DON'T USE PHP-Nuke 7.6

Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:35 pm

Cheers DJMaze glad to hear there may be light at the end of the tunnel! But you must forgive me if I take a guarded approach to this as I am unfamiliar with this clause.

Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 3:48 pm

NP i understand all problems and unfamiliar clauses.
A lot of people also have problems with understanding the GPL at all.
So i decided to stick a week of my time in reading and understanding GPL to explain people about GPL and get the CMS in a way how it works properly without getting all accusations which FB get attacked with.

Subject Matter Expert Joined: Feb 23, 2004 Posts: 358

Wow.. I could write a novel based on what's spinning inside my head. I'll try and spare you to just the long version Wink

I could choose to praise FB first, or blast him first... tough choice, but since the thing that sticks in the reader's mind is whatever was read last, I'll praise him first.

FB is a hero. He brought something fairly simple to the web community and it was embraced. Since then, many many people have made money either directly or indirectly from FB's work. FB is not a very friendly person, nor is he easy to get along/develop with. Therefore, splinter groups abound and support groups pop up weekly. This has been going on for YEARS now, so it's safe to assume that FB likes it this way. He develops with no dev team to check his work, then he releases it and we all fix it. It's a wonderful world, ain't it? And why do we keep fixing it? Because there is a core user base that we rely on for business and traffic.

Look at NukeCops, look at Ravens site, NukeMods, PortedMods, etc etc... None of these sites would have the traffic they have without FB's original Nuke and the slew of crap unpatched releases that follow every few months. Couple that with all of the patches phpBB has needed recently, and my God, it's a wonder ANY version works at all anymore.

Enough of the whining. Every time I hear someone say 'Why do you guys keep fixing his crap', I say silently, 'because they MAKE MONEY doing so'. If Raven has aquired ONE client because that client stumbled here looking for Nuke support and ended up hosting with Raven, then Raven MADE MONEY. He didn't make it off of the back of FB, as Raven is a talented coder and has put in a lot of hours fixing Nuke code, and he deserves to get paid one way or another. I'm a webhost too, and I know margins are slim (at least for us good guys who don't oversell our servers), but a client is a client, period. The increase in traffic now has given Rav the ability to charge for advertising space (as per the scrolling marquee), and basically, although Raven admits he started this place as a PHP development site, it is not that anymore. It is a Nuke support site (or at least has been for the last year, and especially after NukeCops exploded), and this site has increased in visibility tenfold over what just a 'General PHP' site would have done.

The whining I'm hearing around here is the whine of success. No fool is going to cut off FB and support for Nuke for a simple reason: someone is always waiting in the wings to be the next "Tom's Port", "Nuke Cops" or "Ravens PHP Scripts". Because FB is either a fool or a genius (depending on how you look at it), all of these sites are now 'legendary' and have made their mark. Not in spite of, but in support of Nuke.

Some of the smartest business or marketing people are also the most hated, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, etc etc... Add FB to that list. He uses us, and we like it. We get something out of it. Whether it's a social thing or a monetary thing, secretly it is a thrill to dive into a new Nuke release, start patching, start posting fixes, and start bashing FB. And just when the final fix/patch gets posted, BLAM! another release goes out to the 'club'... lol... I'm sorry, but the 'club' is such a freakin' joke... hahaha!!

There is validity in these communities. NukeCops came out with some great stuff.. the Analyzer was cool in its time, and GoogleTap got a good polishing over there. Now Sentinal is a 'must have' and does so many wonderful things for Nuke 'peace of mind'. Thanks Bob, Rav, Chat... excellent stuff, and actually wouldn't expect anything less. This site, and all of the other sites who do actual WORK for the betterment of Nuke and the community in general DESERVE support, traffic, and any money they can get, and that's the bottomline.

FB has intentionally stifled the development of Nuke and related add-ons. No one is willing to put a lot of effort into the Uber-module for Nuke, only to be held under FB's GPL. By now, Nuke could be state-of-the-art, but that would mean loss of control for FB. He (and everyone attached to the community) benefits from a slow-growth process. Sorry to be so frank here, but I've been integrated into this Nuke thing for 2 years solid now, and the pattern is quite apparent. His consistent avoidance of including known security patches and not giving credit for other author's efforts is now legendary, but nonetheless by design. By keeping the clientel dependant on you is just one marketing strategy to live by, and he does it well. One might argue that a BETTER strategy would be to welcome and include other developer's fixes, but FB has perfected his way of ensuring market dependancy and isn't willing to try it the other way (example: how long it took him to finally adopt Tom's port and phpBB as the default Msg Board!).

