Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

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Dogs and things
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Dogs and things »

Marshalrusty wrote:phpBB3 will react like this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1340665
But that's a phpBB2 problem? :?:
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Highway of Life »

Dogs and things wrote:
Marshalrusty wrote:phpBB3 will react like this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1340665
But that's a phpBB2 problem? :?:
I think Yuriy meant to say phpBB2. ;)

Again, It’s just a cosmetic issue in phpBB3. Another testament to the code security within phpBB3.
In phpBB2, it has severe Security implications, which I will not specify here.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Dogs and things »

Fortunately this is due to external software and not to phpBB2 itself.

I imagine there´s many PHP applications that are vulnerable due to the same PHP bug. I'm glad my server isn´t running php5.2.7.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Schwpz »

I just want to take this opportunity and thank the phpbb group for all their phenomenal and incredible work, both phpbb2 and phpbb3 wise. You are all really great! :D

Sadly I have made so many manual changes to my phpbb2 board that upgrading is not an option for me at the current moment. However, I completely respect the phpbb group's decision to prioritize their new version, and I'm greateful for having had the possibility to merely use phpbb2 for so many years in the first place. It has really been a blast! :)

I do however have two concerns about phpbb2's retirement and what it means for me.
Although I completely respect the phpbb group's decision to stop supporting phpbb2, I am very worried about the lack of future security patches for the old phpbb2. I have to admit that I was secretly hoping that they would continue to give out those for at least some time, even if they stopped giving out support.
Does anyone know if there are any groups of volunteers that will provide unofficial security modifications for phpbb2 in the future, at least for those very serious security issues that might arrise?

At last, I'm very sad to see the entire phpbb2 section of the phpbb forum go. Although it's set to read-only and no future support will be given, I find those boards to be extremely useful, and I continue to use the almost limitless amount of knowledge stored in those boards on a very frequent basis. I just think it's extremely sad to see those boards and all its knowledge, facts and information go, and although I can see how keeping them would not go well with the phpbb group's decision to move away from phpbb2, I hope that it would be possible to find a different position for them on the phpbb site, rather than just deleting all those boards. Perhaps they could be hidden somewhere else on the phpbb site, or even placed on a different site althoughter? At the very least I wish I could have a copy of the data from those boards, because I know that I will miss them deeply once they are gone, no matter how well phpbb3 will be doing.

Those are my two main concernes about phpbb2's retirement.
Again, I'm extremely greateful for all that the phpbb team and phpbb community has done for phpbb2 in the past, and I hope that someday I will be able to join you with phpbb3 in the future :)
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by newsbee »

How did your users respond to the change, did you have many complaints about the complexity, etc.?
I switched the board with 9000 users at that time from version 2 to 3 earlier this year. All active users were upset and I had to say (lie) that I'll switch the board back if the majority vote so. The vote was actually divided 50-50, so I rigged the result a bit by voting myself several times (using my technical clones).

I started a topic describing what new functions are available and how to use them. I added some features, saying they became possible (not really) because we moved to version 3. Six months later - nobody remembers the old version.

Ironically, the most difficult part was to encourage the moderators because they appeared to be the slowest learners - I guess moderation functions are more difficult to learn. At the beginning, they strongly opposed the change.

The biggest problem for me is to upgrade - I have several mods, like Gallery and Mini Knowledge Base, which I don't know if they will work with the upgraded versions and I'm disinclined to spend so much time reinstalling all the mods every time I upgrade. It doesn't work another way - or I don't know how to do it for lack of technical education.

