We've also locked down the registration process a little, but it may yet be too loose. If more crap is posted, we'll tighten that process some more... which may inconvenience genuine registrations...

  - Mike

  - Note that all Foldernames and Filenames are probably case-sensitive.

  - Firewall/Privacy issue: When an Admin or Moderator logs in, PunBB tries to verify the authenticity of the caller - some checks are based on the  HTTP_REFERER (or Private) Header. Your Firewall must allow these headers - in my case, I had to "allow" the Private-Header (in the Privacy tab in ZoneAlarm) on the website.

  - Create a folder at the ISP/Server site, which is accessible to the relevant audience, named, say, "forum".

  - Download PunBB, decompress, and copy the contents of the "Upload" folder into the new "forum" folder. When copying the files, ensure that the "case" of all filenames is preserved. Eg, if the "English" sub-folder is copied as "english", you'll have problems later! Or, if the "styles" files (Cobalt, Oxygen, etc) are not copied correctly, the styles options won't function.

  - PunBB can run on a MySQL, or PostgreSQL, or SQLite DB. Normally, I would prefer PostgreSQL, but there seems to be more add-ons, support, etc, for PunBB when it's run on a MySQL DB. I choose MySQL.

  - Access MySQL at the ISP/Server, and create a DB for PunBB - named, say, "punbb". (Note that a fully-qualified MySQL DB name may then be composed of the website username, an underscore, and the assigned DB name - eg, MySite_punbb. Similarly for the fully-qualified structure of MySQL Usernames.

  - Add a "PunBB" User to MySQL.

  - Add that User to the new PunBB DB. (It's easy to forget this bit!).

  - If trying a re-install, and no existing data needs to be preserved, then access the PunBB DB, and delete all tables in it. (Maybe use a tool like phpMyAdmin, or similar).

  - Run the "install.php" PunBB script, and fill in the requested fields - DB name , username, passwords, email addresses...

  - When advised, copy the suggested "config.php" to the main PunBB folder.

  - Finally, sign-in to the forum, and configure the Categories, Forums, Options, etc.

  - Many add-ons are available - etc, etc. Visit www.PunBB.org.

Based on my experiences of www.TRKHosting.com and PunBB, I recommend both VERY HIGHLY.

Corrections welcome!
  - Mike

Hello??

I did get the email initially on a PC which does not clear down the messages on the server, and which is used intermittently to just "view" the pending messages. I read the email at that time, did not respond, and then deleted it on that PC.

A few hours later, I re-retrieved the messages from the server, into a different PC, and deleted them on the server. I expected to see the same message. It was NOT downloaded. I don't know how it disappeared - a glitch on the server; an anti-spam tool; it got deleted during the initial "view"?. Maybe even the original sender could have located and deleted it?

Apologies.

  - Mike

I've just set up this forum, using PunBB (www.PunBB.org), partly to investigate these "forum" matters, and partly to provide a mechanism to share knowledge, resolve issues, etc.

Over recent years, I've shared hundreds (probably thousands) of emails with users of LesSpace, PatchCRT, etc. In many cases, it would have helped if many of these discussions were public - on a forum like this - whereby others could contribute to and learn from the exchanges. Some issues arise repeatedly, and one thorough treatment in a public forum would have been valuable. I appreciate that these tools are now way past their "best-by" dates, but (as of early 2006), there's still traffic on LesSpace, PatchCrt, running "Old-Apps", etc.

Of course, Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware are still major topics, but other sites are much bigger, well established, and much more focussed on these specific matters, and I do not intend dealing with them here in more detail than is already covered on the website.

PunBB seems to be a "lean, mean" fast product. Installation was quite easy, but - in my case - not trivial. I should prepare a short paper on the install, and perhaps post it here.

Welcome!

  - Mike

PS: As is common with forums like this one, Posts which are obscene, abusive, irrelevant, etc, will be pruned unmercilessly!