SiteGround Tutorials

---

Invision Power Board Tutorial

 

IPB Tutorial: Invision Board Installation

How to install Invision Power Board on your website?

Before you can actually start using IPB forum, you need to spare some time with the installation process which is pretty straight-forward. 

Pre - installation Steps

Step 1: Database setup

Please check our MySQL tutorial to see how to create a MySQL database and user.

  Step 2: Upload Files

You may uncompress the distribution file of the application on your local computer and upload all the files from the upload folder in the directory where you would like the board to be installed. Please check our FTP tutorial for more information on how to setup your favourite FTP client.

Invision Power Board Installation Process

Open your browser and navigate to the directory with the installation files. The address bar should read something similar to this:

http://yourdomain.com/ipb/admin/install/index.php

On the first step the installation script will check the system requirements. All the necessarily system requirements for the correct functionality of Invision Power Board are met on the SiteGround servers. You should click Next to proceed.

Here you have to read and agree with the license agreement. When ready, click on the Next button. The packages that will be isntalled are listed on the next page. You should click the Next button again.

You will be taken to the address details page. Normally the installation detects the settings automatically and you won't have to change anything.

Click Next to proceed to the database details page. 

In the fields for database name, SQL username and password you should enter the MySQL database, username and password you have created during the database setup. You can leave the table prefix to the default or change it per your preference. You can also leave the table type to the default - MYISAM.

Click Next to proceed.

On the next page you should fill in the details for the administrative account.

Click Next once again.

You are ready to complete the installation. Click on Start installation to proceed.

In the final step of the installation process you will be automatically redirected through a series of screens. On the last screen you will see a note "Installation complete!"

As a security measurement delete the admin/install/index.php file.

Well done! You have successfully installed your IPB forum software! You can now access the administration backend for it and proceed with adjusting the desired settings fro your new forum. The admin area can be accessed at:

http://yourdomain.com/ipb/admin/

and the login will look  as shown on the image below:

You can use the admin login details you have chosen during the installation to login.

IPB Tutorial: Forum Configuration

The first thing you would like to do after installing the forum is to perform some fine-tuning. We will deal with it in this tutorial section. 

In order to start managing your forum, you have to visit the administration panel. The address should be similar to the following one: 

http://yourdomain.com/ipb/admin/

How to configure the email functions in IPB?

The first thing you can do is configure the email functions of the board. This can be done from System->Tools & Settings->System Settings->System->Email Set-up. 

 

As a mail delivery method you can pick between PhpMail and SMTP. Enter the board's incoming and outgoing e-mail addresses. Also, if you use SMTP enter the SMTP authentication details - e-mail account and the corresponding password.

As SMTP host enter your domain name or the name of the server where your account is hosted. The default SMTP port is 25 so you can leave this value unchanged.

Leave the other details as they are and update the settings.

The configuration should resemble the following:

Customize date & time formats in IPB

The server time cannot be changed. However, IPB gives you the option to set time offset. This can be done from System->Tools & Settings->System Settings->Advanced-> Date, Time and Number Formats.

Select your time zone from the Native Server Time Zone drop-down menu. Then you can fine tune the time through the Server Time Adjustment field.

Also, you can change the date and the time format, pick whether to use daylight saving time and whether to visualize relative dates in your forum posts.

General configuration

In order to adjust the general configuration of your forum navigate to System->Tools & Settings->System Settings->System->General Configuration.

The most important settings here are - Board Name, Website Name, Website Address. They are self-explanatory. You can leave the values of the rest of the settings unchanged. The last settings on the page allow you to turn on the debugging mode for the forum, enable the help documentation in the admin control panel and turn off the default forums navigation.

When you are ready click on Update Settings.  

User profiles

You can access the User Profiles menu by clicking on the link under your System->Tools & Settings->System Settings->Members tab.

Most of the options are quite self-explanatory.  You can allow users to pick the preferred skin for their forum visualization, define the number of the posts the members must have before allowing their member title change, limit the users' signatures length, select the default editor type for members, allow members to rate each other, enable the automatic subscription to every forum for defined groups and much more.

  

IPB Tutorial: Invision Board Skins

The Look & Feel tab in the admin panel allows you to fully customize your IPB forum. Skins must be chosen depending on your IPB version number. There are plenty of web sites on the Internet that provide free and commercial skins / templates for Invision Power Board forums. To name a few:

• Invisionize.com
• IPBSkinworks.com
• Jasidog.com

Invisionize.com is probably the best place you can search for templates, skins, modules, etc.

