huntbugy / Pow-Forum

Forum builder software powered by Node.js

Pow Forum

In the past, I've built a forum into another website. Work was slowly put into it over the years. I've decided to extract the forum and make it an independent forum software. That said, much of the early commit history is not included. The forum was originally built statically, but I am now working to make it dynamic. E.g to be able to change what forum categories exist or change the forums name.

Pre-requisites

You must have the following installed in order to continue with installation

• This runs on Node.js. Pow Forum is constantly updating, so be sure to install the latest version for a seamless experience. Node.js LTS : https://nodejs.org/en/download

• The only database we support is MongoDB. We prefer Mongo because of it's seemingly automatic database configuration. https://www.mongodb.com/try/download/community

You must have the following to continue with setup

• Mailgun configuration ( https://mailgun.com )

  • API key
  • Mailgun domain

• The Node.js process requires read and write permissions. Such as to create the critical .env file or allow users to upload a profile picture.

  • This can be problematic for limited environments such as Replit.

Installation

Run these commands in your CLI (cmd.exe, terminal)

1. Clone the repository > git clone https://github.com/2JJ1/Pow-Forum
2. Install the NPM packages > npm install
3. Use the setup PF-CLI command to begin the initial setup. > npm run setup Enter the requested information

• Initial setup is complete at this point, but you will still need to configure the rest on the website's dashboard That said, follow "Running the process" steps below

Running the process

Before running Pow Forum, make sure you have completed the setup as mentioned in the installation instructions. When that is done, simply run the server.js file. > node server.js

It is recommended to use a production manager such as PM2. > npm install -g pm2 > pm2 start server.js --name PowForum

When you run the server, the console will output the URL you can visit to view the website. By default: http://localhost:8087

If running from your personal computer, you can simply visit that URL on your browser.

If running from a cloud server like in a production setup, proxy to that URL using an HTTP server(I.e NGINX, Apache). Make sure your DNS is pointing to your server's IP address. Then simply visit your website's domain.

Configuration

Though you may have completed the initial setup, you still need to continue configuring the forum. Such as to add an admin, setup API keys to make the premium subscription work, or to add forum categories.

Some optional configuration is done through the Pow Forum CLI(PF-CLI). To run PF-CLI, run the command > npm run cli

Adding an admin account

Forum admins can only be added through the PF-CLI.

1. First you will need to visit the website in your browser and create an account.
2. Once you have an account, run the PF-CLI command below and enter your username. > addadmin

To remove an admin, run the PF-CLI command > removeadmin

Adding/editing categories

Once you have an admin account as setup above, you should see a dashboard option in the website's navigation bar. Visit it and hopefully the rest is obvious.

Running multiple Pow Forums on the same server

If you're going to run multiple instances of Pow Forum on the same server, you need to set some environment variables so the Pow Forums don't clash with eachother. For each of the Pow Forums, follow the steps below

1. Create a .env file in the root directory
2. Inside the .env file, supply PORT and DATABASE_NAME values. The values must be unique from the other running Pow Forum instances. Example:

PORT=8088
DATABASE_NAME=MyDatabaseName

Environment Variables

You can edit the .env file following the npm package, dotenv's, pattern These changes will only take effect when you restart the process You may find that a .env file already exists with automatically set values. You may ignore them or edit as you see fit.

#Modifying the source code? Use the "development" value to to disable some annoying features like captcha on login
NODE_ENV=production
#Change the session cookie's name. Changing this will result in existing login sessions to be unrecognized
SESSION_COOKIE_NAME=_PFSec
#The MongoDB database name this deployment will use. Necessary to set a unique name if running multiple deployments on the same server. This does not rename the database
DATABASE_NAME=PFForum
#The HTTP port number this deployment will use. Necessary to set a unique port number if running multiple deployments on the same server
PORT=8087

Updating Pow Forum

Before updating, refer to the repository's releases to check for breaking changes You can expect breaking changes if the version's major has changed

Simply pull the repository > git pull origin

Migration

Follow these steps when changing your host server

Migrating the database

Migrate your database using the Mongo CLI

1. Export the entire database > mongodump -d <database_name> -o <target_directory>
2. On your new deployment, you can restore with > mongorestore -d <database_name> <target_directory> The default database name is PFForum

Migrating files

Copy over the following files to the same location in the new deployment

• User's profile pictures found in public/images/avatars
• The .env file .env