Solved! I needed to npm install nodebb/spider-detector

I did try an npm update but that didn't install this I guess. I thought npm update and package.json was supposed to take care of node dependencies, is this not the case? My nodejs knoweldge is only decent when I'm actively using it, and it's been a while...

Apart from a git checkout, what else should I be doing when upgrading?

I guess a ./nodebb build is probably also a good idea?

Bye!
Mark

Hi, I upgraded from 3.8.1 to 3.8.4 and now get an error (maybe) when starting nodebb with ./nodebb start:

Starting NodeBB
  "./nodebb stop" to stop the NodeBB server
  "./nodebb log" to view server output
  "./nodebb help" for more commands

Process "20754" from pidfile not found, deleting pidfile

...and forum is not running and ./nodebb status also returns 'NodeBB is not running'. Googled this and someone suggest I delete pidfile so I did, tried starting again and there's no pidfile message but it's still not running. Starting yet again takes me back to the pidfile output.

Ny node --version is v21.6.1

Bye!
Mark

Hi,

Are there any plugins that would allow users to attach files to posts, and allow me to store them locally on the server for other users to access? I run a developer oriented site, so the files would usually be zips, gzs etc.

I assume one of the various 'upload' plugins would take care of half the problem, but they all seem to be for 'S3' or 'CF' which I assume are commercial cloud outfits that would charge for storage, while I'm trying to do all this on the ultra cheap, ie: free!

Bye,
Mark

With the current codebase, making a group hidden also removes it from the badge selection.

Yes, it's working now, not sure why it wasn't earlier but thanks everyone!

@crazycells Yeah, nah, tried that before and again just now, hidden refers to the group, not the badge:

If enabled, this group will not be found in the groups listing, and users will have to be invited manually

Which is what I want.

Hi,

I haven't been able to get group badges to work - I've added the group, added 2 members but nothing shows up in forum posts, the way there do here.

On the users' 'Edit Profile' page there's a 'Group Title' heading just below 'birthday' and above 'about me', but there's nothing else there. This only appears when the user is added to the group. My understanding is this is how users 'enable' their badges.

I've tried with both admin and non-admin users, and I don't have many plugins activated - just sendmail and dbsearch. Not the polling one that was causing other users problems with groups anyway.

The group is private and hidden because I want it to be invite only.

'Show badge' is enabled.

I'm on a fairly recent build, just one behind the latest I believe.

Any ideas?

Bye!
Mark

Are you able to make the appropriate changes in our docs?

Yes, can do, I should have something ready to go soon-ish.

[edit]
https://github.com/NodeBB/docs/pull/89
[/edit]

Check config.json
Unset cookieDomain
Set x-forwarded-proto

Yep, agreed, that would cover all the problems I encountered I think.

IMO, the node.js proxy docs need to be updated. At the very least, they need to mention the {xfwd: true} option, but they could also be streamlined to a much simpler example as above.

Bye,
Mark

Sorted it by adding proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme; in the nginx conf file

Problem is, I'm just using 'raw' node.js, so there is no nginx (or apache etc) conf file.

But your above post did inspire me to find out what the equivalent was for node proxys so thanks!

Bye,
Mark

I think I've found the silver bullet here: you need to set the 'xfwd' option when creating the proxy. With this option enabled, I no longer have to hack the cookie secure flag as above and everything (v.3.6.5) appears to be working perfectly. I'm using http-proxy-middleware, but it should work with any http proxy AFAICT as 'xfwd' is actually part of the base http-proxy module which everything else seems to be built upon.

So to proxy using the http-proxy module:

const proxy = httpProxy.createProxyServer();
app.use("/forum", (req, res) => {
	proxy.web(req, res, {target:"http://localhost:4567/forum", xfwd: true});
});

...and to proxy using the http-proxy-middleware module:

app.use("/forum", createProxyMiddleware({target: "http://localhost:4567", xfwd: true}));

Bye!
Mark

OK, I've finally found a solution that seems to fix all the problems I've been having!

Nodebb has an nconf setting called 'secure' that is true for https urls, false otherwise. This only seems to be used by cookie related code.

But in my case at least, setting this to true was causing cookies to somehow fail, so I simply forced it to false regardless of url and viola, I could use my real https url without any problems.

You can do this easily by modifying src/prestart.js (approx line 100), eg:

//		nconf.set('secure', urlObject.protocol === 'https:');
		nconf.set('secure', false);

This fixes the problem in both v2.x and v3.6.5 branches.

