Is there a open-source forum that I can integrate my current members database with?

So what im trying to do is save myself coding a forum... I've got a members table already with their passwords, username etc etc... and I want a forum system that can po开发者_运维技巧ssibly be linked with my members table.

So then they don't have to re-signup if they want to use the forum? Ive used PHPBB before but again, that doesn't allow me to link my members table & forum members table.

Site uses PHP/MySQL

Thanks :)

Vanilla Forums pioneered the Proxy Connect method for single sign on -

http://vanillaforums.org/docs/singlesignon

I think an SSO bridge is better than syncing/maintaining two separate user tables (one for the main site and one for the forum). If you can map the existing table to the new one you still might run into encryption problems when it comes to encoding or deciphering user passwords.

I've studied forums with SSO and with a separate log in. The perfectionist in me loves the clean bridge that SSO can provide. However, practically speaking, I've found that a forum's popularity hinges on (1) the number of unique visitors per day; (2) the freshness of the content; and (3) the quality of the content. In other words, SSO is way less of a factor than you might expect.

If you run a popular, high quality site, users will sign up even if it means jumping through an extra hoop to register. I know that seems counter intuitive but that's been my experience. My recommendation is to launch your forum without SSO --- and once you confirm that it will succeed and remain popular, then consider merging the user tables using Proxy Connect.

There is a community contributed code snippet which can be used to authenticate users against an external database: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=1598865 (It is an abandoned thread, so not sure whether it will work)

You can also write own authentication plugins using PHPBB API: http://wiki.phpbb.com/Authentication_plugins

I don't think you'll be able to simply "plug" your current, bespoke user table into some existing forum.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the question, but it sounds like you're going to need to write some sort of script that transfers the information out of your database and into a new database in the format that the forum software understands.