Anyone who has spent years with their nose inside the code for Nuke realizes one thing: it ain't brain surgery Wink

Nuke is just one big dynamically created table. There's no reason whatsoever that it couldn't be completely re-written and thus freed from FB's way of 'doing business'. The only thing that comes to mind as 'why', is because in general we are lazy. The 'engine' (for lack of a better term) is already there, and all we really want to do is create other modules or libraries to work off of it. Over the last 4 months or so, I have been developing add-ons that are more phpBB based and utilizing their library of functions. What a difference! phpBB code is so much more thought out and so much easier to use. It's really difficult now to go back into FB's crazy slew of code to just fix one little thing. And of course it goes without saying that after fixing that 'one little thing', it ends up breaking 3 other things... ah, you gotta love Nuke!

Every stock has a peak; a ceiling that is tough to break through. Nuke support sites go through the same cycle (again, after many years, this is not a surprise). The original intent is solid and faithful: get it patched, get new things developed. But after awhile (read: 2 or 3 new Nuke releases), it becomes tedious and the mutiny cries start to gain volume. If the traffic around here has peaked and become rather stable, then maybe it is viable to look to another direction. I have no problem with that, per se, and if it turns out to be a unique or interesting path, I will follow. I just wanted to add some perspective on where we came from, is all. No harm intended, and I certainly hope no harm inflicted. Peace...

PHrEEk

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

Very well written and apropos! I'm now waiting for the novel Wink

Useless Joined: Aug 23, 2002 Posts: 213 Location: Chicago

Well written post phreek!
I personally don't have any problem with the CMS itself but it's main author to force his way to others without any logic or sense.
I don't think I am ever planning to stop using PHP-Nuke but I have gotten tired of downloading a new version every month, patch it, re-add everything and make the site work.
If it wasn't for PHP-Nuke, many of other CMS' wouldn't have existed and I thank FB for being what he is that forced many to start a fork and made it better in their own ways.

Hangin' Around Joined: Nov 27, 2004 Posts: 37 Location: MN

I think yous need to look at it positively. I just upgraded to 7.6. The last version i used was 7.1. THe one before that was 6.5, and 5.6 before that. I dont upgrade to a new version every month. I have better things to do. I skip quite a few in between. If it was easy top upgrade, yes i would every version. but its not. But thats ok. Its worked great for my scripting community for quite a while now.

Before i uploaded 7.6, i reviewed the code like i did in 7.1. I must say that the code has much improved. Mostly due to chatserv and others being able to get in and fix a lot of validation issues.

Thank you!

Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 2:43 pm

Oh yeah, let's just get this outta the way right now...

This is not meant to disrespect any of the fine people who have worked so hard for so many years on behalf of the Nuke community. You all know who you are...

Sometimes there is no other way to show your appreciation for one's servitude to a community than to just flat out say it:

Chatserv, you, my man, ARE THE MAN! Smile

You have been through so much crap, and I absolutely admire and am stunned by your continued dedication to the community. We are blessed to have you. We would have been dead a long time ago without your unselfish dedication to get a particular fix to the community. Yes, there are hundreds who help get a theme issue working, or a block straightened out, but you my friend, tackle the truly hard-core. You bring no ego to the table, just results. All you ask for is to be treated as human, and Lord knows there are those in the community who have treated you as less than human. You fend these things off with a skin as thick as leather, wake up the next day and continue providing patches. You are the coolest of the cool; the quiet guy who does all the work that everyone else lays claim to. We cannot repay what we owe you. I hope it's just enough to say 'Thanks bro... you deliver the goods, and they're always on time'. Wink

Respek!

PHrEEk

Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2004 4:06 pm

Well d*** PHrEEkie, what can i say but thanks, i'm not going to open my mouth and give more fuel to some of the things you said which others seem to disregard, i'm just glad that someone can see that behind this nickname stands a normal human being just like you and everyone else, the past is history and i serve others and myself better by moving on and leaving it all precisely there, in the past.

I have felt like quitting many times for many reasons but people like Raven have helped clear my mind which is why i'm still here also to be honest this is what i enjoy doing the most, tweaking my favorite CMS and helping others be as secure and bug-free as my knowledge allows me to, there's still much to be done left and as hard as i may try the patches are not perfect, neither am i so it's to be expected. I do think we've progressed a lot and think it can only get better, sure there are well known limitations but i have faith we'll somehow eventually reach an acceptable goal, maybe then we will be able to really unite this community.

