.who has access to the domain name,by the way ?

is it that the site owner ( founder) kicked out both the other admins ?

bbactive switch in the setting table.

Might be easier to ask your host to do a site restore if they are doing nightly backups for you though. You will need to go through them to get ftp / cpanel access back anyways.

Like Andrew mentioned, if you have access to the DB, the setting table contains the row that you can edit.... look for the row 'bbactive' and change the value field from 1 to 0 ..

contact your hosting company and ask them to reset your password for cpanel, and ftp....

You are assuming one of them are the ones who has their name on the hosting account. I would assume the name on the hosting account is the actual site owner (the rouge admin). But, maybe not, it was never stated.

If its his name on the hosting and he owns the site, trying to retake it is going to be very hard, and possibly illegal...

Well here's how I see it... who owns the hosting? If he does then leave the site and let him be, pick out another domain name and setup vB w/ your valid license, after you make the new forum update your info on vb.com and report his site as illegally using vBulletin. I would if you own it and can access the DB make a backup NOW.

Secondly you can find the admincp even if he renamed it ;). Also you can IF you have to move to a new host etc copy that site pretty much unless it uses a paid custom style (then who's name is that in you see?) that requires purchasing of a multi-site license etc.

*Just some tips, I personally do not get involved in situations where all info is not provided due to suspected bias i.e. "drama" for short.