nodeBB - it's not for supper

[Tracy]

Unless you want to spend a LOT of time making a complex one!

Just got through setting up a development site for the admin of XFH so that they could evaluate it and see if they wanted to move the site off of SMF to it.
Honestly, once it's set up it's not a bad looking package. But there are issues with getting it set up. The developers are apparently more fond of Ubuntu and have good instructions on setting it up under that OS. But if you use AlmaLinux or similar... rotsa ruck.
I ended up burning the VPS out with Ubuntu 24.04LTS. The first bit of fun was you have to install a proxy in front of it to work like it is supposed to. So off I went to install nginx.
Get it all up and running... and the site is slower than sin. Turns out it's because I was running it through CloudFlare and apparently CF and nodeBB do not play well together because of web sockets? All I know is I had to disable the proxy portion of CF on that site before it would work.
But it is up and running now and Neo and I are trying to figure the bits and pieces out. They've already headed off to bed several hours ago but I'm still playing around with it.
In case anyone is curios, it is currently up and running at Xenforo Help Central.
If they decide they want to keep using it instead of SMF, I'll move the setup over to the main domain. Unluckily there is no import that I have found, but I am recreating my stuff from the SMF site over on it.

edit:
test to see if it will embed/unfurl for the domain name itself and to see if og:image works or not.

Xenforo Help Central

dev.xenforohelp.com

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Looks like you went with it as the main domain!

Node looks interesting.

 

[Tracy]

Looks like you went with it as the main domain!

Node looks interesting.

Yeah, I told Neo as much time as I had spent (about 10 hours getting it all set up and configured to reflect the old structure) I was going to go ahead and push it live.
Most of the other stuff on the old site was not really useful for help other than a couple of threads.
It really looks nice on mobile. For someone wanting a somewhat modern forum only setup, it looks decent.

 

[AWS]

Nice and fast. I just moved all my sites off Windows after over 20 years to Ubuntu. Last time I had servers on Linux was back in Redhat 5 days.

 

[Tracy]

Nice and fast. I just moved all my sites off Windows after over 20 years to Ubuntu. Last time I had servers on Linux was back in Redhat 5 days.

Thanks... stick it behind the CF proxy though and it slows down to molasses in winter speed!
I have to spend some time later today trying to figure out exactly what it is that is causing it. The only think I've found is that it has something to do with websockets.
And not many people apparently use nodeBB so it's hard to find any input from people.
Neo seems happy with it so far. They didn't need much other than somewhere to post and maybe upload a file here and there.

 

[AWS]

Thanks... stick it behind the CF proxy though and it slows down to molasses in winter speed!
I have to spend some time later today trying to figure out exactly what it is that is causing it. The only think I've found is that it has something to do with websockets.
And not many people apparently use nodeBB so it's hard to find any input from people.
Neo seems happy with it so far. They didn't need much other than somewhere to post and maybe upload a file here and there.

Is there a reason you went with nodebb? I would think since you have to go the docker route anyway that Discourse would be a better choice.

 

[Tracy]

And... figured out where the websocket switch was in CloudFlare and now it's fully behind the CF wall.

 

[Tracy]

I would think since you have to go the docker route anyway that Discourse would be a better choice.

As for NodeBB, the admin did want Discourse, but that was more hassle than it was worth and the install that we tried sucked honestly. They had visited a NodeBB site and liked the way it did for posting and the modern feel it had.
That's the nice thing about NodeBB.
It's not in a docker image. It is installed in /var/www like you would most other PHP software packages. It uses Node.js to run, so instead of a PHP processor it is using node.js for the same function. The proxy is nginx and I can easily set up another vhost instance running a PHP setup on it.
I may try setting up a test site on the other VPS that was running that domain but is using AlmaLinux and CentMin Mod for it's LAMP stack. It would just be adding Node.js to it and then having the CentMin vhost configured as a proxy.
You can find a docker image for it I believe. I hate using docker for the hassle you have to jump through if you want to run another site. If you are familiar with playing with docker (I am not) it's not that bad though, but I'm to old to learn new tricks.
The main documentation that NodeBB has is based upon an Ubuntu install. They miss several of the steps in their CentoOS/AlmaLinux install documentation that is present in the Ubuntu.

 

[JoelR]

It's really smooth on mobile, nice job! I haven't come across many NodeBB so it's great to try it out in person.

Have you been able to check into the settings to see if they offer anything interesting?

 

[Tracy]

It's really smooth on mobile, nice job! I haven't come across many NodeBB so it's great to try it out in person.

Have you been able to check into the settings to see if they offer anything interesting?

Thanks. I'm just doing the tech setup stuff and getting it roughed out.
It's a battle between me and Neo messing with settings. I finally asked them to please let me do some tweaking and then they can have at it if they don't like it as I also wanted to learn more about the ACP and it's functions. I didn't want to go messing with anything they set up since they are the actual admin of the site and I am mainly tech support.

Mobile is where it really impressed me. They did a very decent job of it even though it is not a PWA app. I actually think it's cleaner than Xenforo or the other big names.
I did figure out in some testing you have to use the v2 of Recaptcha with the add-on as v3 does not work for new user registrations. Hopefully the add-on developer will get that updated and better yet be able to use CF's captcha process.

Dealing with the Groups/Permissions is totally different than XF or even SMF. As far as interesting.. it does appear you can do moderation by up/down vote (not something we are enabling AFAIK). But overall, it offer a lot of what everyone else does, just packaged differently.

It does make a big push of use of reputation/flags.




There are more options, I just did not screen them.

One thing I found interesting... XenForo has stated that they cannot update their FontAwesome to 6.0.
Apparently NodeBB could?



NodeBB did this a little over 2 years ago.
It may have something to do though with being a paid vs open source offering.

 

[Tracy]

I think the FA 6 issue may be due to them using a "free" version instead of the Pro. Makes sense since they don't have to license it like a commercial product would?