VaultWiki News

Gamma 1. An unusual version number to see for a forum add-on, but we are pleased to announce today's release of VaultWiki 4 Gamma 1 today. Gamma 1 marks the start of our third round of public testing and represents a stabler product than the Beta series.

It has been over 2 months since the previous Beta release, with only a couple of major issues that are resolved in this newest release. With the beginning of the Gamma series, we will begin to see more new features and usability in each release due to a minimal amount of bugs.

Sorting Options

Sorting options have been added to List views, and default sorts can be set at the Area level. You can finally once again order your Area list alphabetically, which was a popular choice in VaultWiki 3 using the now defunct FORUMINDEX BB-Code tag. List previews on node landing pages (such as Area pages) will inherit the default sort of the node.

Developer Hooks

Called hook locations in vBulletin, called code events in XenForo, we have completely rewritten VaultWiki's plugin system for Gamma. We introduce the Effect system, which eliminates the separate PHP requires that were done in previous releases in favor of a registry that allows developers to modify only certain variables at certain points during the code execution. Functionally it is similar to XenForo's Code Events, but acts as a wrapper to the forum's own system. Developers familiar with XenForo may not notice much difference, but those familiar with vBulletin will notice more specific variable scoping and enhanced performance of hooks due to an internal cache.

Import Changes

The import system has seen a major change with Gamma 1. It is now possible to restart hung imports and re-import a database that has new content with minimal duplication of imported content. Gamma 1 also now has a very stable VaultWiki 3 importer and better conversion of content across installations with different character sets.

Encoding

Speaking of character sets, Gamma introduces the ability to change VaultWiki's internal character encoding to one that might better fit your existing content (like ISO-8859-1 in vBulletin 3). While this could already be changed in the config file, doing so would have unexpected consequences and inconsistent behaviors, which are now largely resolved. However, it is still only possible to have one encoding in VaultWiki. This is necessary to maintain a consistent experience regardless of the user's language setting. So VaultWiki's encoding should be set prior to installation to match the default or most common encoding used by your existing site.

Release Notes

VaultWiki 4 Gamma 1 should be usable on vBulletin-based production sites.

Since this is a Gamma release, we do not recommend installing VaultWiki 4 Gamma 1 on XenForo-based production sites at this time.

As many of our customers noticed, all web sites operated by Cracked Egg Studios, LLC, including VaultWiki.org, were unavailable from December 18 - December 24, 2013.

Server Compromise

On December 12, our server began experiencing database corruption and by December 14, we learned that our IP address had been added to a number of email block lists. We spent the next few days investigating and our host found that a virus had hijacked our internal Tomcat instance and changed its security settings so that it could bypass our mail software to send SPAM.

On December 18, our web sites were replaced with a generic maintenance message suggesting we would be back in a few hours. Unfortunately, the infection was more persistent than initially thought, so our host's estimate of 6 hours quickly turned into the better part of a week.

How This Affects Users

While there was no evidence that the virus or an unauthorized user had accessed sensitive information (in fact we believe the virus simply propagated from an infected workstation that was connected via SSH), we recommend that any users who submitted any Install, Upgrade, or Import service requests during the month of December should change their site and FTP login information where possible. If you have ever purchased one of these services before December and want to be extra cautious, please do not hesitate to do the same.

We will also be requiring that all users on our sites reset their passwords, in case user salts and passwords were collected.

Obviously this did delay the development of the next release. We had already lost several weeks in December due to malfunctioning workstation hardware.

Changes to Our Implementations

With this recent event, we noted some ways that our server security could be increased and have already done so.

In addition, we will be adding another level of separation to the services that were affected by this infection. Moving forward, we expect to move our download area to a completely separate Amazon server that can achieve the same functionality without having Tomcat installed at all. Further, we intend to begin processing email traffic through an off-server service as well. These changes should begin rolling out during January.

VaultWiki 4.0.0 Beta 7 is now available. Thanks to a number of beta adopters who were able to provide extensive error logs, a significant number of minor issues have been fixed, which should contribute to an overall more stable feeling VaultWiki, particularly when XenForo's Debug Mode is enabled. A smaller number of more serious issues that were discovered have also been fixed.

