CricketMX.com

Jon decided to go all asshole on me, I'm not going into details...I'm tired and very angry, irate as I would put it. There's a group of computers that are DoS-ing the server through a security hole in my phpBB installation. A way to solve it is through upgrading it. My installation has been through hell and back, it's half-assed. I don't have a normal installation, I have phpBB2FM, so those versions are always screwed up in some fashion. You guessed it the upgrade failed. So I tried doing an uninsgtall of phpBBFM which should revert the database to phpBB 2.0.18, the latest version. Only problem, I dont have phpBB 2.0.18. I deleted the contents of the phpBB2 directory and uploaded phpBB 2.0.18 and tried the upgrade option, there's reall not much I can do, because installing wont work because

I'm on Windows XP, I'm going to run all this on my computer.

I got mysql, and php all running on abyss webserver.

I put phpMyAdmin in my htdocs folder and I can't get php server to connect to mysql. There is a possibility that Norton Internet Security could be posing a problem, but mysql server should have all connections permitted. So I looked that up and there's some sort of deal with an extension that allows those two to work, but I never could find a link. Mysql's site refered to php and php.net refered back to mysql, no link to download the extension. But, I'm not sure thats the problem.

I'm particularly looking for Battye, i know well enough that he knows a thing or two about this, maybe a few others.

The next thing is I dont know a thing about giving commands to mysql through a console. A while back there used to be a GUI thing that let you do a few things, but it was a piece of crap.

The fact that you didn't update is the primary reason why you got hacked. It probably wasn't phpBBFM, rather it was the phpBB which was somewhere inside it.

I post in Updates whenever phpBB release a new version, so that is an indicator that phpBBFM have, or are about to, as well.

http://forums.cricketmx.com/viewtopic.php?t=2394,
http://forums.cricketmx.com/viewtopic.php?t=2152,
http://forums.cricketmx.com/viewtopic.php?t=2097,
http://forums.cricketmx.com/viewtopic.php?t=1955,
http://forums.cricketmx.com/viewtopic.php?t=1920 etc.

Now, to fix the problems. I assume you have a backup?

Depending on the sort of damage that was done, your database could be a virtual paper weight, or it could still be 100% intact.

So if you don't have a backup, there is still hope.

When you uninstalled phpBBFM, you said that you would be left with phpBB 2.0.18. In theory, that method has merits. As soon as you remove phpBBFM tables and columns etc, you would be left with what you would have had you never used phpBBFM, and only phpBB. In practise though, the chances of it working are slim to nothing. The two have probably become depentant on one another.

It is my belief, that unless you are willing to start from scratch, you will need to continue using phpBBFM, and assuming you haven't edited the system, the same version. (then upgrade properly).

I suggest using Uniform Server (from memory that is the name, I believe it can be found at sourceforge) for running PHP and MySQL on your PC. For running MySQL queries, I wouldn't worry about doing it through command line, just create a file such as:
And then run it.

Bear in mind, that running that on your computer might not work very efficiently, and most ISP's will not allow it anyway.

So basically there are 3 things:

Upload the back up of the database and try installing the new version of phpBBFM, i only have the new version now. The FTP is crappy.

Or I can try to find a way to get regular phpBB to work.

Clear the tables out of the db and start from scratch.

Jon suggested a mess. To create another database and copy the users and posts to the new one (simply speaking). This would be a pain as you would have to know what tables to copy and what exactly to tcopy, there's more junk in those tables than one could believe.

Sounds like if the first one doesn't work at all, I think I might have to start from scratch. I can try looking for all the users, I can make all the user accounts in the admin pannel.

Not quite.

battye wrote:It is my belief, that unless you are willing to start from scratch, you will need to continue using phpBBFM, and assuming you haven't edited the system, the same version. (then upgrade properly).

You can't install the new version and expect it to work on a database that hasn't been updated. You'll need to use the files from the old version, and then update it.

The tables are always consistent. You don't just find some junk in the middle of a particular table. Rather, you may find that the backup you have is corrupt (which means that pieces are missing).

I think it is unlikely you will get it to work with a regular phpBB, but it may do. I don't have a great enough knowledge of phpBBFM to give any real information about that.

Starting from scratch will be the easiest of course

If you do, don't forget to update

Actually, here's Uniform Server: http://forums.cricketmx.com/viewtopic.php?t=1486