github.com/Azareal/Gosora@v0.0.0-20210729070923-553e66b59003/README.md (about) 1 # Gosora  [](https://discord.gg/eyYvtTf) 2 3 A super fast forum software written in Go. You can talk to us on our Discord chat! 4 5 The initial code-base was forked from one of my side projects, but has now gone far beyond that. We've moved along in a development and the software should be somewhat stable for general use. 6 7 Features may break from time to time, however I will generally try to warn of the biggest offenders in advance, so that you can tread with caution around certain commits, the upcoming v0.1 will undergo even more rigorous testing. 8 9 File an issue or open a topic on the forum, if there's something you want and you very well might find it landing in the software fairly quickly. 10 11 For plugin and theme developers, things are a little dicier, as the internal APIs and ways of writing themes are in constant flux, however some stability in that area should be coming fairly soon. 12 13 If you like this software, please give it a star and give us some feedback :) 14 15 If you dislike it, please give us some feedback on how to make it better! We're always looking for feedback. We love hearing your opinions. If there's something missing or something doesn't look quite right, don't worry! We plan to add many, many things in the run up to v0.1! 16 17 18 # Features 19 Standard Forum Functionality. All of the little things you would expect of any forum software. E.g. Common Moderation features, modlogs, theme system, avatars, bbcode parser, markdown parser, report system, per-forum permissions, group permissions and so on. 20 21 Custom Pages. There are some rough edges 22 23 Emojis. Allow your users to express themselves without resorting to serving tons upon tons of image files. 24 25 In-memory static file, forum and group caches. We have a slightly more dynamic cache for users and topics. 26 27 A profile system, including profile comments and moderation tools for the profile owner. 28 29 A template engine which compiles templates down to machine code. Over forty times faster than the standard template library `html/templates`, although it does remove some of the hand holding to achieve this. Compatible with templates written for `html/templates`, so you don't need to learn any new templating language. 30 31 A plugin system. We have a number of APIs and hooks for plugins, however they're currently subject to change and don't cover as much of the software as we'd like yet. 32 33 A responsive design. Looks great on mobile phones, tablets, laptops, desktops and more! 34 35 Other modern features like alerts, likes, advanced dashboard with live stats (CPU, RAM, online user count, and so on), etc. 36 37 38 # Requirements 39 40 Go 1.13 or newer - You will need to install this. Pick the .msi, if you want everything sorted out for you rather than having to go around updating the environment settings. https://golang.org/doc/install 41 42 For Ubuntu, you can consult: https://tecadmin.net/install-go-on-ubuntu/ 43 You will also want to run `ln -s /usr/local/go/bin/go` (replace /usr/local with where ever you put Go), so that go becomes visible to other users. 44 45 If you followed the instructions above, you can update to the latest version of Go simply by deleting the `/go/` folder and replacing it with a `/go/` folder for the latest version of Go. 46 47 Git - You may need this for downloading updates via the updater. You might already have this installed on your server, if the `git` commands don't work, then install this. https://git-scm.com/downloads 48 49 MySQL Database - You will need to setup a MySQL Database somewhere. A MariaDB Database works equally well and is much faster than MySQL. You could use something like WNMP / XAMPP which have a little PHP script called PhpMyAdmin for managing MySQL databases or you could install MariaDB directly. 50 51 Download the .msi installer from [MariaDB](https://mariadb.com/downloads) and run that. You may want to set it up as a service to avoid running it every-time the computer starts up. 52 53 Instructions on how to set MariaDB up on Linux: https://downloads.mariadb.org/mariadb/repositories/ 54 55 We recommend changing the root password (that is the password for the user 'root'). Remember that password, you will need it for the installation process. Of course, we would advise using a user other than root for maximum security, although that adds additional steps to the process of getting everything setup. 56 57 You might also want to run `mysql_secure_installation` to further harden (aka make it more secure) MySQL / MariaDB. 58 59 If you're using Ubuntu, you might want to look at: https://www.itzgeek.com/how-tos/linux/ubuntu-how-tos/install-mariadb-on-ubuntu-16-04.html 60 61 It's entirely possible that your host already has MySQL installed and ready to go, so you might be able to skip this step, particularly if it's a managed VPS or a shared host. Or they might have a quicker and easier method of setting up MySQL. 62 63 64 # How to download 65 66 For Linux, you can skip down to the Installation section as it covers this. 67 68 On Windows, you might want to try the [GosoraBootstrapper](https://github.com/Azareal/GosoraBootstrapper), if you can't find the command prompt or otherwise can't follow those instructions. It's just a matter of double-clicking on the bat file there and it'll download the rest of the files for you. 69 70 # Installation 71 72 Consult [installation](https://github.com/Azareal/Gosora/blob/master/docs/installation.md) for instructions on how to install Gosora. 