Headers in User Profiles

It is now possible to add wiki headers to User Profiles. If your site has notable members that deserve their own wiki page for more extensive user biographies, this can now be achieved easily using the same Integration Controls as forum and thread headers.

vBulletin Widgets and Mobility

VaultWiki 4 Beta 7 ports the Wiki Activity sidebar block as a Forum Sidebar Block and a CMS Widget under vBulletin. In addition, it is now possible to add wiki headers to a number of other vBulletin pages, including Blog Categories, Group Categories, CMS Sections, and Project Tools projects. Permissions for adding/modifying these automatically uses existing forum permissions, so no additional configuration should be necessary.

Auto-Links in XenForo

One of VaultWiki's most enticing features, Auto-Links, is now fully functional under XenForo with VaultWiki 4 Beta 7. Now, as in vBulletin releases, users don't have to explicitly link to wiki pages. Found text will be automatically linked where appropriate.

Other Changes (attention needed)

The following directory should be removed when upgrading from earlier versions of VaultWiki 4, or you might be unable to save some edits: vault/core/controller/ui/edit/book

The VaultWiki package directory under vBulletin has been changed to be consistent with XenForo and other vBulletin directories, and to fix a conflict when installing both VaultWiki 3 and VaultWiki 4 concurrently.

If you are upgrading from an earlier version of VaultWiki 4 and you are not using VaultWiki 3, run the upgrade script as you normally would. Then you should remove the old package directory /packages/vaultwiki

Release Notes

Since this is a late-Beta release after public Alpha testing, VaultWiki 4 Beta 7 should be usable on vBulletin-based production sites.

Since this is a Beta release, we do not recommend installing VaultWiki 4 Beta 7 on XenForo-based production sites at this time.

VaultWiki 4.0.0 Beta 6 is now available. A handful of bugs have been fixed, including a bug that prevented file uploads from working on some server configurations, and a number that made VaultWiki unusable when XenForo's Debug Mode was enabled.

Expiring Synonyms

VaultWiki 4 Beta 6 introduces the ability to create expiring Synonyms. You can now set a future date after which the Synonym will be automatically removed. This is particularly useful when the name of a page has changed, and you want to give users or search engines the chance to update their links, without keeping that Synonym around forever.

Other Changes

VaultWiki's upgrade process has been made easier: it is no longer necessary to disable the VaultWiki before beginning the upgrade process.

The style has finally been updated for vBulletin 4 installations so that the wiki more closely looks like other areas of your vBulletin site.

Release Notes

Since this is a Beta release, we do not recommend installing VaultWiki 4 Beta 6 on production sites at this time.

We are proud to announce today that VaultWiki 4.0.0 Beta 5 is now available. As part of a handful of bug fixes included, Beta 5 fixes a number of character encoding issues when run on some sites and fixes some features that were not working on all supported platforms.

Translation Support

VaultWiki 4 Beta 5, like VaultWiki 3 Beta 5 before it, introduces Translation management into VaultWiki 4. The ability to easily manage content translations will allow users to keep translated versions of the same content connected, which means that visitors can more easily find the content intended for them.

New Features for XenForo Installations

Beta 5 eliminates the need for the wiki_index.php script under XenForo installations. This means that XenForo finally runs VaultWiki more like XenForo's developers intended, which leads to better product stability, improved compatibility with third-party XenForo add-ons, and easier friendly URL installation.

Beta 5 introduces wiki-related user criteria to XenForo. This allows admins, using a variety of data points, to create trophies or user promotions based on a user's wiki activity.

Release Notes

Since this is a Beta release, we do not recommend installing VaultWiki 4 Beta 5 on production sites at this time.

Our developers recently discovered a long-standing bug in both VaultWiki 3 and VaultWiki 4 which could allow users to post arbitrary HTML or Javascript code on your site without your knowledge. This is a serious security risk, so we have released new versions of both branches to address the issue:

• For VaultWiki 3.x: 3.0.20 Patch Level 1
• For VaultWiki 4.x: 4.0.0 Beta 4

Please note that ALL versions of VaultWiki prior to these are vulnerable. We recommend that customers upgrade as soon as possible in order to protect themselves and their users.

About Beta 4

Otherwise, VaultWiki 4 Beta 4 is a significant maintenance release with many bug fixes and code changes. Here's some of the more general changes:

• You can now control the order of sidebar blocks and randomize some of them
• Auto-links are working again on vBulletin
• Stability significantly improved on XenForo
• Redirect items are more stable

Release Notes

Since this is a Beta release, we do not recommend installing VaultWiki 4 Beta 4 on production sites at this time.