UBB.Developers Forums Community Development Programming Integrating UBB seamlessly with Drupal

This is more of a Drupal question but someone here may have the answer for us.

We have been using UBB Threads for years and love it. Our web site is being converted to Drupal but we want desperately to keep UBB Threads. How do we integrate it into Drupal, keeping it password protected for our members *without* implementing a second log in process within UBB itself.

In other words. We want people who are members to seamlessly have access to UBB without having to log in a second time to the BBS.

My answer that I posted on ubbcentral still stands, the work done should be done from within the drupal code.

That is keeping the userdatabases into sync, and writing the cookies that ubb.threads reads for auto login.

While we could actually help with the code/how to's to do the ubb part, I for one have no experience with drupal.

Can you code yourself?

Yes, we can code. Just wondering if anyone had done this before and what we need to be aware of specifically.

Okay, this makes it easier to talk about it.

There should be something in the drupal code that copies a user registration to ubb.threads. You can have a look in /scripts/adduser.inc.php what code is needed to add a user to ubb.threads.

Now you would also want to create a logon cookie for the user, so that they don't have to log in. /admin/loginas.php could be of help on that field.

i've done a similar 'mod / hack' for 2 sites. 2 different approaches.

approach 1: the site uses a htaccess list, which is maintained by a 3rd party program. that 3rd party program essentially updates that list based upon credit card subscriptions.

then the ubbthreads side simply checks when a user tries to access ubbthreads.php and sees if they exist in the DB (threads db) yet. if they don't then a new threads user is created, added the the 'User' group and they then access threads.

approach 2: similar to what a portal-master, threads-slave would be setup as. as the portal verifies new user signups, does all the email verification etc and adds the user, it then sends a message to threads to 'add a new user' in a URL (get). ubbthreads checks to see if that user exists, then adds the user to the appropriate group.

threads then goes further to note the portal cookies for username and takes care to setup the corresponding ubbt cookies to allow the users to transparently log in..

sooo, it can be done... just how you want to slice / dice

Some followup Questions:

1) How do we provision new UBB.threads accounts correctly since Drupal will be driving, not creating users via the UBB admin area?

2) What is the syntax for the magic cookie that Drupal should set when a Drupal login event happens successfully?

3) Is there a way to sync UserIDs and Passwords between Drupal and UBB? The front door will be mandatory Drupal and users will not be able to log into UBB. So could we possibly blank out the ability to log in via UBB?

4) Syntax for adjusting that cookie when a Drupal logout event occurs so UBB.threads no longer thinks the user is properly authenticated.

We still would like some answers to our questions posted above. Can anyone help?

And the module now exists to integrate UBB.threads with Drupal.

UBB.threads integration
http://drupal.org/project/ubb

I posted on ubbcentral still stands, the work done should be done from within the drupal code.

Thank you guys! Excellent work