Forum Configuration

Forum Configuration

Configuration File

Flatboard 5 stores its main configuration in /stockage/json/config.json.

Configuration Structure

{
  "site_name": "My Forum",
  "site_url": "https://example.com",
  "base_url": "",
  "default_language": "fr",
  "timezone": "Europe/Paris",
  "storage_type": "json",
  "debug": false,
  "maintenance_mode": false,
  "registration_enabled": true,
  "email_verification": false,
  "pagination_type": "classic",
  "smtp": {
    "enabled": false,
    "host": "",
    "port": 587,
    "username": "",
    "password": "",
    "from_email": "",
    "from_name": ""
  },
  "assets": {
    "minify_css": true,
    "minify_js": false,
    "cache_enabled": true
  }
}

General Settings

Site Information

Access: Admin Panel > Settings > General

1. Site Name - Your forum's display name

   • Appears in page titles, headers, and emails
   • Maximum 100 characters

2. Site URL - Full URL including protocol

   • Format: https://example.com or http://example.com
   • Used for email links and redirects

3. Site Description - Brief description for SEO

   • Appears in meta tags
   • Recommended: 150-160 characters

4. Base URL - Subdirectory path if installed in subfolder

   • Leave empty if installed in root
   • Example: /forum if installed at https://example.com/forum

Display Options

• Compact number display (since 5.2.4) — When enabled, large integers are formatted as compact notation throughout the forum (e.g. 1 413 → 1.4K, 25 000 → 25K, 1 800 000 → 1.8M). Applies to view counts in discussion lists, search results, FlatBlog, and FlatHome. Disabled by default.

• Homepage view (since 5.5.1) — The homepage_view setting controls what visitors see at /:

  • discussions (default) — latest discussions list (legacy behaviour)
  • categories — categories grid

  Whatever you pick, /forums always displays the categories grid and /discussions always displays the full discussion list. Both URLs are permanent regardless of the homepage choice, and the navigation links ("Forums" / "All discussions") always match their destination. Switching is covered for the premium, ClassicForum and IPB themes.

Language and Timezone

Configure localization settings:

• Default Language - Choose from available languages

  • Available: French (fr), English (en), German (de), Portuguese (pt), Simplified Chinese (zh), Polish (pl)
  • Users can override in their profile

• Timezone - Set your server's timezone for correct timestamps

  • Examples: Europe/Paris, America/New_York, Asia/Tokyo
  • See PHP timezone list

Storage Configuration

Storage Type:

• JSON - File-based storage (default, all editions)
• SQLite - Database storage (Pro Edition only)

User Settings

Registration

• Enable Registration - Allow new users to register

  • When disabled, only admins can create accounts

• Email Verification - Require email verification

  • Users must verify email before account activation
  • Requires SMTP to be configured

• Default User Group - Group assigned to new users

  • Typically: "Member" or "Guest"

Profile Settings

• Allow Avatar Upload - Enable user avatar uploads

• Avatar Max Size - Maximum file size (e.g., 2MB)

• Avatar Dimensions - Maximum width/height (e.g., 200x200)

• Allow Signature - Enable user signatures in posts

• Signature Max Length - Maximum characters (e.g., 500)

• Presence history size (since 5.4.2) — Number of distinct recent pages remembered per logged-in user (presence_history_size, range 0–20; default 5). Each heartbeat appends the current page to a most-recent-first list, deduplicating consecutive visits to the same URL. A value of 0 disables history entirely; only the current page is kept. Recommended ranges depend on storage:

  • JSON storage — 3 to 7 pages (each entry is a few hundred bytes on disk per user)
  • SQLite (Pro) — 5 to 15 pages

  The data is consumed by Pro plugins such as Forum Monitoring (renders each member's recent page list with type-aware icons in the "Active today" section) and by anything that hooks into PresenceController::writePresence().

Content Time Limits (since 5.6.0)

The Contenu tab of the admin config panel (or config.json keys directly) exposes five settings that govern how long members can edit or delete their own discussions and replies. Moderators are never subject to these limits.

The two *_requires_no_replies flags pair with the minute-based windows. The logic is additive: while no reply exists, the time limit governs; the instant one arrives, editing locks regardless of any configured window.

Permission denials carry specific translation keys so members see a precise message rather than a generic 403:

• permission.discussionEditTimeLimit / permission.discussionDeleteTimeLimit
• permission.discussionEditRequiresNoReplies / permission.discussionDeleteRequiresNoReplies
• permission.postEditTimeLimit / permission.postDeleteTimeLimit
• permission.postEditRequiresNoReplies

All seven keys default to true / 60 / 30 on fresh installs and on update via Config::getDefaults() — no migration needed.

For comparison: Discourse defaults to 1,440 minutes (24 h) for editing; XenForo and phpBB ship with no time limit; vBulletin uses 30–60 minutes.

Email Configuration

SMTP Settings

Access: Admin Panel > Settings > Email

Configure SMTP for reliable email delivery:

1. Enable SMTP - Turn on SMTP sending
2. SMTP Host - Your mail server (e.g., smtp.gmail.com)
3. SMTP Port - Usually 587 (TLS) or 465 (SSL)
4. Username - SMTP authentication username
5. Password - SMTP authentication password
6. From Email - Sender email address
7. From Name - Sender display name

export FLATBOARD_SMTP_HOST="smtp.example.com"
export FLATBOARD_SMTP_USERNAME="user@example.com"
export FLATBOARD_SMTP_PASSWORD="secret"

Common SMTP Providers

Gmail:

Host: smtp.gmail.com
Port: 587
Encryption: tls
Username: your-email@gmail.com
Password: (App Password, not regular password)

Outlook/Office 365:

Host: smtp.office365.com
Port: 587
Encryption: tls

SendGrid:

Host: smtp.sendgrid.net
Port: 587
Encryption: tls
Username: apikey
Password: (Your SendGrid API key)

Test Email

Use the "Send Test Email" button to verify your SMTP configuration.