The installation of an IPB template requires a few steps.

Step 1: Click on Import New Skin Set and scroll down the page.

The Import section will allow you to import downloaded templates.

For that purpose, you need to de-compress the files to your computer first. The folder with the decompressed files should contain 2 important files with similar names:

ipb_skin_name.xml.gz

images-ipb_skin_name.xml.gz

They should be uploaded using the respective import form on the page:

Step 2: Import images-ipb_skin_name.xml.gz under Import Image Set section and ipb_skin-listed.xml.gz under Import Skin Set. File names may vary but the point here is to make sure that you are uploading .xml.* files.  

Step 3: After you are done importing the files, click on Skin Tools -> Rebuild Skin Set Cache to rebuild the cache of the new template. 

Step 4: Go to Skin Manager and click the button to make it default for your installation.

IPB Tutorial: User Groups

The user groups are an extremely important feature that will help you run a successful online community. You should be able to setup the appropriate permission sets for each user group based on the needs of your forum.

The User Groups management tool can be accessed via the admincp -> Members Tab -> Member Groups. You can access both the groups and the permissions management via it.

Note the difference between Groups and Permissions. Under the groups management you can create new groups and adjust several options for them. Under permissions management you can create new permission sets and apply them to existing user Groups.

User Groups

First lets take a look at the default groups for IPB.

Note that the the super administrator for IPB is referred to as Root Admin. The first administrator account that you have created when installing IPB is root admin. Such user has access to all parts of the forum, it is the highest level user group, no restrictions apply to it and cannot be blocked.

The standard user groups for IPB (in alphabetic order) are:

Administrators - Individual users in this group have access to the admincp but unlike the root admin cannot perform high level admin functions.

Banned - A group that can be use to remove troublesome members from the board. The restrictions for the banned members group might vary but by default a member in this group will not be able to see any forums.

Guests - Users that are not a part of any other group will be added to the Guests group. By default each member that registers for an IPB based forum is assigned to a group so generally the Guests group will be for unregistered visitors only.

Members -This is the default user group. When someone registers at your IPB, this will be the user group that they will be assigned to by default.

Moderators - Users in this group have full access to each category and forum unless explicitly set otherwise. By default they have access to and can moderate all topics in all forums for your IPB.

Validating - You might want to manually validate each new user that signs up for your online board. In this case users that have registered but are still not validated by an administrator will be in this group. Note that the validation feature must be turned on for this to occur. This can be done via the admincp -> System tab -> Tools & Settings/System Settings -> Security and Privacy -> Security [Managing Members] section -> New Registration Email Validation.

Creating a new user group is very easy in IPB. All you need to do is select the group which you would like to use as a base for the new group

Then click Create.

A new page will load where you can choose the specific settings for the new group. It is advisable to use a name that will reflect the permissions for the users group.

Also make sure you are choosing the appropriate permissions set(s) for the group.

In this case our new group will be called spcial members and the only difference between it and the standard members will be that the special members will not be shown in the forum's members list (we have selected the corresponding option as shown below):

Once ready adjusting the options click the Add Group button.

Permissions Sets

Next lets take a look at the permission sets management area.

You will see the default permission sets that are included in each IPB installation.

To create a new permissions set choose a name for it and then select the desired permissions set that you would like to use as a base for the new one. Then click Create.

We will create a new permissions set for our Special Members and base it on the Members set.

Once you have clicked Create you will get a notification message that the group was successfully created. You can now go and further modify the settings for it. We will make the following changes from the standard Members group permission set.

The users with  Special Members permissions set will not be able to see the Test Category (and thus all forums under it) and they will not be able to upload files to any of the forums:

Those options may greatly vary depending on your needs. You can assign various permissions on various forums and create a large number of permission sets so that you will be albe to better manage various access groups to the forums on your online board.

Finally do not forget to assign the new permissions set to the desired group. Go back to Manage Users Groups and choose Edit Group:

Select the newly created permission set from the list

and click the Complete Edit button.

IPB Tutorial: Categories and Forums

In this section of the tutorial we will provide step by step instructions how to create categories and forums for your IPB installation.

All categories and forums can be managed via the admincp for IPB. Login using your administrator login details then go to the Forums tab.

First we will create a new category. Click the Add New Category button.

