Integration with vBulletin - vbWiki Standard - vBulletin+MediaWiki integration

Update:

9/28/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC5 is now available for download. This version adds compatibility with MW 1.11.0+

5/17/2007: vbWiki Std v1.3 RC4 is now available for download. This version is compatible with MW 1.10.0+ and vBulletin 3.6.6+

1/21/2007: vbWiki Std v1.0.2 RC3 is now available for download. This version fixes the 'session error' that used to happen on some installations of MediaWiki 1.9.x.

Description:

vbWiki Standard is the lite version of vbWiki Pro. vbWiki Standard allows the integration of vBulletin and MediaWiki user authentication.

(vbWiki Pro is a commercial product that, in addition to the functionality found in vbWiki Standard, provides full skin integration, enhanced user management, Admin CP, editing of wiki skin in vBulletin's Style Manager, among other features.)

Why should you add a wiki to your forums?

Forums are great for community building with their high level of interactivity. Successful forums have hundreds or thousand of concurrent users creating and replying to threads.

However due to this very reason the more your forums grow the more "collective knowledge" is scattered throughout the thousands (or hundreds or millions) of threads in your forums. Making it difficult for users to find and use.

A wiki is not that good at community building, but it is a great medium to centralize this 'collective knowledge'. Enabling you to create an 'ecosystem of information' (quoting pipin ) maintained and contributed by your users.

The idea behind vbWiki (both Standard and Pro) is to enable the seamless integration between these two packages (vBulletin and MediaWiki) side-by-side in your community. You (and your users and community) get the best of both worlds.

Or so the theory goes...

Features:

• Single sign-on for vBulletin and MediaWiki (users log in only once)
• Supports mapping of vBulletin usergroups to MediaWiki user roles
• Users viewing wiki pages are shown in vBulletin's "What's going on?" section (both guests and registered users)
• Supports auto-authentication, users who choose to be "remembered" are logged in upon visiting the site to both vBulletin and MediaWiki.

Installation:

These installation instructions do not apply to vbWiki Pro. Refer to vbWiki Pro installation instructions for more information.

MediaWiki and vBulletin must be installed and properly working before installing vbWiki. MediaWiki can be downloaded here.

• Create a new directory in your forums directory named vbWiki.
• Upload the content of the installation package to this new directory.
• Rename the file vbWiki_Init.php-dist to vbWiki_Init.php
• Open the file LocalSettings.php found in your MediaWiki directory in a text editor and at the very end find the following line and remove it if present:

PHP Code:

?> 


• Add the following code at the end of the file (entering the correct directory path):

PHP Code:

require_once "/absolute/path/to/your/forums/vbWiki/vbWiki_Init.php"; 


Troubleshooting:

• Last installation step: Click Mark as Installed..

If you run into any trouble installing vbWiki (blank page, logins not working, etc.), follow these instructions to temporarily turn on vbWiki's Diagnostic Tools.

Open vbWiki_Init.php (or vbWikiPro_Init.php) and find this line:

PHP Code:

$run_vbWikiPro_diag_tools = false; 


And change it for this:

PHP Code:

$run_vbWikiPro_diag_tools = true; 


Navigate to the wiki home page, and see the results.

Changes:

• 0 vBulletin files to Edit
• 1 MediaWiki file to Edit
• 10 vbWiki Files to Upload

Requirements:

• vBulletin v3.5.4 (version 3.6.x recommended)
• MediaWiki 1.6.8+ (recommended 1.7.x+).
• PHP4+

Uninstalling...

• To uninstall vbWiki Standard simply remove (or comment) the line added to LocalSettings.php.
• Optionally remove the directory vbWiki from your forums directory.

[Smitty]

Has anyone done vB 3.7.2, Wediawiki 12, and the Pro version?

[swisscotton]

I am ready install wiki but just wanted to make sure that this has no chance of messing up your live forum?

[Michael Morris]

Ran across the session logout bug mentioned in this thread. This is how I killed it - I'm not familiar enough with mediaWiki yet to fully weigh the ramifications of this stunt. Use with caution.

In file vbWiki.php find this line of code

PHP Code:

require_once( LUX_VB_DIR . "/vbWiki_Hooks.php" ); 


Insert after

PHP Code:

/** Patch - make sure $_SESSION is populated **/
if ((empty($_SESSION['wsUserID']) || empty($_SESSION['wsUserName']) || empty($_SESSION['wsToken'])) && !empty($_COOKIE['seebelow']))
{
    $_SESSION = array_merge( $_SESSION, $db->query_first("SELECT 
        user_id AS wsUserID,
        user_name AS wsUserName,
        user_token AS wsToken
        FROM mw__user
        WHERE user_name = '".addslashes($_COOKIE['seebelow'])."' LIMIT 1"));
} 


To get the above to work you must also change $_COOKIE['seebelow'] following the instructions below. For my board it was

$_COOKIE['enprod_mw__UserName']

This appears to be databasename + underscore + mediawiki prefix + "UserName".

