Warning: The following tutorial is for MyBB forums only. Instructions for other forum software may vary.

I’ve recently been noticing large forums coming to MyBB. One for example is http://www.talkvideogames.com/ with nearly half a million posts, taking up position #2 in place of MsgPlus. So I decided it’s time for a tutorial on how to ensure your server is running fast with MyBB:

1) Change the mybb_sessions table to a HEAP (or MEMORY) type. This will ensure that the table is stored in memory. It won’t cause problems because it’ll be truncated often (sessions 24 hours or older are trimmed at random)

2) Make sure your kernel, mysql, php, and all extensions are up-to-date.

3) Install Zend, eAccelerator, and or memcache extensions for php. MyBB 1.4 will take advantage of eAccelerator / memcache. Installing APC (Advanced PHP Cache) is usually worth it too.

4) Turn on the MySQL Query Cache if it isn’t on already.

5) Remove PHP extensions that you don’t use - you can always turn them on later if need be.

6)  Optimize your tables weekly using a cron job of some sort

Just a note; MyBB 1.4 will continue to provide continual speed improvements for you and your forum. Things like the new task system will allow you to manage your forum better and more easily.

A typical day writing code for MyBB

I’ve just finished coding (Well, Chris wrote the base of the code) a new feature in. MyBB 1.4 will now feature MySQL & PostgreSQL slave drivers. (Yes We’ve added PostrgreSQL and SQLite 2 & 3 support for MyBB 1.4). This will come for a great boost in speed on large forums that run on multiple servers (think if MyBB ever ran Gaia Online).

Using a MySQL/PgSQL slave driver allows us to separate SELECT queries from queries that modify the database (INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE etc). Allowing that will let each server be tuned to select or modifying to get the maximum performance out of each server and over all have a speed increase on the servers.

Not to mention we’ll be the first free forum software (afaik) to do it. In addition to this, we’ve made many other optimizations to MyBB 1.4 and we are continuing to do so. We just hope this continues to show how dedicated we are towards making you a product that is fast, free, and efficient!

For those of you know don’t know, I’m taking a vacation. I’ll be up at Tahoe for a week. I’ll post pictures if my camera doesn’t screw up again (like last time )

See you guys back in a week!

A long while ago Chris had made a blog post on “Bitwise Operators“. Now, just to make it crystal clear, Bitwise Operators are not in MyBB 1.4. MyBB 1.2 was more focused on the code. MyBB 1.4 is focused more on features. Sorry folks, but there isn’t just enough time in the world!

However, I’d like to bring them up again and revisit the idea of what they are and how they work.

To re-iterate what Chris stated on his blog post, Bitwise operators are operators that work on a bit-level. You can assign “levels” to a number. This number indicates the level and later on, will be able to provide us with what users have what permissions. In turn you have an array of users each assigned a specific value.

We’ll use Chris’s crisp and clean example to show how bitwise operators work:

<?php
$notices['can_view'] = 1;
$notices['can_post_threads'] = 2;
$notices['can_post_replies'] = 4;
$notices['can_edit'] = 8;

$testers[1] = 1;
$testers[2] = 5;
$testers[3] = 9;
$testers[4] = 14;

foreach($testers as $key => $tester)
{
echo “$key”;
foreach($notices as $key => $notice)
{
if($tester & $notice)
{
echo ” - $key”;
}
}
echo “<br />”;
}
?>
Now this code will print out the following:
1 - can_view
2 - can_view - can_post_replies
3 - can_view - can_edit
4 - can_post_threads - can_post_replies - can_edit

Now you may be asking how  we got that? In case you missed it, tester 4 has a value of 14. Now look at what the tester got: “can_post_threads - can_post_replies - can_edit". can_posts_threads has a value of 2, can_post_replies has a value of 4, and can_edit has a value of 8. Now what does that all add up to? 14! And so on and so forth; See? Simple!

This system can make our most difficult permissions night-mares as easy as the above example. If our course doesn’t change, I believe you will be seeing a lot more of Mr. Bitwise in 2.0 than ever before.

Just wanted to let everybody know, I have completed an interview with tmhai and DrPoodle. Check out the interview here: http://mybbgames.com/2007/05/11/an-interview-with-tikitiki/

Enjoy

After reading the blog posts on Dennis’s “Removing the copyright is a bad idea”, specifically WJ’s blog post, I decided to bring up his point in the staff forum. Resulting will be a new copyright for MyBB 1.4.

The current copyright

Powered By MyBB
Copyright © 2002-2007 MyBB Group

Will now become

Powered By MyBB, © 2002-2007 MyBB Group.

Both Chris and I feel this new copyright should ease up the constroversy and please more people by making it look less like it’s ours and more like it’s yours.

Next up on MyBB, and the first new 1.4 feature to be revealed on my blog, is…
Drum roll please

Plugin Version Checking!

Yep, the new ACP now has a way of checking updating for plugins. It will connect to the MyBB Mods server and returns a list of plugins that need updating.

How is works?

1. GUIDs (globally unique identifiers) are assigned to a plugin after it is submitted. Authors have the option to update their plugin with the option of adding the GUID to their plugin.
2. A list of plugins with GUIDs in the plugin directory and sent to the MyBB Mods Server
3. MyBB Mods validates that list and sends back a list of plugins which includes the latest version number and download URL for each of the installed plugins
4. The MyBB admin CP checks to see the list and compares the versions of plugins you have with the latest versions returned by the server