Enter the category name and choose the groups that you would like to have access to the category. In this case it is shown how to set the permissions to allow access for everyone but Guests (not registered users) and Banned users.

This means that only users in the selected groups will be able to see Forums under this category.

Once you have set the desired permissions click the Add Category button.

You will now see the newly created category and a notification that there are still no forums under it.

We will proceed with creating a few forums under the newly created category. To do so click the Add New Forum button.

Most of the options on the new page are quite self explanatory. We will address just a few of the options below.

Forum Name and Forum Description - Choose name and description that will give the visitor a good idea what information he could find in the forum.

Forum Parent - Note that you can create the new forum using each of the currently existing Categories and Forums as a parent. This way you can create sub-forum of an existing forum.

Under Redirect Settings you can setup the forum to simply redirect to a new location when it is accessed. This way no threads will be viewable under the forum and it will act as a redirect only. We will not choose this option in this case.

At the bottom of the options page you will see the Permission Matrix. In the screen shot below you will see various permissions set depending on the user roles

Note the following. We have allowed Guests and Banned users to view the forum and read the topics posted in it. However, we have earlier disabled these options for the category under which the forum was created. Thus Guests and Banned users will not be able to access the newly craeted forum after all. They will not see the whole category nor any of the forums under it regardless of the specific forum options.

IPB Tutorial: Security Tips

In this section of the tutorial you will find several tips how to improve the security of your Invision Power Board.

1. Do not allow HTML for your board except for user groups that you can fully trust. When creating a forum you can choose not to allow HTML code to be posted in various sections for the board. You can disallow HTML code in all of the areas listed below:

To disable HTML in signatures and the about me section for members go to System tab-> System Settings -> Members tab -> User Profiles.

 

To disable HTML in personal messages between users go to System tab -> System Settings -> Members tab -> Personal Message Set-up

 

To disable the HTML in posts for specific user groups go to Members tab -> Manage User Groups -> Edit for the group -> Global tab

 

2. For the lost password recovery it is best to use the email random password option.

This option can be altered via the IPBoard admincp -> System -> System Settings -> System Tab -> Security and Privacy.

 

 

Note that it is highly advisable to email the new password instead of letting the user enter it manually as it is much less likely that the user account email address is compromised.

3. Setup a limited amount of failed login attempts. If the number is reached the user is locked out of the forum for a set time.

This option can be altered via your the IPBoard admincp -> System -> System Settings -> System Tab -> Security and Privacy -> Brute-force Account Locking section.

 

 

The other two options below allows you to define if blocked accounts will be automatically unlocked and if so after how many minutes.

4. Use secure mail form for member to member communication. This way it will not be possible to get the emails of your board users and use them for spam and other fraudulent activities.

You can enable secure form email for member to member communication via IPBoard admincp -> System -> System Settings -> System Tab -> Security and Privacy -> Use secure mail form for member to member mails

 

 

5. Remove the admincp link from your board and modify the name of the administrator directory to something else.

The link to the admin panel that is by default included on your forum index can be removed. This is highly advisable along with renaming the admincp folder to something else. The option can be altered via IPBoard admincp -> System -> System Settings -> System Tab -> Security and Privacy -> Remove the ACP link from the board

 

 

6. It is highly advisable to manually approve new accounts registration as well as leave the option to verify the registration via email.

This option might not be suitable for very popular forums that have lots of new user registrations on a daily basis. However, for closed communities it is best if you have all new user registrations manually approved by forum administrators. This way you can prevent spam bots and unauthorized users from posting on your forum with 100% success.

The highest possible security is forcing users to first verify the new account registration via the email address they provided upon registering the new account. Once the new account registration is verified via email it is queued for approval via the board administrator. This option can be chosen via IPBoard admincp -> System -> System Settings -> System Tab -> Security and Privacy -> New registration email validation.

 

 

You might want to take some time and also adjust the options below to your convenience.

7. Force user login before the board is viewed. This way only registered users can view and post on your online board. Note that in this case guests on your online board won't be able to view any of the forums. The option is available at IPBoard admincp -> System -> System Settings -> System Tab -> Security and Privacy -> Force guests to log in before allowing access to the board

 

The alternative is to set specific permissions for each forum and thus allow some general purpose forums to be viewable for Guest users. For example you might want to make news and forum rules viewable for everyone so they can check them prior to registering.

