Configuration

Edit config.php to customize your installation.

$config = [
    // Database
    'db_driver' => 'sqlite',          // 'sqlite' or 'mysql'
    'db_path' => __DIR__.'/data/database.sqlite',
    'db_host' => 'localhost',
    'db_name' => 'forum',
    'db_user' => 'root',
    'db_pass' => '',
    
    // Site
    'site_name' => 'bulletinbored',
    'admin_user' => 'admin',
    'admin_pass' => 'changeme123',
    
    // Email (for password reset, notifications)
    'mail_from' => 'noreply@yourdomain.com',
    'mail_from_name' => 'bulletinbored',
    'mail_method' => 'mail',          // 'mail' for PHP mail(), 'smtp' for SMTP
    
    // Theme
    'theme' => 'freshbored',              // Theme name (folder in themes/)
    
    // Uploads
    'avatar_max_size' => 2 * 1024 * 1024, // 2MB
    'avatar_allowed_types' => ['image/jpeg', 'image/png', 'image/gif', 'image/webp'],
    
    // URL
    'base_url' => '', // Leave empty for auto-detection, or set to '/forum-nuovo'
    'version' => trim(file_get_contents(__DIR__.'/VERSION')),
    'plugin_manifest' => __DIR__.'/data/plugins.json',
    'theme_manifest' => __DIR__.'/data/themes.json',
    'update_manifest' => __DIR__.'/data/updates.json',
    'update_server' => '', // Remote update server URL (empty to disable)
    'update_mirror' => '', // Static mirror base URL for language files (empty = default extend.bulletinbored.net)
];

Version

Do not hardcode the version; the application reads it from the VERSION file at the project root, e.g. 0.1.0. See Versioning for how to manage releases.

Database

SQLite requires no additional setup. The database file is created automatically in data/database.sqlite.

MySQL

To use MySQL, set:

'db_driver' => 'mysql',
'db_host' => 'localhost',
'db_name' => 'forum',
'db_user' => 'root',
'db_pass' => '',

Tables are created automatically on first access.

Email

The forum uses PHP’s mail() function by default. For SMTP support, set:

'mail_method' => 'smtp',
'mail_host' => 'smtp.example.com',
'mail_port' => 587,
'mail_username' => 'user@example.com',
'mail_password' => 'secret',

Theme

Set the active theme by folder name:

'theme' => 'freshbored',

Localization

Configure the default language and available languages:

'default_lang' => 'en',
'available_langs' => ['en', 'it'],

Rate Limiting (Security Hardening)

Sensitive actions are throttled by a dependency-free, file-based rate limiter
(rate_limit() in src/helpers.php). Each (action, key) bucket keeps a sliding
window of timestamps in data/ratelimit/{bucket}.json. The default limits applied
in src/actions.php are:

The data/ratelimit/ directory is created automatically. No configuration is
required; the limits are hard-coded in the action handlers.

Updates

Configure an update server if you want automatic update checking:

'update_server' => 'https://github.com/bulletinbored/bulletinbored-core',

If update_server points to a GitHub repository, the Update Manager uses the GitHub Releases API automatically and no additional server setup is required.

For non-GitHub servers, the server must expose a versions.json file. See Update Manager for details.

GitHub token

GitHub API has a rate limit of 60 requests/hour for unauthenticated requests. If you expect many update checks, you can provide a GitHub personal access token to raise the limit to 5000 requests/hour:

'github_token' => 'ghp_xxxxxxxxxxxx',

The token must have the public_repo scope. Create one at https://github.com/settings/tokens

Security: never commit github_token to a public repository. Store it in an environment variable or a file outside version control.