Talkboard Forum 2 — Open–Source Bulletin Board Software

Careful glance

The current recommended TBF version has the following requirements:

A working operating system with TCP/IP–Protocol ¹
A configured webserver with optional SSL/TLS encryption ¹
At least PHP in version 7.1 or higher
The usually available extensions "hash", "pcre" and "mbstring"
A MySQL–Database in version 5.2 or higher or MariaDB version since 10.2
¹ = Only of interest, if you have your own server, instead of a contract with a hosting company.

You can use the following options, if you want (needs more PHP modules):

Issuing commands on a console with exec()
Compression of the database backups or export files using zlib/gzip or bzip2
Realtime compression of requested pages with zlib/gzip
Rendering some elements (Captchas, QR codes etc.) dynamically in pictures with gd
As of 2.1.2 sending digitally signed e–mails by using gnupg
As of 2.2.3 it is possible to login with security keys which require openssl
As of 2.2.7 you can use Argon2 through the PHP own password function

My current development environment consists of:

Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Apache 2.4
PHP 8.3/8.4 (fpm)
MariaDB 10

⚙ Version	Scheduled	Progress
2.3.0	2025	80%

2.3.0 ⚒	PHP Compatibility and Bugfixing
2.3.x	Sending PGP encrypted mails to users if they provide a public key (local/keyserver)

The history of the TBF

It all began in January 2001. I was looking for a script language to decorate my homepage with dynamic action. First I played a little bit with Perl, but by coincidence I finally found the open–source language PHP. All my programs were written in this. In March 2001 version 1.0 was finished and provided for download. But then it became more quiet around this one, because I focussed on other scripts instead. This was the time when the 'Archilles Scriptworld' was born and offered a broad variety of applications to the public.

In the early–winter of 2001 TBF reached version 1.2 having bugs fixed. At the beginning of 2002, I decided to rewrite it from scratch. This was just intended to be version 2 right away, but I stayed in the 1.x branch to gain more experience. That decision turned out to be good later on. During the year 2002 it arrived at its final version 1.7.12, which was much more complex than the initial release. Many ideas were included and hours passed by. But unfortunately, I was not confident about this and started developing on the new version 2 in November 2002. In February 2005 it (finally) was completed and replaced the successful 1.x branch.

Another milestone was reached with version 2.1 in April 2007 which delivered 'real tree structure' to forums and an updated password storage. A lot of security enhancements and a simple chat followed. During the years it has become more silent around the TBF because 'basic requirements' of internet users for their daily discussions were narrowed down to big companies (see 'Web 2.0' as keyword). Techniques used in the web made great leaps and the other competitors making forum software bore to this challenge. I had simply no time for that and frankly no intent to run after these 'trends'.

Then the 2.2 branch became available in 2015. It mainly provided adjustments to (at that time) modern PHP versions and databases besides full support for IPv6. Again I renewed the password storage.

The next leap in versioning came in 2025 with the current 2.3 version family. With the twentieth anniversary it delivered an up–to–date foundation with HTML5, Unicode (UTF–8) and a new default appearance. The new recommendation to store passwords switched to the PHP internal fuinction with "Argon2".

What is important to the Talkboard Forum…

Tradition of privacy: Already in the early days of TBF the imperative of 'Datensparsamkeit' fixed in the old 'Bundesdatenschutzgesetz' (Federal Data Protection Law) was incorporated. In Germany we have had a strong understanding of privacy for a long time and should process as less personal data as possible. You can run the forum in a mode with very little data of your users. Since Version 2.2.1 users have been able to set no e–mail address at all. I have never included contents of third party servers. Everything is local.
Customization: You can include changes easily and an update of the forum software leaves them alone. Whether you adapt your terms of use, the imprint or the appearance everything is located in simple text files. They can be saved or restored at any time.
Documentation: I always liked a comprehensive documentation. There are lots of help comments for users and annotation in the source code for developers. This also includes a detailed listing of changes between the forum versions. And the open handling of errors and no unannounced changes of default settings.