73 74 # Updating 75 76 Consult [updating](https://github.com/Azareal/Gosora/blob/master/docs/updating.md) for instructions on how to update Gosora. 77 78 79 # Running the program 80 81 *Linux* 82 83 If you have setup a service, you can run: 84 85 `./pre-run-linux` 86 87 `service gosora start` 88 89 You can then, check Gosora's current status (to see if it started up properly) with: 90 91 `service gosora status` 92 93 And you can stop it with: 94 95 `service gosora stop` 96 97 If you haven't setup a service, you can run `./run-linux`, although you will be responsible for finding a way to run it in the background, so that it doesn't close when the terminal does. 98 99 One method might be to use: https://serverfault.com/questions/34750/is-it-possible-to-detach-a-process-from-its-terminal-or-i-should-have-used-s 100 101 *Windows* 102 103 Run `run.bat`, e.g. double-clicking on it. 104 105 106 # How do I install plugins? 107 108 For the default plugins like Markdown and Helloworld, you can find them in the Plugin Manager of your Control Panel. For ones which aren't included by default, you will need to drop them down in the `/extend/` directory. 109 110 You will then need to recompile Gosora in order to link the plugin code with Gosora's code. For plugins not written in Go (e.g. JavaScript), they will automatically show up in your Control Panel ready to be installed, although we currently don't support these types of plugins at this time. 111 112 There are also some experimental plugins in the `/experimental/` folder like plugin_sendmail which you may want to make use of, although there aren't any particular guarantees about whether they will continue to function or not. 113 114 We're currently in the process of moving plugins from the `/` to the `/extend/` folder, if there is a piece of functionality that you would like to tap into, but which you cannot from that package, then feel free to poke me, otherwise you may need to drop it in `/` and name the package accordingly. 115 116 117 # Images 118  119 120  121 122  123 124  125 126  127 128  129 130 More images in the /images/ folder. Beware though, some of them are *really* outdated. Also, keep in mind that a new theme is in the works. 131 132 # Dependencies 133 134 These are the libraries and pieces of software which Gosora relies on to function, an "ingredients" list so to speak. 135 136 A few of these like Rez aren't currently in use, but are things we think we'll need in the very near future and want to have those things ready, so that we can quickly slot them in. 137 138 * Go 1.11+ 139 140 * MariaDB (or any other MySQL compatible database engine). We'll allow other database engines in the future. 141 142 * github.com/go-sql-driver/mysql For interfacing with MariaDB. 143 144 * golang.org/x/crypto/bcrypt For hashing passwords. 145 * golang.org/x/crypto/argon2 For hashing passwords. 146 147 * github.com/Azareal/gopsutil For pulling information on CPU and memory usage. I've temporarily forked this, as we were having stability issues with the latest build. 148 149 * github.com/StackExchange/wmi Dependency for gopsutil on Windows. 150 151 * golang.org/x/sys/windows Also a dependency for gopsutil on Windows. This isn't needed at the moment, as I've rolled things back to an older more stable build. 152 153 * github.com/gorilla/websocket Needed for Gosora's Optional WebSockets Module. 154 155 * github.com/robertkrimen/otto Needed for the upcoming JS plugin type. 156 157 * gopkg.in/sourcemap.v1 Dependency for Otto. 158 159 * github.com/lib/pq For interfacing with PostgreSQL. You will be able to pick this instead of MariaDB soon. 160 161 * ithub.com/denisenkom/go-mssqldb For interfacing with MSSQL. You will be able to pick this instead of MSSQL soon. 162 163 * github.com/bamiaux/rez An image resizer (e.g. for spitting out thumbnails) 164 165 * github.com/esimov/caire The other image resizer, slower but may be useful for covering cases Rez does not. A third faster one we might point to at some point is probably Discord's Lilliput, however it requires a C Compiler and we don't want to add that as a dependency at this time. 166 167 * github.com/fsnotify/fsnotify A library for watching events on the file system. 168 169 * github.com/pkg/errors Some helpers to make it easier for us to track down bugs. 170 171 * More items to come here, our dependencies are going through a lot of changes, and I'll be documenting those soon ;) 172 173 # Bundled Plugins 174 175 There are several plugins which are bundled with the software by default. These cover various common tasks which aren't common enough to clutter the core with or which have competing implementation methods (E.g. plugin_markdown vs plugin_bbcode for post mark-up). 176 177 * Hey There / Skeleton / Hey There (JS Version) - Example plugins for helping you learn how to develop plugins. 178 179 * BBCode - A plugin in early development for converting BBCode Tags into HTML. 180 181 * Markdown - An extremely simple plugin for converting Markdown into HTML. 182 183 * Social Groups - An extremely unstable WIP plugin which lets users create their own little discussion areas which they can administrate / moderate on their own. 184 185 # Developers 186 187 There are a few things you'll need to know before running the more developer oriented features like the tests or the benchmarks. 188 189 The benchmarks are currently being rewritten as they're currently extremely serial which can lead to severe slow-downs when run on a home computer due to the benchmarks being run on the one core everything else is being run on (Browser, OS, etc.) and the tests not taking parallelism into account.