meguPHP

A PHP + MySQL imageboard with real-time post delivery via Server-Sent Events (SSE), styled after the doushio theme.

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Features

• Live posting — new posts appear instantly via SSE without page reload
• Multiple boards — create as many boards as you want from the admin panel
• Image uploads — JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP with auto-thumbnailing (GD)
• Post formatting — greentext, spoilers (||text||), bold (**text**), italic (*text*), post refs (>>123)
• Tripcodes — Name#tripkey → Name !B8Kx3mQd2A
• Thread catalog — /b/catalog
• Pagination — board index paginates by 10 threads
• Sage — email sage to reply without bumping
• Admin panel — delete posts, sticky/lock threads, manage bans, reports, accounts
• Reports — users can report posts; mods resolve from admin panel
• Ban system — per-board or global bans with expiry dates

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Requirements

Component	Version
PHP	8.0+
MySQL	5.7+ / MariaDB 10.3+
Apache	mod_rewrite enabled
PHP extensions	pdo_mysql, gd, fileinfo

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Installation

1. Deploy files

/var/www/html/imageboard/
├── config.php
├── install.php
├── schema.sql
├── includes/
│   └── core.php
├── admin/
│   ├── index.php
│   ├── login.php
│   ├── logout.php
│   ├── delete.php
│   ├── manage_board.php
│   ├── create_board.php
│   ├── manage_admins.php
│   ├── change_password.php
│   ├── bans.php
│   ├── resolve_report.php
│   └── .htaccess
└── public/
    ├── index.php          ← home page
    ├── board_index.php    ← board listing (routed via .htaccess)
    ├── thread_view.php    ← thread page
    ├── post.php           ← form submission handler
    ├── live.php           ← SSE endpoint
    ├── report.php
    ├── catalog.php
    ├── .htaccess          ← URL routing
    ├── css/
    │   └── style.css
    └── uploads/           ← writable by web server

2. Create the database

mysql -u root -p -e "CREATE DATABASE imageboard CHARACTER SET utf8mb4;"
mysql -u root -p -e "CREATE USER 'imageboard'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';"
mysql -u root -p -e "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON imageboard.* TO 'imageboard'@'localhost';"
mysql -u root -p imageboard < schema.sql

3. Edit config.php

define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
define('DB_USER', 'imageboard');
define('DB_PASS', 'yourpassword');
define('DB_NAME', 'imageboard');

define('SITE_TITLE', 'My Imageboard');
define('BASE_URL',   'http://yourdomain.com/imageboard/public/');
define('UPLOAD_DIR', '/var/www/html/imageboard/public/uploads/');
define('TRIPCODE_SALT', 'some-long-random-string-here');

4. Set permissions

mkdir -p public/uploads
chmod 755 public/uploads
chown www-data:www-data public/uploads

5. Enable mod_rewrite (Apache)

a2enmod rewrite
# Ensure AllowOverride All in your VirtualHost
systemctl reload apache2

6. Run the installer

Navigate to http://yourdomain.com/imageboard/install.php in your browser, create your admin account, then delete install.php.

7. Log in

Go to http://yourdomain.com/imageboard/public/admin/ and log in. Create boards from the admin panel, or the default /b/ and /g/ are pre-created.

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URL Structure

URL	Description
/	Home / board list
/b/	Board index (threads)
/b/thread/123/	Thread view
/b/catalog	Catalog view
/b/post.php	Post submission (POST only)
/b/live.php	SSE stream for live posts
/b/report/123	Report a post
/admin/	Admin panel

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Live Posting (SSE)

The board index and thread pages connect to live.php via EventSource.

• Board index: listens for all new posts on the board, appends replies to visible threads
• Thread view: listens only for posts in that thread, appends them live
• Reconnects automatically on disconnect
• SSE connections time out after ~55 seconds; the browser reconnects immediately

For production with many concurrent users, consider:

• nginx with proxy_buffering off for SSE
• Redis pub/sub instead of MySQL polling in live.php
• PHP-FPM with a generous max_children

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Nginx Config (alternative to Apache)

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com;
    root /var/www/html/imageboard/public;
    index index.php;

    # SSE: disable buffering for live.php
    location ~ ^/[a-z0-9]+/live\.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root/live.php;
        fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string;
        fastcgi_buffering off;
        proxy_buffering off;
    }

    # Board index
    location ~ ^/([a-z0-9]+)/?$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root/board_index.php;
        fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING board=$1&$query_string;
    }

    # Thread
    location ~ ^/([a-z0-9]+)/thread/([0-9]+)/?$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root/thread_view.php;
        fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING board=$1&thread=$2&$query_string;
    }

    # PHP files
    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $request_filename;
    }

    location / { try_files $uri $uri/ =404; }
}

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Customisation

• Board rules / sidebar: edit board_index.php and thread_view.php
• Post formatting: edit format_post() in includes/core.php
• Theme: edit public/css/style.css
• Max file size: MAX_FILE_SIZE in config.php
• Threads per page: THREADS_PER_PAGE in config.php
• Reply preview count: REPLIES_PREVIEW in config.php

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Security Notes

• Change TRIPCODE_SALT to a long random string before first use
• Delete install.php after setup
• Upload directory should not be executable (Apache: php_admin_flag engine off for uploads dir)
• All user input is parameterised via PDO prepared statements
• HTML output is escaped via h() (htmlspecialchars)
• File uploads validated by MIME type via mime_content_type()