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Thank you for your very intriguing question. You have asked your question as a Kunena support issue but, as this issue doesn't occur here at www.kunena.com nor at any websites where I installed Kunena, the question is what is different about your site compared with others. If this were a substantial design flaw with Kunena 1.5.9 I should imagine that there would be dozens or hundreds of questions on this subject. As it is, I haven't found anything (yet) that matches your specific problem.

Therefore I think we should try to identify the cause of the problem as opposed to concealing its effects, such as by deleting or removing users that you created as an administrator.

Let's start at the beginning. How do your users register with your website? What registration process have you put into place?

G'day, Tom, and thank you for using our forum.

I hope you don't mind that I've changed the topic subject to improve its relevance and to help other people who may also be looking for this kind of information.

Let's see if we can help you sort out your issues with you.

First of all, Kunena is a Joomla extension. Joomla , as you may know, is a web-based Content Management System [CMS]. You might like to think of it in these terms: the content is stored in a database and the interface is driven by HTTP ... the internet. There are other web-based CMS systems , like Wordpress and Drupal , that provide a range of services, from 'blogging to complete website development.

Kunena is forum software. There are also many other forum products available, many of them fully self-contained, like phpBB3 , vBulletin and PunBB . However, these other forums do not directly interface with Joomla without "bridging software".

Kunena is works natively with Joomla. There are also other Joomla extensions for web-based forums, like Agora and ccBoard .

Your solution depends on what you want to do.

If you only want a forum, and little else, then maybe one of the self-contained forums I've mentioned before would be better for you. There are advantages and disadvantages with this choice. The advantages are that you will have your website running fairly quickly, complete with user registration, profiling and the basic security features, but you will have trouble extending it beyond its basic feature set.

If, on the other hand, you want a feature-rich extensible website, then you should consider Joomla as a strategic choice. If you choose Joomla then you should definitely consider Kunena as the way to provide your forum.

It's difficult for me to advise you on things like "how to buy your own domain" or "how to get started with Kunena" when I don't know what technical skills you may possess. There are many free (and relatively hassle-free) ways of claiming your own little piece of the 'net. Facebook is one of them.

But none of these is half the fun, nor anywhere near as extensible as your imagination will allow, as what you can do with Joomla. Kunena extends the fun and the enjoyment.

I hope you will seriously consider it.

Your website requires registration before we can see the issue. Please read Before you ask for help with template issues ... .

It also seems that a lot of Kunena users have recently been curiously motivated by a strong desire to injure themselves by tearing their hair out. Please stop this self-destructive and unproductive behaviour at once!

G'day and welcome to the forum.

There's no such thing as a silly question, however what you're asking is a little out-of-place in this forum. User registration, registration approval and user login/logout is actually not performed by Kunena. Unlike other standalone message boards, like punBB, for example, that have their own user processes for those functions, Kunena uses whatever Joomla uses. So the answer to your question lies in understanding how Joomla works.

I suggest you look for help on these matters by visiting the Joomla help site and, if you cannot find what you are looking for there, try the Joomla forum .

BTW, out of curiosity, what version of Kunena are you using?

I do have a few suggestions. I will try to put them to you as best I can.

With all due respect, your requirement specification is a bit "woolly". I spent the past 10 minutes reading it and I'm not sure I understand (a) the problem or (b) how problem was caused and therefore (c) how to go about solving the problem.

So let's start with the problem: you have spam attacks; that little I understand. Are these attacks on a regular or infrequent basis. What kind of security to you currently have in place (user registration, forum view access, forum post access, review forum posts, SEF URLs)? Is your forum open to allow unregistered users with the ability to post messages? How easy is it for people to register as users? Why would people want to spam these sites? What are the specific challenges/hurdles facing administrator or the moderators of the forums? How do things operate at the present?

Then there's the cause of the problem: Are the attacks launched from a specific IP address or a country, for example? What monitoring have you put in place to examine the source of the attacks. Do you perform any real-time analysis or event log monitoring? How many attacks are occurring as a percentage of total postings? Do you screen new user registrations? If you are being flooded by spambots, have you implemented antiflooding controls and captcha, for example? What features do you currently lack to control the source of these attacks?

And now for the solution: you devoted most of your request writing about solutions. Make your solution specifications shorter, to the point. Place a number next to each solution requirement, together with a rating (high/low priority; mandatory/desirable, etc.), and explain the work your contractor has to perform, not how things operate at the present.



