Advice on vbulletin

[George L]

hi this is my first post in this place.

Just a few days ago i ordered my dedicated Linux server from Rackspace.

I am deciding on what kind of forum script should i be using for my sites. I have only tried my hand at UBB and Ultraboards on virtual plans from other hosts.

This is my first dedicated server which i am still learning the ropes. I haven't yet ask for the installation of php/mysql on my server yet.

So if i had 1 or 2 boards using vbulletin on my server and each board had say 200-500 members, what kind of resource requirements am I needing ?

I have the following specs

Red Hat Linux/Apache
PIII 500
128 MB ram
10 GB
using webmin

Is it easier to install vbulletin ?

Thanks

[WebStyles]

Once you get PHP / mySQL installed, the vB installation is very easy. All you have to do is set a couple of variables in a config file (I believe it's just some database information), then upload the scripts, assuming you have PHP installed as a module (make sure to ask Rackspace about this, PHP is much faster installed as a module as opposed to as a CGI) you won't have to chmod anything... You just call the install script in your browser, and vB creates the database and all the tables for you. It's really easy actually.

The resources it takes up really depends on your traffic.

[wandrer]

resources?

So if i had 1 or 2 boards using vbulletin on my server and each board had say 200-500 members, what kind of resource requirements am I needing ?

How many visitors per day & pages viewed per member are you anticipating ?

The testing I did would relate to about ~15K-25K people per day visiting your board:

http://www.glcomputers.com/Wandrer/forums/

The first thing to consider if you are planning on lots of traffic is getting more ram (you can never have too much)...

As for the install, once PHP and mysql are set up, it is a 2 minute job (unlike UBB/wwwthreads)...

[George L]

Originally posted by wandrer

So if i had 1 or 2 boards using vbulletin on my server and each board had say 200-500 members, what kind of resource requirements am I needing ?

How many visitors per day & pages viewed per member are you anticipating ?

The testing I did would relate to about ~15K-25K people per day visiting your board:

http://www.glcomputers.com/Wandrer/forums/

The first thing to consider if you are planning on lots of traffic is getting more ram (you can never have too much)...

As for the install, once PHP and mysql are set up, it is a 2 minute job (unlike UBB/wwwthreads)...

Thanks for the reply,

based on my current forums which have 170+ members the pageviews are 6 - 10 pageviews per member of course not all members are active. This board has been growing at around 60% per month for the last 2 months.

I will have around 10 - 25 sites on the server with at least 3 - 6 of them running a forum script .... looks like vbulletin would be alot easier for me to install.

is there a multi-license version of vbulletin or would i have to order them separately ?

[bbyrd]

ub2k

ultraboard is simple to install you just copy two directories (ascii & binary) set one varible in the setup script which is the path to perl ( eg /usr/local/bin/perl) the run the setup script it configures the directories itself...

[werehere]

Uhhh...

So have you installed vBulletin? If MySQL and PHP are installed properly to start with, it should go even easier than ub2k.

All I ever see you posting is plugs for ub2k, why?

[bbyrd]

sever does not support mysql

Originally posted by werehere
Uhhh...

So have you installed vBulletin? If MySQL and PHP are installed properly to start with, it should go even easier than ub2k.

All I ever see you posting is plugs for ub2k, why?

1. my server will not support mysql
2.besides ub setting up the directories it also copies the files and sets the permissons programs the settings (and has a better LOOKING control panel than vb) and allows for Real Privite forums just like vb

so to tell you the truth i think ub & vb are real good at competing with each other i think both forms could learn a thing or two from the other.



[Edited by bbyrd on 05-29-2000 at 09:42 PM]

[wandrer]

I will have around 10 - 25 sites on the server with at least 3 - 6 of them running a forum script ....

I would still recommend vBulletin. The ease of setup - template based - mysql driven - php coded - are all reasons why it is better than other forums (personal opinion). It has the capacity to grow with your sites while not bogging down like UBB would, while still being scalable.

[George L]

Originally posted by wandrer

I would still recommend vBulletin. The ease of setup - template based - mysql driven - php coded - are all reasons why it is better than other forums (personal opinion). It has the capacity to grow with your sites while not bogging down like UBB would, while still being scalable.

i was discussing this with other people and the UBB feature of saving to html pages for search engine indexing came up...

does vbulletin allow this ?

[wandrer]

That is one of the 'hacks' that I have been wanting to write, but just haven't had the time.

[George L]

Originally posted by wandrer
That is one of the 'hacks' that I have been wanting to write, but just haven't had the time.

i can definitely say from what i have heard from friends etc who have seen vbulletin and currently use UBB... if vbulletin could save html pages they would change over....

of course another thing they and I are wanting is proven support like UBB...

[TotalBS]

would you be saving only a few html pages? or would you want all the posts to be saved as html?

If the latter, then wouldn't you be back to the space hog problem, especially on a busy board?

I understand the importance of search engine pages, but I don't know if you can have both.

[wandrer]

my solution revolved around SSI in html pages.

A simple thread-0705.html page with the SSI command of '/forum/showthread.php?threadid=705' would do the trick. Then, you would only have an 100-500 byte html file for each thread. You would still save many megabytes of space and have the benefit of all html pages being updated whenever they were called. Why reduplicate the post in an html file and then have to worry about updating the html files when they become out of date (as in the case of UBB).

In addition to that, you could have a forum-011.html page that would call 'forum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=11' and of course an index.html page that would call 'index.php'.

[SonnetCelestial]

Though it's fast Wandrer without memory it would still be slow. That's still a hardware upgrade just like UBB's cpu upgrade. I'm sure memory is a lot cheaper but I'm not convinced that there is a way to make a popular bb not use so many resources. Dedicated servers for just one BB seems to be the trend. I personally don't understand why a bb has to take up so many hardware resources... Isn't there a way to streamline it completely or are bb's supposed to take up so much on the hardware aspect? Also do ads really work for you? I keep hearing how advertisements really make a difference for popular bbs, although I have yet to see anything pay for a dedicated server.

I'm not being cheap just wondering why these boards are only built to run run on dedicated once they get popular...

[werehere]

Also do ads really work for you? I keep hearing how advertisements really make a difference for popular bbs, although I have yet to see anything pay for a dedicated server.

My forum advertisments pay for a whole month of hosting on a very nice dedicated server, every day and a half. My forums makes very good money in general, and in no way is it hard to pay for a dedicated server!

That is how the internet works: traffic = more hardware to accomidate it.

[Edited by werehere on 06-02-2000 at 02:01 PM]