Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Programming Discussion : Sync Forums?

[blue27]

If I have two sites both running phpBB, is it possible to syn both sites to have the same forum database, essentially to have the same forum running at 2 different URLs?

[robeyh]

you can have them both use the same database. One would just have to use it remotely.

[robeyh]

Perhaps I should clarify. First access mysql on the machine that is storing the forum database. Make sure that the phpbb mysql user has full access both from localhost as well as from the remote location (I would add two entries to the mysql/db table). Next for the local entry of phpbb use localhost/{nameofdatabase} and for the remote entry use {hostwithdb}/{nameofdatabase}. That should set up both systems to use the same db. Now we just hope that the network connection between the two is powerful enough to handle the heavy use your forum is going to get.

[blue27]

Thanks Robeyh.

Is there any security risk with this type of set up?

[robeyh]

Very little. The only way the db would be accessible would be from either of the systems. So one would either have to hack into one of the systems, or they would have to successfully spoof the remote system and also know the username and password to use for phpbb. I would say there's a much greater likelyhood of there being a security hole in phpbb.

Something to note is that this traffic will open. That is someone could intercept it and trick your remote instance into getting the wrong data. If you're really paranoid an alternate setup would be:

1. Limit access to phpbb's db to localhost
2. Tunnel using ssh from remote host to db host (forward port x to 3306) (of course you'll be using your 16mb DSA for this... so login may take a couple of millenia (jk) )
3. set first phpbb to access db from localhost:3306
4. set second phpbb to access db from localhost:x (where x is the port used earlier)

Presto! Military grade encryption. Now there's no possibility of spoofing or interception of data. Of course, if you're not doing phpbb over https this is all rather useless.

[blue27]

Ok. I'll give these things a try. Thanks again.