The Petra Zone

Hi all,

Just as a heads up, I need to re-install my whole server at some point in the not-too-distant future. There's a serious hole in it somewhere that is allowing e-mail spam, and has already got my e-mail blocked by some providers. Not good. Since I'm not sure where the hole is, the only solution is to re-install, hopefully on a different IP address.

In the process, I really want to dump PHPBB due to its bad security record. I don't know what software I will switch to, but I'm open to suggestions. It should have a much better security track record than PHPBB. It also should support PostgreSQL if at all possible, as I don't really want to install MySQL.

I'll continue to host the site, but messages will almost certainly be erased and we'll have to start over.

I'll post another message when I'm close to figuring out what I'll do and when.

Thanks for understanding,
Micah

Josh uses a different software package that he seems really happy with called SMF.

Do what you have to do, Micah. The bots have been just crazy, and if moving helps - then that's what you should do.

We could also move entirely over to PRMW.com? I don't know if Josh is able to handle all this traffic (not that it's too busy here lately...), and if he has the time to spare. Would that be an idea?

Pieter, I wouldn't have a problem with that if folks here wanted to take your suggestion. The site should be able to handle the traffic.

But, yes, as Michael said, I do like SMF. It seems to be secure and patches are issued quickly when holes are discovered.

If you want to consider software that would give a totally different feel from the yabb/smf/phpbb type of board, take a look at Lussimo Vanilla.

--Josh

It would be like a whole new era

I Think signups should be disabled, until a solution is found, and have a contact email for account creation, there are not many signups anyway that are legit, so it shouldn't be to much of a hassle.

plus I think that the Petrazone, is a great archive of infomation, it would be a shame to loose this data, it could effect Petra's popularity as far as finding stuff when searching through google as this site is checked by robots.

I'd be in agreement with disabling signups. If someone wants to sign up, they can email me and I'll create an account.

I think disabling the signups would be great. Lets try that and see how the traffic flows and just see how it works.

I think it would fix the influx of spammers, but I'm not convinced it'll prevent the ones already signed up from spamming us further. I guess we'll see, either way.

It's easy enough to remove or ban an existing account. I've already been routinely banning many accounts that are used for spam, and even banning IP addresses that are used for spamming purposes.

As long as there is a BOLD Notice that signups are only available thru Email then I think diabling would be fine. I think we want to be sure we dont make it hard to find they still can signup.