Major Additions - Joomla for vBulletin (IMPORTANT UPDATE) - Bridge to the World's Most Popular CMS

Warning!!! An potential exploit has been found in this modification. The server that hosts vjoomla.com has been attacked several times. It is known to already be severely comprimised so at this time it is unclear whether the vulnerability lies in vJoomla, Joomla itself or the server. Until this is resolved to my satisfaction I am removing this modification. My apologies.


The modification WILL be re-released once this issue is resolved!

vJoomla is an offshoot of Joomla 1.0 that is designed to run in tandem with vbulletin. Unlike the main release it will not run without vbulletin - if you desire a CMS without a forum then use Joomla! instead. vJoomla is identical in most all regards to Joomla!

What vJoomla Does

• Provide a single session, single login interface to Joomla and vbulletin.
• Allows Joomla pages to be skinned by vbulletin's template engine.
• Maps Joomla usergroups to vbulletin usergroups.

What vJoomla Does Not Do

• It does not rewrite your templates for you - so you will need to go in currently and change relative links to images and pages to absolute links. This is most important in the style sheets and in the navbar template. This is something you need to do yourself rather than programmatically since no two sites are likely to be using the same style sheet and the same setup for these links.

Install Instructions

1. Log into your admincp
2. Close your forum
3. If your forums are at the root of your site move them elsewhere - the best location is probably /forum
4. Upload the files from the zip packages to their respective locations. There should be no overwrites.
5. Navigate to the root of your site and run the Joomla installer.
6. Go back to the admincp and install the Joomla product file
7. Now either copy the ./cpstyles, ./clientscript and ./images directory of the forum into the Joomla directory OR create symbolic links to those directories. The contents of the ./images directory of Joomla and vbulletin will need to be merged.

This is release candidate 2.

[Michael Morris]

Sorry about that. I'll add support for alternate admincp directory names in RC2. I'll probably put it out tonight - that's two significant issues with the installer.

Other than that thing though, has anyone had problems with items other than the installer?

[Michael Morris]

Originally Posted by Mikhailtech

Michael - it's now working.

This is probably something I missed earlier in the thread, but my host helped me figure out what was wrong. I have a custom name for my admincp directory (for security reasons) and I had to go back and update all the installx.php files to reflect this accordingly. I know a lot of people have specific names for their admin directories. It's up to you, but you may want to make a note about that - that if you have a custom admincp directory name, you'll have to manually enter it into all of the installx.php files.

I will change this with RC2 - it is a significant issue. I'm sorry I overlooked it and appreciate your patience with this matter.

Also, a question about the Joomla install. During the install, it told me to make a bunch of directories writable. According to my host, having some of these writable opens my server up to attacks. Do these directories need to remain writable once the installation is complete?

They need to be writable at the time Joomla is installing or uninstalling modules and components. You can chmod them to be unwriteable most other times - though be aware that vJoomlaRecentThreads and vJoomlaWho'sOnline won't be able to cache results if you do (they will not publically error when this occurs though).

For best security you can make the directories unwritable except when you are installing or uninstalling modules, mambots and components in the vJoomla admininstrator.

And finally, you said you need to make copies of the images, clientscript, and cpstyles folders and place them in the joomla directory (root for most websites). Does this mean that any time changes are made to any of these folders (such as during vb version upgrades) I will need to re-copy the folders again?

If you have a Linux or Unix server you have the alternative of creating a symbolic link to those directories. If you do this you must include an .htaccess file with the Allow Symlinks directive turned on AND the server needs to be setup to parse that .htaccess file (most are). The creation of symbolic links is a fairly technical process.

EDIT: would you prefer support/issue questions to be posted here or in the vJoomla forum?

Either location is fine by me, I check both regularly.

[VivaLaPinkowitz]

I have tried EVERYTHING and cannot get input the right "forum path" for the installer to locate it. Any ideas?

I have it set up to a subdomain, http://forums.pinkowitz.org, and told it to go there. For the subdomain I inputted:

http://forums.pinkowitz.org
forums.pinkowitz.org
forums.pinkowitz.org/includes/config.php

None of those worked. I then tried copying the vBulletin folder into my vJoomla subdirectory, accessible at http://pinkowitz.org/vBulletin. I then tried to no amise:

http://pinkowitz.org/vBulletin
pinkowitz.org/vBulletin
pinkowitz.org/includes/config.php

I'm stumped. Any and all help would be appreciated

[Michael Morris]

You seem to be confusing internal and external paths. On a linux machine the complete internal path will start with a /. On Windows it will start with a drive letter, such as c:\

You must provide the internal path from the root of the drive to get the script to work. For example

/var/www/sites/pinkowitz.org/subdomains/www/ for Joomla and
/var/www/sites/pinkowitz.org/subdomains/forum/ for vbulletin, and so on.

One way to discover the path is to create a new php file in your forum with this code

PHP Code:

<?php echo dirname(__FILE__); ?>

Visit the file in your browser and copy whatever appears to the vJoomla installer.

[thenewuser]

Can someone plz post screen shots of the admin interface? Is this a CMS?

[VivaLaPinkowitz]

/homepages/13/xxx/htdocs/xxx

is what returns when I make the php file and access it. The installation proceeds but then results to a white login screen, which differs from the normal blue login screen. When I continue to log in, I get a 500 Server Error.

Any clue as to why?

EDIT: I'm going to try to put it in the same directory as vJoomla. Hopefully that'll work.
EDIT 2: Nope. Still getting the white screen. A funny thing I noticed though is when I scroll over "Pinkowitz.org Forums" on the white login screen, its location is pinkowitz.org/index.php when it should be forums.pinkowitz.org/index.php. Any ideas as to why this is?

[Michael Morris]

Originally Posted by VivaLaPinkowitz

/homepages/13/d201174536/htdocs/vBulletin

is what returns when I make the php file and access it. The installation proceeds but then results to a white login screen, which differs from the normal blue login screen. When I continue to log in, I get a 500 Server Error.

Any clue as to why?

EDIT: I'm going to try to put it in the same directory as vJoomla. Hopefully that'll work.
EDIT 2: Nope. Still getting the white screen. A funny thing I noticed though is when I scroll over "Pinkowitz.org Forums" on the white login screen, its location is pinkowitz.org/index.php when it should be forums.pinkowitz.org/index.php. Any ideas as to why this is?

You MUST log into you admincp before starting the Installer or it will not work beyond step one.

[Michael Morris]

Originally Posted by thenewuser

Can someone plz post screen shots of the admin interface? Is this a CMS?

http://demo.joomla.org/demo10/

They have a demo of the interface there. vJoomla isn't markedly different than Joomla in this regard.

[VivaLaPinkowitz]

Originally Posted by Michael Morris

You MUST log into you admincp before starting the Installer or it will not work beyond step one.

I am logged into admincp in a different window. Am I doing something incorrectly?

[Michael Morris]

Hmm... Your login might have timed out. Try reloading the page and seeing if you are prompted to log in. If that isn't the problem then the cookie domain setting is probably the monkey in the works, and I'm not sure that's solvable.