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eveBB Documentation Wiki

eveBB is fast, light, user-friendly forum software for your website: fewer features, faster pages, and code you can actually read. It runs on modern PHP, works with MySQL, SQLite or PostgreSQL, and keeps itself up to date with a built-in one-click updater.

A public test forum runs at evebb.net. The source lives at github.com/evebb/EveBB, with packaged builds on the releases page. The current version is recorded in the repository's latest_version file (currently 2.0.4, stable release). Release packages are checksummed and GPG-signed — see RELEASES.md for verification steps.

What eveBB is

eveBB is released under the GNU GPL, version 2 or later. It descends from a long lineage of lean forum software — PunBB (2002–2008, Rickard Andersson) → FluxBB (2008–2012, the FluxBB team) → eveBB — and all original copyright notices are retained in the source files. Internally, much of the code still uses the legacy PUN_ / pun_ / FORUM_ prefixes inherited from that lineage — this is expected and harmless.

The database schema is fully compatible with FluxBB 1.5.x: an existing FluxBB 1.5 board can switch to eveBB in place, and older 1.4/1.2 boards upgrade through the bundled db_update.php. See Upgrading from FluxBB.

Highlights

• Modern PHP. Fully compatible with PHP 8.1–8.4.
• A PDO database layer alongside the classic drivers. MySQL (PDO), SQLite3 (no database server needed — the forum runs on a single file), and PostgreSQL (PDO). The classic mysqli and pgsql drivers are retained and fixed for PHP 8.
• Modern security plumbing. random_bytes() entropy, bcrypt password hashing with transparent migration of legacy hashes, hardened per-form CSRF checks, a login throttle backed by a login_attempts table, and a stateless registration CAPTCHA.
• A built-in one-click updater. Boards update themselves from GitHub releases via Administration → Maintenance, with SHA-256 checksum verification.
• A visual (WYSIWYG) editor. SCEditor is integrated for posts and signatures, reading and writing standard BBCode.
• A mobile-friendly responsive layout in the bundled Carbon style.
• A plugin system. Manifest plugins install through the admin console with one upload — see Plugin Development and the growing catalogue of official and community plugins at evebb.net (sign-in providers, polls, tags, badges, two-factor authentication, webhooks, backups and more).
• A real test suite. Unit and characterization tests, a driver-agnostic database contract suite, and a scripted end-to-end suite covering install, login, posting, search, and registration.

What the eveBB core deliberately does not have

In keeping with the "fewer features, faster pages" philosophy, the core has no private messaging system and no post attachments. User-to-user contact happens through form email and public contact details in profiles; file sharing happens by linking. Features beyond the core — polls, topic tags, badges, sign-in providers and more — are delivered as plugins, so boards only carry what they use.

Documentation pages

• Requirements and Installation — server requirements, supported databases, the installer, config.php reference.
• Install on a Cloud Server — paste one file when creating a cheap cloud server (DigitalOcean, Linode, Vultr, Hetzner…) and land at a ready-to-run installer.
• Upgrading from FluxBB — moving a FluxBB 1.5/1.4/1.2 board to eveBB, db_update.php, and the one-click updater.
• Admin Guide — every page of the administration console, the permission model, groups and moderators.
• User Guide — registration, logging in, posting, BBCode, search, profiles, subscriptions, and feeds.
• Styling Guide — how Carbon.css and the style system work, and how to build your own style.
• Plugin Development — the flux_hook addon system, manifest plugins, and classic admin plugins, with a complete hook reference.

Third-party components

• SCEditor (js/sceditor/) — the visual editor, © 2011–2017 Sam Clarke, MIT License.
• Silk icons — editor toolbar icons by Mark James, CC-BY 3.0.
• Nomicons emoticons — "The Full Monty Emoticons" by Oscar Gruno and Andy Fedosjeenko, distributed with SCEditor.
• Smilies (img/smilies/) — from Google's Noto Emoji project, Apache License 2.0.
• UTF-8 library (include/utf8/) — the phputf8 library by Harry Fuecks and contributors.

See docs/copyright-audit.md in the source tree for the full provenance audit, and docs/security-audit.md for the security review notes.

Getting help

• Issue tracker — bug reports.
• Discussions — questions and support.