Hangin' Around Joined: Nov 27, 2003 Posts: 37

Well said PHrEEkie! I couldn't of said it better myself. There are so many people that work hard for this community and never ask for anything in return. I couldn't begin to name them all...there are way to many. Thank you Chatserv, Raven, Bob, Telli and everyone else that fall under this umbrella of helping others...I tip my hat!

Worker Joined: Dec 21, 2004 Posts: 116

Only 1 question:

" Is 7.6 secure now ? Or at least... secure enough that I can install on my host and don't find it defaced 1 day later :s "

Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 11:55 am

I think with http://www.nukeresources.com/downloadview-details-943-Nuke_7.6_Patched.html
chatservs patches its the best ever. But any site is only as strong as its weakest link. Third party addons and blocks get very little notice in the community but if I was going to exploit a site that is where I'd begin looking. Sites running specific addons are easy to find with a simple google search victims are served up very nicely. Always use extreme caution when adding stuff to your site. So many addons are based on older default phpnuke modules (weblinks/downloads ect...) authors can very easily over look old bugs.

Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 12:02 pm

Great point Six, one we all tend to overlook often, sadly it would be next to impossible to patch every third party add-on, theme or block out there, even on the most secure of CMS one can become vulnerable simply by adding a non-core file or making a simple change to the original code. That said i do believe we have all advanced greatly over the past year towards helping make Nuke a bit more secure and stable.

Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 12:11 pm

chatserv wrote:

Great point Six, one we all tend to overlook often, sadly it would be next to impossible to patch every third party add-on, theme or block out there, even on the most secure of CMS one can become vulnerable simply by adding a non-core file or making a simple change to the original code. That said i do believe we have all advanced greatly over the past year towards helping make Nuke a bit more secure and stable.

Idea

Why some good programmers (with time and SO MUCH good will) don't make a new site where people insert/post/send their php creation and they test them ? Very Happy

(for free

)
Ok, I'm an utopist Razz

Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 12:17 pm

Time, something most of us don't have much of.

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 11:46 am

Speaking of utopian idealogy and PHPNuke's new peek a boo admin file. Why in the name of security did this code that forces register globals to be on get put into the production version of PHPNuke?

Is this not opening a gaping hole where they was only a small one to begin with?
santy worm, remote include attacks ect... will only work if register globals is on.

Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2004 12:07 pm

The admin file concept should be removed anyway.

New Member Joined: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 1

Well, I guess I just have one question then....even with chatserv's tedious work on this latest version 7.6, I still am alil disappointed that Admin Secure isn't working on it and I'm not sure I wana use Sentinal....

My question, can I just 'go back' somehow to 7.5 on my 7.6 site??....is it as simple as doing a DB backup and reinstall once its 7.5?

I have several other sites at 7.5 and everything is just great....now I made one at 7.6 and Im regretting it cuz i have NO SECURITY for it. But, I dont wana loose all my forums and such in the current 7.6 one that I would LUV to now make 7.5.

any advice?....

New Member Joined: Jan 15, 2005 Posts: 6

Hello,

Though my account is new at the time of this post, I have been lurking here and elsewhere for ~4 years. I'm sure I'm echoing others' experiences by mentioning mine here, but I thought it might be useful to share mine since no one else has.

One of my best friends is an author. Before I knew him as a friend, I had a tribute page dedicated to him (called a shire back in the day). That page was created using Prodigy's template system called MyPage or MyHome or something like that. That would have been around 1994.

Eventually I figured out ftp and the voodoo that we do so well in HTML, back when The Internet was a peanut caught in Microsoft's throat. This lead to an ASP version of the shrine that contained a lot of bibliographical data and a collection of content infused into the pages to make the thing halfway interesting, when we cooed the word Yahoo and Google began to sparkle in the rearview mirror. It was a kind of hell, static HTML, without CGI and dB (they were there, I just had to learn them). Eventually, I got ASP to spit questions to the author and answers to the public. SQL munged my data and I hopped over to Linux and JSP.

I investigated a couple of portals, PHP-Nuke among them. PHP-Nuke was total junk. I decided in my excitement, why not learn and rewrite my portal in JSP. It was done, but being a hobby portal, everything fractured and became unmanagable. A windstorm came and destroyed my server and I was faced with a couple of choices. Build again, or try another portal. If I built again, I would have the same junk up, if I shut down, I would lose a lot of friends. OR! AHA! Learn to repair and customize PHP-Nuke. Now that I had some coding experience it made a lot of sense. So I did so with PHP-Nuke 6.9. By this time, I was spending a little money on the project, due to the hosting of the site at phpwebhosting.com, but it was less expensive than the DSL line I had running to run my web server.