You can discover what the field actually is by calling print_r($_COOKIE); exit; where this code mod occurs to find out what part of the cookie you need to reference to find the username for the wiki.

It is during the code that precedes that vbWiki populates the cookie but for some reason the $_SESSION is left empty - this is why the user is logged out when they go to the wiki and has to log in. Keep in mind that vbulletin doesn't use $_SESSION at all.

The hack above populates $_SESSION with the values necessary to authenticate mediaWiki. It is called after the bridge has already tested the cookie using vbulletin core - so it should be safe.

With the fix above I now have this module running on vBulletin 3.7.2 and MediaWiki 1.12.0

[Michael Morris]

Ok, if they don't click 'remember me' the above fails. Hmm... I'm close....

[iRO Wiki]

Thanks for working to get this compatible. Once you do, is there any chance you can upload a complete working/compatible version of the basic files somewhere?

[Michael Morris]

Originally Posted by iRO Wiki

Thanks for working to get this compatible. Once you do, is there any chance you can upload a complete working/compatible version of the basic files somewhere?

I will upload the instructions, but legally I can't do anything more since I don't own the rights to the hack.

HOWEVER... I *might* be able to use a plugin.xml to make the transition easier. We'll see. If I can get a plugin to fix the compat issues I can release that as a separate hack of a hack.

[SuperGLS]

Originally Posted by iRO Wiki

Thanks for working to get this compatible. Once you do, is there any chance you can upload a complete working/compatible version of the basic files somewhere?

Originally Posted by Michael Morris

I will upload the instructions, but legally I can't do anything more since I don't own the rights to the hack.

HOWEVER... I *might* be able to use a plugin.xml to make the transition easier. We'll see. If I can get a plugin to fix the compat issues I can release that as a separate hack of a hack.

I love to see a new write up with simple and clear instructions on compatibility with 3.7 and 1.12. A plug in to make the whole process easy would be wonderful. Thanks for your hard work on this.

[Michael Morris]

Ok, I've got this down to something reasonably easy to do, but it is still a hack as there seems to be bad code floating about :\

I have managed to narrow down the edits to one file - arcane_vbulletin_core.php

In that file find this code

PHP Code:

// Include vBulletin Engine
    if ($g_vbWiki_StyleId_Override > 0)
    {
        define('VB_AREA', 'Forum');
        require_once('./includes/init.php');
        $vbulletin->options['styleid'] = $g_vbWiki_StyleId_Override;
        $vbulletin->options['allowchangestyles'] = false;                    // ignore user styles
        $vbulletin->userinfo['styleid'] = 0;
    }
    
    require_once('./global.php');
    require_once('./includes/functions_login.php');
    require_once("./includes/functions.php");                // vbdate
    require_once("./includes/functions_forumdisplay.php");
    require_once("./includes/functions_newpost.php");
    require_once("./includes/adminfunctions.php" ); 


A LOT of libraries are being included there, and I *think* most of them are only used by the pro-integration. I changed that whole block to the following.

PHP Code:

    require_once('./global.php');

    if ((empty($_SESSION['wsUserID']) || empty($_SESSION['wsUserName']) || empty($_SESSION['wsToken'])) 
        && !empty($_COOKIE[$wgDBname.'_'.$wgDBprefix.'UserName']))
    {
        $_SESSION = array_merge( $_SESSION, $db->query_first("SELECT 
            user_id AS wsUserID,
            user_name AS wsUserName,
            user_token AS wsToken
            FROM ".$wgDBname.".".$wgDBprefix."user
            WHERE user_name = '".addslashes($_COOKIE[$wgDBname.'_'.$wgDBprefix.'UserName'])."' LIMIT 1"));
    } 


That should fix this plug in to work with mediaWiki 1.12 and vbulletin 3.7 HOWEVER I do not guarantee the pro version will work and I also suspect that users with cookies disabled or blocked will still experience log out troubles.

[SuperGLS]

So all we do is install MW 1.12, vBwiki Standard, and then make the changes in post 298 (the one above this one) and it should work? Sounds too easy! Thanks.

[Michael Morris]

Originally Posted by SuperGLS

So all we do is install MW 1.12, vBwiki Standard, and then make the changes in post 298 (the one above this one) and it should work? Sounds too easy! Thanks.

Yes. If you run into problems I will try to help as I find the time.