Not sure if this means there's a bug somewhere, perhaps my cookieDomain is incorrect although I can find no docs on what it should be set to.

A nice bonus is that this has allowed me to reduce my proxying code to one line:

		app.use("/forum", createProxyMiddleware({target: "http://localhost:4567"}));

(Using the http-proxy-middleware module).

Bye,
Mark

@marksibly potentially a long shot, but try this

Thanks, but adding cookieDomain to the DB config didn't seem to do anything.

One weird thing suggested in that thread does appear to mostly work though, ie: using http:// instead of https:// in the config url, even though my site is definitely an https site. Even localhost:// 'works'...anything as long as it's wrong apparently!

Only mostly though, because absolute URLs in the nodebb pages fail with 'Blocked loading mixed active content', I assume because the browser ends up trying to load http from an https page?

But most URLs in nodebb pages are domain relative, eg: "/forum/login" etc so the site pretty much works - it's missing an emoji or too I think. You can at least log in and out which is a massive improvement!

I may or may not consider 'patching' the proxy responses, eg: replacing "http://skirmish-dev.net/" with "https://skirmish-dev.net" etc, which sounds like a hot mess solution but I can't think what else to do.

Bye,
Mark

OK, clearing browser site data causes the login error dialog to go away, but I get a page that just says 'forbidden' instead.

I tried running ./nodebb dev and the log ends with: "invalid csrf token" so I suspect it's really the same problem.

Pretty much out of ideas at this point...

Hi,

I'm trying to setup a nodebb proxy in node.js, based on this code:

Node.js - NodeBB Documentation

Documentation portal for NodeBB Forum Software

(docs.nodebb.org)

And it's sort of working, I can mostly browse the forum (looks great!) except it's failing when I try to login with the following error:

Login Unsuccessful

We were unable to log you in, likely due to an expired session. Please try again

I have changed "url" in config.json to: "https://skirmish-dev.net/forum", which is were I am browsing the forum from.

Weirdly, if I change it to "http://localhost:4567/forum", login starts working, even though there are some 'bad' urls in the returned page.

I have made sure to ./nodebb build after changing anything in config.json.

Here's my initProxy function, based on the above but modified a little to let the rest of the site run:

function initProxy(app) {
	const proxyRules = new HttpProxyRules({
		rules: {
			'.*/forum': 'http://localhost:4567/forum', // Rule (2) forums
			'.*/forum/*': 'http://localhost:4567/forum', 
			'/forum/*': 'http://localhost:4567/forum',
			'./forum/*': 'http://localhost:4567/forum',
			'/forum': 'http://localhost:4567/forum' 
		}
	});

	const proxy = httpProxy.createProxy();

	app.use(function(req,res,next){
		try{
			if (req.url.substr(0, 18).indexOf("socket.io")>-1){
				console.log("SOCKET.IO", req.url)
				return proxy.web(req, res, { target: 'wss://localhost:4567', ws: true }, function(e) { 
				console.log('PROXY ERR',e)
				});
			} else {
				var target = proxyRules.match(req);
				if (target) {
					console.log("TARGET", target)
					return proxy.web(req, res, {target: target}, function(e) { 
						console.log('PROXY ERR',e)
					});
				} else {
					next();
				}
			}
		} catch(e){
			res.sendStatus(500);
		}
	});
	app.use(bodyParser.json());
	app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
}

Anyone have any idea what's up?

Bye,
Mark

Hi,

I am fairly new to node.js and am writing a games oriented server that uses the 'express' node.js module to serve static content, and websockets for game management. I am also using MongoDB for DB support.

Is it possible to add a nodebb forum to such a setup, eg: under the https://mywebsite/forums URL? I don't need to share the login/user system or anything too clever, I'm quite happy with the forum behaving as if it was a completely different site for now.

I already have various 'services' that attach themselves to the express app using, for example...

app.get("/.well-known/webfinger", (req, res)=>{
});

...for handling webfinger requests, and was hoping I could do something similar for nodebb requests, eg:

app.get("/forums", (req, res)={
// awesomely simple code here, eg:
nodebb.processRequest(req, res);
});

I doubt it's that simple, but that hopefully describes what I want to achieve fairly well. I have no idea what the 'industry standard' way to do this sort of thing is...

Bye!
Mark