FAQ: How to install CMS in Root, Forums in subdirectory (up to 4.1.0 only)

[sadon]

guys,
i could really use your help as i'm intrested in having my CMS at the root.
please advise.

[punchbowl]

do exactly as posted in the first op. should be no need to edit your htaccess.

[Trevor Hannant]

Original Post now added as an article here

[Mountainwxman]

This is the most simplistic thing I've seen as a VB hack!

One word of advice, Note Pad++

[revmitchell]

What ever mistake I made killed all images. I have no idea how to fix it

http://www.pastors-source.com/vb/forum.php

[revmitchell]

Apparently there is no support offered for this

[Sledgstone]

If anyone is interested, I was able to get the following to work for me. My forums are in a subdomain called forums. Make all the following files, but replace 'username' with your host account username and 'forums' with whatever your subdomain/directory your forums are installed in. Then place all the files in whatever directory you want your cms to load in. I have this working on vb 4.0.6. And I've made no changes to my htaccess file either.

content.php

<?php
chdir('/home/username/public_html/forums');
require_once('/home/username/public_html/forums/content.php');
?>

editor.php

<?php
chdir('/home/username/public_html/forums');
require_once('/home/username/public_html/forums/editor.php');
?>

index.php

<?php
chdir('/home/username/public_html/forums');
require_once('/home/username/public_html/forums/content.php');
?>

list.php

<?php
chdir('/home/username/public_html/forums');
require_once('/home/username/public_html/forums/list.php');
?>

widget.php

<?php
chdir('/home/username/public_html/forums');
require_once('/home/username/public_html/forums/widget.php');
?>

[dholt]

If anyone is interested, I was able to get the following to work for me. My forums are in a subdomain called forums. Make all the following files, but replace 'username' with your host account username and 'forums' with whatever your subdomain/directory your forums are installed in. Then place all the files in whatever directory you want your cms to load in. I have this working on vb 4.0.6. And I've made no changes to my htaccess file either.

content.php

<?php
chdir('/home/username/public_html/forums');
require_once('/home/username/public_html/forums/content.php');
?>

editor.php

<?php
chdir('/home/username/public_html/forums');
require_once('/home/username/public_html/forums/editor.php');
?>

index.php

<?php
chdir('/home/username/public_html/forums');
require_once('/home/username/public_html/forums/content.php');
?>

list.php

<?php
chdir('/home/username/public_html/forums');
require_once('/home/username/public_html/forums/list.php');
?>

widget.php

<?php
chdir('/home/username/public_html/forums');
require_once('/home/username/public_html/forums/widget.php');
?>

I did whatSledgstone done except I only did it after the
require_once after the
chdir I just put forum

some servers require this and some don't Thanks for the post.

[bszopi]

Has anyone noticed issues with the sitemap because of this?

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?365153-CMS-Sitemap-Issue

This is the only thing I can think of that would cause the issue I'm having. Thanks!

[ArchAngelz]

With the URL Mapping feature in vb4.1.1, do we need to reverse the steps taken in this thread before upgrading? or After? Or just upgrade and have to do anything?

[Joey Link]

I also want to know how this will effect upgrading...

[mobosix]

Same here.

[TosaInu]

I did it like it was put in the first post and I'm getting this error:

Your submission could not be processed because you have logged in since the previous page was loaded.<br />
<br />
Please reload the window.

Turns out that there are different situations now: I'm still not logged in at the CMS, but I do show logged in at the forum. It seems to have fixed by going to vbulletin options -> Cookies and HTTP Header Options and set Path to Save Cookies to / . It's still very tricky. A sellingpoint for the Suite would be an off the box index in my root to the CMS (the very page that ties all together), and install my forum wherever I like. I was happy to see 4.1.1 made it easier, as it wasn't easy before. It still isn't.

[TosaInu]

Maybe I'm doing it all wrong: but this should achieve it in a much easier way.

Just install the whole suite in one directory. I assume many of us have the legacy of the forum and needing a 3rd party homepage. So, we installed anything vb related into a sub directory forum (http://www.yoursite.com/forum). Then in the root you may have loads of other directories for your CMS (like Drupal). Name conflicts were a reason to have a separate directory for the forum.

How easy it will be with the suite. Not quite. While I'm not a skilled coder or skilled webmaster, I'm not totally ignorant with scripts and such. The easy CMS wasn't easy in the first suite release, and the instructions about how to set it up never hit home.

This works for just the simple CMS in the root and the forums in a sub directory.

1 Set your cookie to site wide: vbulletin options -> Cookies and HTTP Header Options and set Path to Save Cookies to / .

2 edit index.php in the forum directory. Comment out require('content.php'); like this:

//require('content.php');

and uncomment require('forum.php'); like this

require('forum.php');

3 also make a copy of the index.php from your root and install that to your root: http://www.yoursite.com and edit it. Uncomment the relative path
//define('VB_RELATIVE_PATH', 'forums'); and change the last bit to make it reflect to your forum directory like this

define('VB_RELATIVE_PATH', 'forum');

Uncomment //require('content.php'); like this

require('content.php');

And comment out require('forum.php'); like this

//require('forum.php');

I don't think I have anything changed in the ACP otherwise for CMS, Forum, Blog or content paths. It just works like this in an easy to grasp way. Only 2 files to worry about and a cookie that works on the whole domain. When your user goes to the root of your site (http://www.yoursite.com) he'll get the CMS. When it's an old member recalling the legacy url to visit his forum (but also for old posts in your forum linking to another one): http://www.yoursite.com/forum will bring him to the forum. The internal links also work smoothly.

[steven s]

I thought this is all built into the current version. 4.1.1?