Switching to PHP-Nuke was a good decision. After an initial 3 months of intense modification, 6 months of babysitting and testing, I felt I had achieved a great deal. I'd weathered the single hacking event we'd been hit with (thanks 7.3), and now we have about 1300 members, where people are making friends. I hadn't predicted just how much time I'd win back by going this route. PHPBB is the key factor in my adoption of PHP-Nuke and I am disappointed by its featurelessness, but I can't back my way out. My visitors are impressed by the whole thing nonetheless, and I am gratified by the success we've had.

When I upgraded from 7.3 to 7.5 I did the unspeakable and ripped the copyright statement out. I paid $10 dollars to get hacked by 7.3 and I could have lost all my precious data. I downloaded 7.5 for free at Ravenscripts with patches, and skipped the $10 fee. What happened to releases once a month? Sounds like someone being unrealistic to me. I don't charge money at my site, so I feel comfortable with my immoral decision. In fact, I'd like everyone to know that my site is used to generate charitable donations. To date, we have accumulated ~$1,000 US in charitble donations to organizations like Womandkind Wolrdwide, Doctors Without Borders and a special authors fund for authors that have fallen on difficult times. I have gained no money personally. I know of at least 3 businesses that have gained referrals and sales through our community, and we have two low key ads at the site. I have spent ~$300 US to keep the site up and donate countless hours. Not only do I not feel bad about dropping the copyright notice, I feel good that I have been able to help so many people connect and donate.

I could have done the same thing with another portal, but the fact remains I chose PHP-Nuke and I am satisfied that it has served its purpose. I am not satisfied with it potential future. As a webmaster that get's asked the stupidest questions, offered insults instead of gratitude and dealt with others trying to ruin what I've built I can sympathize with FB. As a customer who expects quality in what I invest in, I am considering other alternatives. The fact is, that my publication may be better suited to a wiki, or a more extensible and portable portal. A friend points out that dropping extensions on a URL gives you the ability to more easily move content from one portal to another and despite the sweetness of Google Tap, I shouldn't have to use it and who has time to figure out mod_rewrite?

In closing, FB is open to critism by the act of practicing an art. I am grateful for the patching done at this site and wish I'd given my $10 US to you guys instead. Paying for poor security will be the death of any portal just as Microsoft are witnessing an exodus from their unsecured products. In the same breath FB is open to congratulations for saving the world hundreds of thousands of hours of coding if not debugging. I am faced with choosing a new portal and writing scripts for importing data over to that new portal, and I don't know who to blame for that. But I know who to thank for the security in 7.5 that I got from this site, so here goes, thanks to everyone.

EDIT: Sorry to be anticlimatic, but I meant to point out that I wasted tons of time dealing with the lack of modularity in the 3rd party modules, but the best of them all is NukedGallery, a genius piece of work.

Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 5:22 pm

I am glad that your 'lurking' has finally allowed us to take advantage of another member who is outspoken, articulate, and balanced. Welcome, and I hope that you will help towards bettering the community's knowledge of phpnuke. As much as possible, please share your expertise and help with the forums!

registered · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 1:45 am

I guess I should add my penny to this thread now that I finially made it all the way thru it Wink

Let's start by where and when I start with this community. Back in early 1999 I started managing and webmastering my church's website. It was a simple, extremely small html based site when I first started. I created template after template for each and every one of the sections. Mind this wasn't easy as all that I know about html I had tought myself thru trial and error. Then one day I ran accross a link to phpnuke.org and yes, version 4.0 of that portal system.

I set that puppy up on a subdomain and started testing the devil out of it and to my surprise it functioned better then I expected. Enter a problem, I hadn't learned the first thing about PHP or MySQL. After 3 or 4 months of intense reading of scripts and more trial and error then God should have allowed me to live thru I began learning PHP and MySQL and how to customize this still infant portal system.

The church's site grew at an outstanding rate with the new dynamic system that was securely in place with a rookie at the helm. Thank God he was watchoing over me during this time period. As the versions of PHP-Nuke came out I learned more and more how to control and manipulate data from the database. Other church's started asking me to help their webmasters setup nuke for their sites. I started getting request for some of the simple modifications I had done. I opened Bob's Place late in 1999 and it exploded.

