Cannot Access PHPBB Admin

spurtus · Regular Joined: May 13, 2006 Posts: 89

Can someone help me fix this problem? Recently, for now good reason (maybe I got hacked, as other bad stuff was related), but I can no longer get to Forum admin, via the Sentinel admin panel. I get no error whatever, just a blank screen (altho I do see the frame strip that divides the left-hand menu navigation from the content on the right).

Help! I have an urgent need to try to block out a hacker, I think.

Also, how can I control a direct connection to the forum admin page (I assume the hacker did not come through sentinel, or worse things would have happened to my site).

I restored my DB and then today, all my users were deleted from Nuke_user table. How can they get access to my forum admin when I cannot?

Raven · Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 1:02 am

There is no access to Forum Admin access from Nuke Sentinel.

spurtus · Regular Joined: May 13, 2006 Posts: 89

I mispoke (apologies). What I meant was that I am running 2.10 version of RN, and, via the Site Administration panel, I can no longer get to my Forum admin page (PHPBB). No error, just a blank (split/framed) screen. When clicking on the FORUM link from Site Admin, what is the security mechanism there? Is there a "switch" in the DB that someone could set to lock out access to phpbb forum admin?

Thanks,
Spurt

Raven · Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:58 am

There is no connection between NukeSentinel(tm) and Forums so that should not be a problem. Have you checked your server error log to see if there is anything in it to help diagnose this? Also, do you have display_errors=E_ALL; set in your config file?

spurtus · Regular Joined: May 13, 2006 Posts: 89

I understand about the relationship between Nuke Sentinel and forums (or, rather the lack thereof). Maybe I should be saying the Nuke Admin Panel. I hope I am stating the correctly. But even at that, I presume the only relationship is pointing at the forum module. But even then, I guess, I am wondering what the security process is (why couldn't anyone just connect directly to the forum admin, and get in (how is it passworded?).

But, asside from that, here is the display error line I have set:

$display_errors = TRUE; //This should only be used (set to TRUE) when testing locally and not in a production environment

It does not note the E_All as an option. Is that permissible, in addition to TRUE or FALSE?

And, sorry, a really noob question: Where are there logs? I will try to find out from my ISP, I guess. Thanks for any help.

Spurt

Raven · Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 9:39 am

My mistake. the E_ALL is for the setting $error_reporting = E_ALL; found in rnconfig.php.

The error log should be accessible from your hosting control panel.

The security process checks to see if you have forum admin privileges.

spurtus · Regular Joined: May 13, 2006 Posts: 89

The line was set to:
E_ALL^E_NOTICE

I set it to simply: E_ALL

I then went back thru and tried access the forum admin via the admin panel, but no luck. I will check with my ISP and see if they have any logging going that I can see. They use PLESK, and nothing is jumping out at me as being any sort of log.

I wonder if there is a decent PHPBB site that could help answer this. What stops anyone from simply inserting my web site into a url that goes to the modules/admin.php script and running it. There must be some sort of security checking (and maybe lack of this has caused my troubles...not sure).

Thanks...I will keep digging...I appreciate your responses, Raven...

Spurt

Raven · Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:02 am

Quote:

The line was set to: E_ALL^E_NOTICE

That's okay too.

The blank page often means a MySQL error but there can be many causes.

Gremmie · Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 11:58 am

My host uses Plesk. Check for a Log Manager icon. Go generate the blank page then check your error log.