Email MX DNS Validation (since 5.4.2)

email_mx_validation (enabled by default) verifies at registration time that the email domain has at least one MX record. Addresses whose domain has no mail server (e.g. demo@demo.com) are rejected with a localized error message before any database write.

Toggle from Admin → Settings → Email. Disable only in air-gapped or test environments where outbound DNS is unavailable. See the Security guide for details.

Security Settings

CSRF Protection

• Enabled by default - Protects against Cross-Site Request Forgery
• No configuration needed - automatically handled

Rate Limiting

Configure request rate limits:

• Login Attempts - Max attempts per IP (default: 5)
• Registration Attempts - Max registrations per IP (default: 3)
• Password Reset - Max requests per hour (default: 3)

Password Requirements

• Minimum Length - Minimum password characters. security.password_min_length, default 10 since 5.7.1 (was 8).
• Require Uppercase - Require uppercase letters
• Require Lowercase - Require lowercase letters
• Require Numbers - Require numeric characters
• Require Special Characters - Require special chars (!@#$% etc.)

Since 5.7.1 all four complexity rules are enforced together (one lowercase, one uppercase, one digit and one special character), on both the installer's admin account and member registration. See the Security guide for the full policy.

Performance Settings

Caching

• Enable Cache - Enable Markdown and template caching
• Cache Duration - Cache lifetime in seconds (default: 3600)

Asset Optimization

• Minify CSS (assets.minify_css) - Configuration key only. File-level CSS minification is currently forced off in AssetLoader (the minifier broke some ES-style rules), so CSS is served as source regardless of this setting.
• Minify JavaScript (assets.minify_js) - When enabled, non-.min.js source files are minified on the fly. A .min.js shipped alongside an asset is always used as-is.
• Pre-minified files - If a theme/plugin ships a .min.css / .min.js next to the source, AssetLoader serves it directly.

Maintenance Mode

Access: Admin Panel > Settings > Maintenance

Enable maintenance mode to perform updates or maintenance:

• Maintenance Mode - Enable/disable
• Maintenance Message - Message shown to visitors
• Allow Admin Access - Admins can still access during maintenance

Advanced Settings

Debug Mode

• Debug Mode - Enable detailed error messages
  • Never enable in production - Security risk
  • Use only for development/troubleshooting
  • When enabled, HTML assets (CSS/JS) are not minified - Assets are served in their original, readable format for easier debugging
  • When enabled, the Maintenance Tools section becomes visible in the Admin Dashboard — All rebuild, cleanup, and file-permission actions (Admin → Dashboard → Maintenance) are hidden in production and only appear when debug is true. A warning notice is displayed inside the section to remind administrators that these tools are exposed because debug mode is active.

Logging

• Enable Logging - Log errors and events
• Log Level - error, warning, info, debug
• Log File - Location: /stockage/logs/

SEO Settings

• Meta Title - Default page title
• Meta Description - Default meta description
• Meta Keywords - Default keywords (comma-separated)
• Enable Sitemap - Generate sitemap.xml
• Enable Robots.txt - Generate robots.txt

Configuration via Admin Panel

Most settings can be configured through the admin panel:

1. Navigate to Admin Panel - /admin
2. Go to Settings - Click "Settings" in the menu
3. Select Category - General, Users, Email, Security, etc.
4. Modify Settings - Change values as needed
5. Save Changes - Click "Save" button

Editing configuration directly

Configuration is normally managed from Admin → Settings. For headless/automated setups you can also edit config.json directly (under stockage/json/ or the active data backend) — Flatboard reads it on the next request. Validate your JSON before saving; a malformed file will prevent the app from booting.

A few maintenance commands relevant to configuration are available via the CLI (full catalogue in the Developer guide):

# Purge unverified accounts older than N days (since 5.5.0)
php app/Cli/console.php cleanup:unverified-users 7

# Force-refresh the bundled Mozilla CA bundle (since 5.3.7)
php app/Cli/console.php update:renew-cacert

Backup Configuration

Always backup your configuration before making changes:

# Backup config.json
cp stockage/json/config.json stockage/json/config.json.backup

# Restore from backup
cp stockage/json/config.json.backup stockage/json/config.json

Troubleshooting Configuration

Settings Not Saving

Possible causes:

• Insufficient file permissions
• Configuration file locked
• Disk space full

Solution:

chmod 600 stockage/json/config.json
chown www-data:www-data stockage/json/config.json

Email Not Sending

Check:

1. SMTP settings are correct
2. Firewall allows outbound connections on SMTP port
3. Credentials are valid
4. Test email function works

Timezone Issues

Solution: Use proper timezone identifier:

• Correct: Europe/Paris
• Incorrect: Paris, GMT+1, UTC+1

Resources

• Installation Guide - Initial setup
• Admin Panel Guide - Administration interface
• Email and SMTP - Detailed email configuration
• Security Guide - Security best practices
• Troubleshooting - Common issues

Last updated: May 31, 2026