By the way, some of the approaches you've suggested ware being considered for Kunena 1.6.

User registration is basic Joomla. By default, Joomla permits user registration. You can turn this on or off by going to Global Configuration » User Settings » Allow User Registration = Yes/No.

Kunena is not responsible for actually registering new user accounts. Having said that, the link at the top of the forum page is a Kunena feature. The question is, what are we talking about?



Please confirm if this is where you are having difficulty. If you search for "register new account" you will also find many other discussion topics on this subject.

Oh no, not at all, the solution is quite simple. Forum Moderators have the ability to change their identities; they can also change the identities of other postings, too. This message partially illustrates the concept: you should experiment with it more on your own test site.

There is a technical solution that will allow you to extend this functionality to your users The downside, though, is that any avatars your users have chosen will appear with their "disguised" messages - which rather defeats the purpose of having avatars. You might want to discourage avatars for this reason. (I warned you that you may not like the solution).

The "technical" solution is, nonetheless, easy:

Go to Components » Kunena Forum » Kunena Configuration » Security » Allow Name Change = Yes

That will work. Your moderators can figure out who "PekingDuck" is. Your users might be able to figure it out too, if the user has his own unique avatar. But there's the solution.

After applying this setting, when your users post something they can amend their name.

An alternative idea, also fairly easy to implement, is this: when you approve each new user registration, you assign each a second pseudonym account and issue the details to the user. Only you know who has been assigned their pseudonyms. Explain to your users how you would like to see each of their two accounts used.

OK, I understand.

BTW, when I said I was happy to stand behind everything I write, I'm quite happy to do that when I sign myself "sozzled"

Obviously if you're dealing with a private forum, you don't want the general public even being aware of what is being discussed. In particularly sensitive cases, a broad-spectrum discussion forum may also not be entirely appropriate, either.

If the discussion board is purely for the executives of one organisation, you can quarantine the site by using intranet/fire-walling.

Getting back to your particular situation - how do you provide the means for someone to anonymously but cadidly ask "I need to fire my VP of Marketing: how do I do it?" - let's return to the real world. How are these situations approached today by more traditional methods? They're normally dealt with face-to-face, one-on-one, by internal office memorandum or telephone. Would an internet-based discussion forum provide a useful adjunct to those procedures? I don't know.

It's difficult to advise you without knowledge of your site's goals. If your site stresses the need to vet user registrations, then that's what you do. If, subsequently, you say "to hell with that, let's allow people to contribute any way they like," that's OK too. But doesn't one seem to contradict the other, especially if people think that there are other members who are potentially playing the "hidden agenda" game? Why, for instance, couldn't a "sozzled" join your website? (Well, I, for one, would be a bit miffed! )

It's a good question. There's probably a technical solution. Would I advise you to use a technical solution? That's an entirely different subject.

Stress wrote:

Is there a way to make it so that when people log into my website that they also are logged into Kunena?

I've read terms like "Joomla! user integration" and read about other extensions such as Community Builder and JFusion - but I really have no idea what is best or if I really need it.

John's short answer is quite correct. The beauty of Kunena is that was developed as a native Joomla extension. Kunena slots seamlessly into your Joomla website: no bridging software; no tweaks; no "legacy mode" or retrofitting. Whatever means your users register with your website, whichever way they login, your users can use Kunena just like they are able to use anything else you've provided for them. This is the number one reason that people look for forum software like Kunena. There are alternatives around, too, if you care to investigate them and everyone has their own likes or dislikes.

The second biggest attraction (for me, anyway) is the interest that people have in making Kunena better through their involvement in this discussion forum. If you have a problem, if you want to improve the way your forum looks or tailor it more to your specific website's theme, this is where you're likely to get assistance. But, perhaps the third major feature about Kunena - and I'm not trying to do a sales job here - is that Kunena works (in 99% of the time, anyway) immediately, out-of-the-box, without needing to do anything!.

As for the other community management extensions mentioned, like John said, they are nonessential unless you desire something else they offer (e.g. "bullet-proofing" the registration process):

• Community Builder: core component is free to download and integrates moderately well with Kunena
• JFusion Universal User Integration: also free to download, claims to "integrate almost any software into Joomla and allow your users single logins" and although I see no specific reason why it should not work with Kunena I can't see any reason why this would be needed, either. This product seems more suitable for non-native Jooma software, like phpBB or SMF
• JomSocial: must be purchased, enjoys a mixed degree of success with Kunena, and is used here at www.kunena.com

These discussions may be helpful to you (or not):

• Login Problems [SOLVED]
• Question CB and Forum

If the Kunena integration worked as it should there would not be so many users working around these "profilebox issues" it or requesting information about how to remove the Registration, Login and Lost Password links.