To achieve this all you need to do is use the permissions matrix when creating a new forum or category. Do not add permissions for the group that guest users are automatically assigned to. This way none of your forums will be accessible for users that are not registered and logged in except for forums you explicitly add permissions to. It is highly advisable to set only Show Forum and Read Topics permissions in such cases.

 

8. Do not display the version of IPB you are running. Otherwise it will be much easier to search for possible exploits for the specific version if one is trying to compromise your board.

Displaying the IPBoard version can be turned off via IPBoard admincp -> System -> System Settings -> System Tab -> Security and Privacy -> Privacy section -> Display IPB version on your site.

 

 

There are various options you can manage for your IPBoard. Most of the other features that can be a security issue are set to the highest possible security by default. Bear in mind that you should carefully read and understand what each option does prior to making changes in order to avoid any issues with your online board.

IPB Tutorial: Upgrade

Prior to attempting an upgrade for your IPBoard make sure that you have performed a full backup. Detailed instructions how to perform a backup for your website you can find in our cPanel Backup Tutorial. It is always important to have a working backup prior to making any changes that could affect your website functionality.

To run the upgrade you need to acquire the new release from the IPBoard official website. Once you have it downloaded to your computer extract the archive locally. You will find a folder named "upload" in the archive. You will need to upload the contents of the upload folder to your IPBoard directory and overwrite the existing content. You can upload the files via an FTP Client.

Note that this will overwrite only the default IPBoard files and should not affect your board functionality. However, if you have made custom changes to any of those files the changes must be re-applied once the upgrade is completed.

Once the files are uploaded you are ready to run the upgrade. To do so simply access /admin/upgrade/index.php for your IPBoard. For example:

http://yourdomain.com/ipb/admin/upgrade/index.php

This will load the upgrade screen. You will need to login with the administrative details for your online board in order to run the upgrade. Enter the admin login details and click Next.

 

 

You will see the System Requirements Overview screen. Click Next again.

 

 

On the next screen you will see the Default Applications, the IPS Applications and the Third Party Applications for your online board. In case any needs to be updated you will be able to select them and run the upgrade. The system automatically determines which upgrade modules need to be run and it will automatically rebuild the templates for you.

That is all. The upgrade is now completed.

IPB Tutorial: Emoticons and Avatars in IPB

Emoticons are symbols that use computer characters to convey emotion or tone in an electronic message. IPB gives you the option to pre-define them in the admin control panel:

Just select the ones you would like to be used in your forum and click on Update Emoticons.
Inserting emoticons can be done when replying to an existing topic or opening a new one. You can open the smilies panel by clicking on the smiley icon in the WYSIWYG editor. The available smilies panel will appear at the right part of the page:

 

Avatars

 

In order to manage user avatars you should access your admin cpanel -> System tab -> Tools & Settings/System Settings -> Members tab -> User Profiles.

You will find the various options in the Avatars & Photos section.

Each of the available options is quite self explanatory and it is really easy to adjust the use of avatars according to your needs.

If you need information about other forum software please feel free to check the

phpBB tutorial

and

vBulletin tutorial

for further reference.

Please, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or recommendations about this tutorial at: tutorials 'at' siteground.com

IPB Tutorial: WeTweet Hook

In this section of the tutorial we will show you how to install and enable the WeTweet hook for IPB forum (version 3.0).

The hook can be acquired from invisionize which is one of the popular web sites for free Invision Power modules and components.

First of all you should make sure you are browsing the Mods that correspond to your IPB software version. Find the WeTweet hook and go to the download page. Generally detailed information for the contribution is provided on the hook/module page:

The download link can be found at the bottom of the page (not that you should register in order to download it):

Once you have downloaded the hook extract the archive locally on your computer. Then login to your IPB admincp and go to System tab -> Applications and Modules -> Manage Hooks.

In the Install a New Hook section click browse and locate the .xml file included in the package then click Install.

The next page will update itself several times notifying you with the current progress of the installation. Once the automatic installation is completed we can proceed with the additional modifications required for the installation. Access the Look and Feel tab. Click on the Skin you are currently using then select Global Template > includeJS.

Add the following code at the very top of the file:

<script language="javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.1/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Then add the following at the very bottom:

<script type='text/javascript' src='{$this->settings['public_dir']}js/3rd_party/tweet/jquery.tweet.js'>

That is all. You can now modify the settings for your newly installed hook via the admincp -> System tab -> System Settings -> -IBM- Mods tab.

