[Release v2.0.3] 'Member of the Day' Hack

Just for the record, this is my first hack release

OK, this hack displays a 'Member of the Day' as seen on (wlukes) SitePoint forum. It basically randomly chooses a member from your member list and displays them as a 'member of the day' for 24 hours. Example: http://forums.killermovies.com/

Requirements: Perl, Crontab, VBulletin v2.0.3 (should work on other versions - untested!)

Steps:

1) Run the following query in either a Telnet session of Phpmyadmin:

INSERT INTO replacement (replacementsetid, findword, replaceword) VALUES (-1, '{memberoftheday}', 'Admin');

2) Add the following anywhere in forumhome template:

The YOUR_FORUM_NAME Member of the Day is <b>{memberoftheday}</b>

3) Modify the attached file and change the <DATABASE NAME> <SERVER> <USERNAME> <PASSWORD> to their appropriate values for your setup. Rename to updatemotd.pl.

4) Upload the attached file updatemotd.pl to your forums directory and make it executable. I suggest you run 'chmod 700 updatemotd.pl' to stop people running the script from the web.

5) Create a Cron job that will run at midnight and execute that script. You can use the following in your crontab:

0 0 * * * UNIX_PATH_TO_FORUM/updatemotd.pl

Thats all folks!

[maverick1236]

create a cron job???????????

Yes, its like a 'Scheduled Tasks' version of Unix/Linux.

You WILL need access to crontab, otherwise the hack won't be automated.

[maverick1236]

im running win2k server
can it be done?
any links to tutorials?
tx!

Not too sure about Win2k. You might want to contact your host and ask if they've got anything equivalent of crontab.

[maverick1236]

[QUOTE]) Upload the attached file updatemotd.pl to your forums directory and make it executable. I suggest you run 'chmod 700 updatemotd.pl' to stop people running the script from the web.

Sorry, but I'm not really an expert on Win2k hosting.

The file IS a perl file. You will also need perl - as was stated in the requirements.

Don't think Win2k have an executable option on files...again you might want to contact your host.

[merk]

Its called Task Scheduler.

You must be at the console to access it, i have no idea how to do it over telnet.

There has to be a way of doing this without cron
Sarge

There IS a way of doing this without cron, but I chose this option as it would put the least amount load on the server. With this option, no extra SQL statements are executed.