Hi there,
I haven't been here for some time, as my UBB system has been running fairly smoothly for a year now. I'm using UBB as somewhat of a Portal, primarily as a news publishing tool. I've got Latest Threads, UBB News, ELY's Upload, and a bunch of custom details running. (on 6.103)

For '03, I'm planning to go to more of a real portal interface. 6.3's ability to use different HTML templates for different forums means I can now add a public or private forum along side my news areas. I'm planning to use polls, calanders, messaging, forums, and a customised profile system.

My question is this: for the news side of the system, I want the post/reply/edit type links to display only to authorised users (moderators in this case).

Example: currently, the post/reply links are displayed regardless of the users status. This leads curious types to click them, and they get a message telling them they're not allowed. This invites further exploration by malicious types. Instead, I'd like to check the status *before* creating the page so that the post/edit links are not displayed at all (unless user is validated).

I basically need to have the display of the tools links based on a cookie check to see if the user is authorised or not. The current UBB uses JS to check the cookie to display a welcome or login message. Has anyone built a mod that checks the cookie and displays content based on a check of the user's authorisation?

I'm sure that this is an element of several mods, but I can't find a simple example to work from.

Any feedback from others working on UBB Portals would be appreciated.

Thanks,
GetaGrip Greg - www.skusaonline.com

Cool, I look forward to your work

I think what you are asking would break the cache, tho I am not sure... one thing you might consider is removing the posting links all together from the pages you are limiting access to and put an 'admin functions' link at the bottom that pops open a window that checks member status and if they are able to post gives them the links that open the posting pages (post new, edit, quote, or reply). Those that aren't able to post would get whatever message you want to give them (sorry, you must be an admin to use this page). Overhead would be relatively minimal and cache would stay intact.

Allen,
I'm not sure I understand why it would involve the cache... oh wait, (duh) I think I do get it.

Since my system has been limited to posting only a few items a week, and our traffic is relatively low, I've been running with cache turned off.

You're saying that I can't create pages dynamically based on the user's logon if cache is enabled, because all users receive the same page layout from the cache.

Is it possible to have public users retrieve files from cache, while moderators bypass cache? That way the public would receive a standard layout, and moderators would receive the full control layout.

How about having cache enabled or disabled on a forum by forum basis? The public area of the site can use cache, but the news side of the site could remain dynamic...

Shoot, the cache system really is not suited to a portal interface. The whole idea is to serve personalized content based on an ID check.

Running with cache off, at what point does the UBB system slow down regarding number of users? Can the limitation be overcome by server setup?

Thanks,
Greg

Short answer is that the limit of users/posts is almost totally hardware based. Throw a mean enough server at it with scsi disks, dual processors with a couple gigs of ram and you can support just about any number of users/posts. Of course, that's the same that can be said for a php/mysql solution too

Be sure and upgrade to 6.4 when it comes out (we should get a public beta next week sometime), some very nice stuff is coming you'll be very interested in

UBB is reporting about 85,000 page views this month, with an average of about 50,000 per month for the previous 9 months. My host's reporting software is Webtrends, which does not appear to include the CGI hits as page views, and it reports around 80-100,000 impressions a month.

Currently, the only members are editors that have access to post news, with a total of 28 and only a few are active. Next year, I expect to end up with around 2,500 members and perhaps 500 that post regularly.

The site is on an Interland shared account at the moment, but I need to upgrade my disk space for '03 (about 340 MB now).

Any suggestions for what kind of specs I should be looking at to handle my UBB load, uncached?

Thanks,
Greg