Locate the WeTweet hook and select Manage Settings from the available options

There are various settings for the WeTweet mod. In this case we will modify the account name to the siteground tweeter account and set the amount of tweets to display to 5:

Here is how the mod will be displayed on the front page with the new settings we have set:

IPB Tutorial: Module and Component Management

The latest IP.Board version does include automatic modules and hooks management system. Note however that each hook and module is designed for a specific IPB version and comes with an installer tool and how-to-install instructions.

You can check the following section of the tutorial for an example how to add a specific modulue to IPB version 3.0:

IPB - WeTweet Module Installation

Here we will demonstrate how the add-on installation works with a component called 'Help Desk'. The Help desk component can be downloaded from here.

Please note that it works properly only on version 2.1.x of IPB.

The installation of the Help Desk add-on is pretty straight-forward - you should unzip and upload the component's files from the upload folder into the root directory of your forum. In our particular case that would be

http://yourdomainname.com/forum/

Then navigate with your browser to

http://yourdomain.com/forum/help_desk_setup/

You will need to log in as the admin user:

Once you log in, you can [Proceed...] with the installation.

If all has gone through well so far, you should be able to see the component in the IPB admin area -> Components section, from where you can do the fine-tuning:

Some of the components that you will try to install will ask for 777 file permissions to be set. Please bear in mind that this will not work on SiteGround servers as it is insecure and the maximum allowed permissions on our servers are 755. However, the component should work fine with 755 permissions.

Other IPB components

The Components section within your IPB admin area gives you the option to purchase additional components. You can find more information about a specific component, as well as order it, by clicking Purchase and Information under the component.

IPB Tutorial: Calendar Mod

There is a built-in calendar module that comes with your IPB forum. You can administer it from the IPB admin area -> Management.

Click on Add New Calendar link:

Enter the required information. The settings you make will be immediately available on the forum's home page after you click on Add New Calendar:

 

IPB Tutorial: RSS Feed Mod

You can add an RSS feed to your forum from the Management tab in the IPB admin area.

You should click on RSS Import Manager and then in the right window click on Create New RSS Import Stream :

Enter the required information. You must fill in all the fields in order to activate the feed. In our example we will add Yahoo World News. You can view the links to all Yahoo rss feeds here. Click on an RSS button and copy the link location. You should enter the link in RSS Import Stream URL:

Another option you must define here is the Character Set encoding. Setting the value to UTF-8 will ensure that the feed can read almost all languages.

Next thing you should configure is the actual content options:

Important options here are the forum selection (into which forum you would like to display the feed).

• RSS Import Preserve HTML - if you have this option enabled it will preserve the original format of the RSS page. For this to work you must set Enable HTML Posting to Yes in the forum's settings.
• RSS Import Poster's Name - set this to a valid forum's user
• RSS Import Add Link to Post - you can leave this option empty
• RSS Import Topic Prefix - enter a name that will appear in front of the actual news

Finally you should enter news refresh rate (200 minutes is fine) and the number of news articles per go.

If you have created the feed correctly, you should be able to see your newly-created news feed topics in the forum:

IPB Tutorial: Module and Component Management

Adding a blog to you IPB forum is an easy task to do. The blog tool you can add to your forum is called "Invision Community Blog" and can be purchased from Invision Power Services website. It can then be added from the Components section in your admincp.

IPB Tutorial: Module and Component Management

Gallery in Invision Power Board

Adding a gallery to your IPB forum can really boost your visitors' inflow. There are several options though. The easiest one that you can implement is to add a Invision Gallery which is developed by IPB's programmers and will not yield any incompatibilities with your forum software and can be easily administered from the admincp of IPB.

In this section we are going to discuss how to add Coppermine gallery to you forum. There is a bridge that links IPB Forum and Coppermine PG applications.

NB: You should have Coppermine application installed prior to installing the bridge.

Installing IPB-Coppermine Bridge

• Download the IPB-Coppermine Bridge
• Extract the files to your computer
• Upload invisionboard.inc.php to your bridge dir (if you have installed Coppermine through Fantastico the file will be already there). In order to use the bridge, you should make some changes in the invisionboard.inc.php file and enter IPBs database information:

define('IB_DB_NAME', 'database_username');
define('IB_BD_HOST', 'localhost'); //
define('IB_DB_USERNAME', 'username');
define('IB_DB_PASSWORD', 'password');

Please, check Invision Power Board Installation Process to see for your Database name and username (DB_NAME, DB_USERNAME')

• Upload login.php in the sources directory and you are set.