All the knowledge God had granted me, and I do mean granted me, was paying great dividends in expanding God's message around the world. During this time my skills increased and people like MikeT from NukeIndex.com requested that I start developing with him. I couldn't believe that a big name like his was asking lowly little ole me to co-develope scripts. It was another leap in my skills, he taught me quite a bit. These events continued as God directed from person to person. He even directed me to FB in mid 2001 after NukeScripts.net had it's small footprint in hte community.

I never co-developed with FB but I do develope a few small things at his request. I spent a great deal of time talking with him about fixing up the old phpBB port when he asked me to port phpBB2 with Tom N. At that time I told FB it was beyond my skill level but Tom and I shared as much info as we could, this sharing of info lead to the NSN Your Account Tweak and phpBB2 being so closely integrated.

How many of you remember King Richard and NukeAddon? I do, I shared emails with him on thoughts and ideas. Some he used and some I used. Long story short, my relationship with FB was good until I released NSN Banner Clients a couple of years ago and charged for it. Not a crime in my eyes as I developed it from the ground up and I felt it was worth the $35 I asked for. No, I didn't get rich, I have been able to buy milk and bread with the profits.

Over the years God has guided me to meet and work with people like ZX, ChatServ, Raven, and many other "BIG" names in the community. Yes, ZX and I were good friends until NukeCops was pegged as the "Official" support site for nuke. After that I think you all know the basic story of how things went.

Raven and I have know each other for a few years and I had the pleasure of meeting him in person this past year. We as friends have not always seen eye to eye on issues. No one that has friends for a long period of time can see eye to eye on everything. There was even a period of time Raven and I didn't speak and ChatServ and I didn't speak as often as we had due to my personal issues with the lead cop.

Overall the community has been very good to me in many ways, most of all the friends I have made thru the years. We have all been screwed at one time or another and being on the recieving end of those misfortunes has given me the chance to align myself with Raven, ChatServ, Barry, MikeT, MikeM, MikeY, Jerry, and so on. These are friendships that I would not trade for anything in this world. One reason above all I wouldn't trade or completely leave the PHP-Nuke community. God himself has set me on a course, I will follow that course to it's ending or until God tells me otherwise.

If not for that small start on a PHP-Nuke based church and God's leadship I would not have the friends I have now nor would I enjoy helping those that need help in this community. Yes, I am a religous man. I stake everything I know and that I am on that, I have always believed that I am a servant of God and as such a servant I am to serve the community no matter what tests are placed before me.

<----- steps away from the pulpit and goes home................

Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 9:10 am

And all of God's people said: AMEN!

Regular Joined: Aug 23, 2003 Posts: 77

wow, Great Story.

New Member Joined: Oct 27, 2005 Posts: 13

WoW after reading this thread and the others about all this I just have to say that I stand with you guys(Raven, Bob, chatserv etc..) and tough I have been registered in many of your websites for some time now I never had the courage to chat in any of the forums because when I started taking my insterest in PHPNuke my english was very bad and I shyed away from conversating with anyone and now I see that I was missing on a lot by not participating earlier but before I trail away from what I started to say I just wanted to thank you all for all the effort you have put into PHPNuke, if it wasn't for your Patch Series, Add-Ons, Blocks, Themes I Doubt PHP-Nuke would be as widely used as it is so I sincerely THANK YOU ALL and hope that this community keeps growing and am looking forward to the different choices that are going to come out soon like Raven announced in another thread, btw Bob I have a lot of your mods in use and have fully translated many of them to Spanish so fi you want the Spanish Lang files let me know ehre to send them or post them, and if anyone needs help with translating a mod to spanish just send me the english lang file and will happily translate them as soon as I can so that you can include them in your packages for the good of the community Smile

Once Again Thank You all for all the Help and Work you have placed on PHP Nuke and now I take my leave my bed is calling my name Wink

Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:16 am

xenex413,

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 8:24 am

Ok Guys...GROUP HUG!!

LOL....

To Raven, Bob, Chatserv and even FB along with the many others that help make PhPNuke home....I Thank You.

I have only been involved in php for a couple years now...but I have Nuke to thank for forcing me to hear the music (and my grey hair). While I can not code to you guys standards, I have learned enough to custom write a thing or two. I guess to me that is part of what PhPNuke is...It makes you listen.....all of the patches...all of the code tweaks...it just would not be the same "Fun" if it all worked excatly the way it was supposed to. It is an great learning experance and a great way to learn php.

I hope you guys will keep the "Faith".

Thank You for your time engery and effort.

Dawg