I still have a few forums running version 2 - I keep them this way because I like the styles and simplicity of use and management. So I don't know whether I will or should switch them too. There is no other way, though, with possible security problems - if hackers will bother about the older version :mrgreen:
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by stickerboy »

Schwpz wrote:Does anyone know if there are any groups of volunteers that will provide unofficial security modifications for phpbb2 in the future, at least for those very serious security issues that might arrise?
I have no idea about providing security updates, but have a browse at the site linked in Dogs & Things signature. That's a site that will continue unofficial (<- emphasis :P ) phpBB support. And i'm sure there will be many more sites. Search google and see :)
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by ChrisRLG »

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... 5#p5141765
NeoThermic wrote: Security patches, if required, will be provided until Sunday 1st February 2009.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by djab »

I think the switch to phpBB 3.0 is an excellent step in the phpBB technology. PhpBB is great and due to open source collaboration phpBB was made even better. The switch impacted everyone but is worth it in the long run. I hope they get many years out of phpBB 3 :) . I would like to thank everyone that helped contribute to the founding of phpBB and the development of phpBB 3.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Phil »

ChrisRLG wrote:http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... 5#p5141765
NeoThermic wrote: Security patches, if required, will be provided until Sunday 1st February 2009.
Given that the phpBB2 trunk currently contains some security fixes that would break some older boards (and is quite a large change given the fact it will be EOL'd on Thursday), I wouldn't bet on there being a 2.0.24. Regardless, 1 February is the absolute last day a phpBB2 release may be seen. However, it would be entirely unsupported.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by rreptile »

Like Newsbee and Schwpz, I have a number of manual changes to the phpBB2 board I run; I am using a heavily modified "Classic" theme. Even though I've known for some time that support for phpBB2 would be dropped, I have not been able to take the time to transfer the board to phpBB3. I did flirt with it briefly last year but it was so overwhelming that I had to stop fighting with it. (Real life got in the way.)

So, what phpBB2's retirement means to me is that I'm nervous about keeping my phpBB2 online, worried about the lack of new security patches. There is no way that I'll be able to move the board to phpBB3 by 1 February, so what can I do to prevent problems until I can get the chance to make the move? Should I be adding a robots "noindex, nofollow" meta tag to the board? Or can I safely assume that the idiots out there will be focussing their misspent energies on breaking phpBB3 boards rather than the phpBB2 boards that are still out there?

Upgrades always take much longer than expected (and I'm expecting that this particular upgrade will take ages).

Hoping that my questions aren't considered to be off-topic.
- Reactionary (So... have you backed up your files lately? This is even more important if you're staying with phpBB2)
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Dogs and things »

As long as you have recent backups I wouldn´t worry about hackers.

So far no phpBB2.0.23 has been hacked and I don't think your or my board will be the first phpBB2 installation in which a security hole is discovered by some hacker.

In the case that new security fixes will be needed I'm sure they´ll be made, there's still many people like you and me sticking to phpBB2. Have a look at my signature...

And personally I guess that many script kiddies will be focussing on phpBB3, it's much more of a challenge to become the first one in hacking an up-to-date phpBB3 board than finding new holes in a disappearing version.
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Daniel Exe »

Well, I've heard about the whole sessions hacking when moderators lock posts, because it apparently uses $_GET for the session id in that case? Haven't really looked into it myself, but it seems like this could be avoided or fixed with some work. Least amount of work would be to create a function that striped images from posts or topics when they've been locked (removed img bbcode), I think. Otherwise, changing the way sessions are handled for that situation would most definitely be the best solution, although I question how much work that would take.

Other than that though, phpBB 2.0.23 is quite stable, imo - I know I wouldn't be afraid to continue to run a phpBB 2.0.23 forum. I'd just keep things backed up and monitor it, as I would any site. Still, upgrading to phpBB3 and ensuring that you continue to receive quality support from the phpBB team is always a good idea. :)
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by stickerboy »

You don't need to upgrade your forum before February 1st - you are free to do it any time you wish. We will still provide support for users who wish to upgrade/convert ;)
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Highway of Life »

rreptile wrote:Upgrades always take much longer than expected (and I'm expecting that this particular upgrade will take ages).
Any particular reason it would take longer than expected? How long do you believe it might take? :)
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Re: Discuss: What does phpBB2's retirement mean for you.

Post by Daniel Exe »

Well, depending on the size of the forum, it can take some time to convert. I know it can take a couple days for the converter to process over 1,000,000 posts, rebuild search tables, etc. But I suppose that's why you should process things locally before committing the changes to your live site.
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