How do I automatically turn on/off specific forums at a set time?

[SemperFideles]

I looked for some cron hacks that would do this but couldn't find any.

Here's what I want to do:

1. Automatically turn off certain forums on Saturday night.
2. Automatically turn them back on on Monday AM.

If I can't do it via the cron tab then could somebody give me an example of an SQL query that would turn off/on a forum so I could perform them all en masse at once if I have to do it manually?

[CypherSTL]

If you use Linux, and have access to create local cron job to execute a script at said times.

With the forums offline, I dont think vBulletin Cron Jobs will still function, so you would have to look "external of vBulletin" I would imagine.

[SemperFideles]

Originally Posted by CypherSTL

If you use Linux, and have access to create local cron job to execute a script at said times.

With the forums offline, I dont think vBulletin Cron Jobs will still function, so you would have to look "external of vBulletin" I would imagine.

Thanks for the reply.

All the forums would not be offline but just the few forums that I want to turn off. I have about 150 forums and would be turning off only about 8 of them during the period.

My problem is not knowing that a cron job could be set up in Linux or vBulletin but how.

[CypherSTL]

Read over the vBulletin Manual for scheduled tasks here: http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/scheduled_tasks

Looks like all you have to do is write a PHP Script to modify your database to make changes to the forum sections in question.

[ReCom]

I spent about 30 minutes cracking this up:

PHP Code:

<?php
require_once('global.php');
require_once(DIR . '/includes/adminfunctions.php');

$vbulletin->input->clean_gpc('g', 'enable', TYPE_BOOL);
$enable = $vbulletin->GPC['enable'];

$sql = "SELECT `forumid`, `options` FROM `".TABLE_PREFIX."forum` WHERE `forumid` = '57'";
$res = $vbulletin->db->query_read_slave($sql);
while ($row = $vbulletin->db->fetch_array($res))
{
  $forumid = $row['forumid'];
  $optionbits = $row['options'];
  $newoptionbits = ($enable? $optionbits | 3 : $optionbits - ($optionbits & 3));
  $vbulletin->db->query_write("UPDATE `".TABLE_PREFIX."forum` SET `options` = '$newoptionbits' WHERE `forumid` = '$forumid'");
}

build_forum_permissions();
?>

Modify the SQL query $sql to put the forumids you are interested in. Then save as forumswitch.php in your vbulletin directory.

Set two Scheduled Tasks in AdminCP that call forumswitch.php?enable=0 and forumswitch.php?enable=1 respectively.

[SemperFideles]

Thanks so much ReCom!

Just so I'm clear, it seems like this line is t[he one with the forumid:

PHP Code:

$sql = "SELECT `forumid`, `options` FROM `".TABLE_PREFIX."forum` WHERE `forumid` = '57'"; 


Do I replace the 57 with my forum id?
I have about 10 forums to turn off, do I replace the '57' with something like '1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10'?

[ReCom]

Originally Posted by SemperFideles

Thanks so much ReCom!

Just so I'm clear, it seems like this line is t[he one with the forumid:

PHP Code:

$sql = "SELECT `forumid`, `options` FROM `".TABLE_PREFIX."forum` WHERE `forumid` = '57'"; 


Do I replace the 57 with my forum id?
I have about 10 forums to turn off, do I replace the '57' with something like '1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10'?

Nope, you use IN, as in:

PHP Code:

$sql = "SELECT `forumid`, `options` FROM `".TABLE_PREFIX."forum` WHERE `forumid` IN ('1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','10') "; 


[SemperFideles]

I did a test run and get this error:

PHP Code:

Turn off Forum

Warning: include_once([path]/./includes/cron/forumswitch.php?enable=0) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [path]/admincp/cronadmin.php on line 113

Warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening '[path]/./includes/cron/forumswitch.php?enable=0' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in [path]/admincp/cronadmin.php on line 113

Done 


[Lynne]

Did you save the script where suggested? Have you renamed your admincp? What path did you put for your Scheduled Task Filename?

[SemperFideles]

Lynne,

Are you ReCom?

I saved it both in my vBulletin directory (same error) and in my includes/cron directory within my vBulletin directory (same error).

I have not renamed admincp.

--------------- Added [DATE]1227630218[/DATE] at [TIME]1227630218[/TIME] ---------------

Here is the error when run from the vBulletin directory:

PHP Code:

Turn off Forum

Warning: include_once([path]/./forumswitch.php?enable=0) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in [path]/admincp/cronadmin.php on line 113

Warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening '[path]/./forumswitch.php?enable=0' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in [path]/admincp/cronadmin.php on line 113

Done