This is a good question. Thanks for asking it.

There's one point that I want you (and other people who are looking for help about how Kunena "manages" user registration) to understand and that is: Kunena does not manage user registration. In fact, Kunena is totally agnostic about how your users have registered with your site. Whatever you use to register your users, however the procedure populates the Joomla user table, however the Joomla users are assigned various Joomla privileges (e.g. author, editor, publisher, manager, etc.) these things occur independently of Kunena. As far as setting up forums to work with special user types, Kunena uses whatever is held in the Joomla user table.

The Kunena user table merely contains details, obtained from the Joomla user table, for the purposes of operating in the context of the forum and, particularly, for assignment of moderator roles.

Therefore, if your registration procedure (in your case you use Community Builder) automatically assigns your users as Joomla editors (or whatever), Kunena is aware of that fact when they login and try to interact with restricted forums.

The big question, therefore, is how to make Community Builder assign those special Joomla privileges when users register. Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to that question. What do the folks at Joomlapolis have to say?

I think I have some good news for you and some not-so-good-news

Basically, if I understand what you have written, you have addressed matter of making Kunena login use the Community Builder mod_cblogin module. However, by setting your site to use tightly integrate Kunena with CB, this causes other issues.

These issues have been around for a long time and there and there are as many opinions about what you should do as there are people who use Community Builder and Kunena ... just browse the Community Builder category for examples!

If I understand correctly what you're asking:

1. You want your users to view their Kunena profile information when they're using the forum; and
2. You want your users to use their CB avatars within the forum

Use the following configuration settings:

• Integration

• Avatar Settings

• Use avatar picture from = Community Builder

Profile Settings

• Profile = Kunena

This is how I have set up several of my websites where I use both components, however that combination causes another problem: the login/registration links on the top of the Kunena forum pages take the user to the standard Joomla login/registration components (there is guidance on how to achieve this if you search the forum). For that reason I have removed the login/registration links that appear in the Kunena profile box.

To the moderators: this discussion topic has more to do with integrating Community Builder with Kunena and perhaps it should be moved to Kunena User Contributions and Third-Party Options » Extensions, Modules, and Plugins » Community Builder category.

Every couple of months I trawl through the offerings at the Joomla Extensions Directory for better solutions to tightening security on my websites. I encourage all users to follow my example and make it a practice to visit the JED.

Obviously, site security starts with user registration. It doesn't end there, of course, but this is where I think it's necessary to put most of your effort. If "undesirables" can't get into your site then they can't cause mischief.

For this reason (and mainly for this reason) I have used Community Builder. It doesn't solve all my user registration problems but it does help. For a long time, however, I have not been too happy with Community Builder lacking a CAPTCHA facility - there are alternatives - but I also wanted to share one idea that I recently saw in the JED: CB Passphrase .

This plugin ads a Passphrase Field to the Community Builder Registration. After making this module published and defining the passphrase in the Plugin Management Section of Community Builder, only users entering the correct passphrase are able to register. It is intended for closed communities, just mail your targeted group the passphrase you have defined.

If you're developing a website for a closed group then this idea may help stop intruders from registering.

I realise that this isn't what was asked at the outset - how to stop spammers from infiltrating an open forum - but open forums are a lot more difficult to protect.

G'day, 420blogger, and welcome to the forum.

I will repeat what I have written elsewhere ( Registration Page Issues ):

As I am "fond" of telling people , Kunena is not responsible for user registration, pure and simple. User registration is a Joomla function that may, or may not, be assisted by other components such as JomSocial or Community Builder or others. Kunena makes it possible to utilise these other components.

Therefore if you want to include a "You must agree to these terms and conditions before you can become a member" you don't do this with Kunena.

People fail to make the distinction: you're not registering with the forum (as you wrote) as though it were something independent of the website. User registration is a website issue. Kunena simply uses whatever you've done in Joomla ... as simple as that!

There are other extensions that may give you what you want. I think it's possible with JomSocial or Community Builder, for example, and you can browse the Joomla Extensions Directory for them.

What you could do, to address your issue, is to construct a "site policy" page as a Joomla article and refer to it in your forum announcement or forum description.