The weaknesses of the Talkboard Forum…

Hobby: The structure has grown over the years without ever having a clear model behind it. Due to compatibility to older PHP versions there are no use of 'recent' coding features. I have no professional apprenticeship in programming. It is more that the TBF has been a playground for self education.
Old core: The TBF formed when there were virtually only desktop systems with big screens available. There are no optimizations for mobile devices with smaller screens. I am not sure if you can downsize the idea of a discussion forum without losing comfort or its sense of purpose.
Complexity: As much as possibilities the software grants, as much sources for errors are present. I expect some readiness from you to get used to a learning curve. It is very likely that you cannot do your job 'during an afternoon'. The reward will be adaptability.

Which progress is planned for the future?

There will be no major changes to the foundation, enriching the user interface with lots of Javascript/AJAX ~~or integrating the unicode charset (UTF–8)~~ ². This would require a complete rewrite from scratch. I trustfully leave this to other developers/software so that I will only adapt the TBF to recent technology slowly. If the TBF is dead some day you will hear from me 😉

² = Since Version 2.3. I could not resist to celebrate its anniversary… 😚

TBF on the go

For any version you can find different packages to download. I recommend you to use the most recent version. New installations and upgrades are made with the 'Full Package'. They come in two flavours of compression – old ZIP and fresh LZMA ('7z'). Some versions have errors fixed after some time and are provided as 'Patch Level [Number]'. These are simply copied over your existing installation. Advanced users can apply changes from one version to the successive by using a special tool¹ either on the server or their local machine. This can be done by a 'Difference File'.

All files have a so called hash. This is a long string of numbers and characters located at the corresponding version block. You can verify whether your download is correct. If just a little changed, your hash will be different from the one in the listing. I use the standard algorithm 'sha256' to calculate them. To help you verify you can look for a hint on your trustful search engine ('verify sha256 hash').

All files are digitally signed. When you grab my public PGP key you can verify the files for authenticity and integrity. This means they were not changed since the signature has been created. The used key for that is only in my possession. You can check the fingerprint to make yourself sure. To help you verify you can look for a hint on your trustful search engine ('verify gpg signature'). You can find the signatures in a detacted '.sig' file. Moreover it exists a file with all hashes which is also signed. Even the template files are included.

As of 2018 there is a new keypair for the next years in order to replace the old one. For compatibility reasons I stick to the RSA algorithm. Until everybody has a quantum computer in their cellar. I placed a transition document containing all details and signed it with both keys.

In the year 2023 I have extended the validity of the subkeys for another five years. If you still have the old public keys you will want to reimport (see two paragraphs above) them.

pub  rsa3328/0xA2360C8CD49BBD5E 2018–06–09 [C] [expires: 2028–06–06]
      Key fingerprint = 38EF 94F0 C94E 8063 FC2D  1C21 A236 0C8C D49B BD5E
uid                             Stefan Kühn <webmaster AT hasenharem DOT de>
uid                             Stefan Kühn <stefan AT hasenharem DOT de>
uid                             Talkboard Forum 2 (Encryption and File/Mail Signing)
                                            <support AT tbforum DOT hasenharem DOT de>

sub   rsa2048/0x1ADF2E5C6C4E2F95 2018-06-09 [S] [expires: 2028-02-22]
      Subkey fingerprint = 9122 2CDF CDB5 9ACD 3D8B  0867 1ADF 2E5C 6C4E 2F95
sub   rsa2048/0xD4CCBA0B9F9F6E3B 2018-06-09 [E] [expires: 2028-02-22]
      Subkey fingerprint = 52E4 CBDC C9C7 0ED3 FEF3  6B81 D4CC BA0B 9F9F 6E3B

¹ = patch. A lot of linux distributions have it preinstalled. Windows ports are available, too.

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22 Feb 2025 Gaia (2.3.0-beta1) – Version for testing

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