A PHP forum that integrates seamlessly with an existing website?

Question

I have an existing php site with an already configured user system (registration, authentication, lost password, etc.). I decided that I want to add a bulletin board and integrate it with an existing site: registration on one should be registered on the other, as well as register and change user information.

Is there a good forum that will simplify this integration? It seems that the most common way is simply to abandon the existing user system and use the forum user system. But this has its drawbacks: you rely on the forum to properly handle security (on the other hand, it can be useful), and you are much more attached to this particular forum (more difficult to switch forums, problems with the forum can cause problems with the whole site, harder to have a forum on a separate server).

What is a good way to approach this?

Answer 1

If you intend to create a stable, popular implementation of the forum software, in almost all cases it would be better to use the forum user authentication, rather than your own.

However, if you are trying to use your own authentication system, you can probably keep two isolated, but combined. I mean, in the registration system of your own software, go to the forum registration method. Thus, as soon as you register on your website, he will also create a forum account.

If you want a single authentication session to authenticate both on your website and on the forum, you will need to download the information about the forum session at the login. Many forum software versions have hooks that you can call. SMF, from what I remember, had an API that allowed me to perform many of these tasks.

Answer 2

Do you have the time and resources to write your own? In my experience, integrating an open source solution into an existing system can take longer than building it from scratch.

Answer 3

I'm not sure how effective this is, since I just recommend using your forum user system for this kind of task, but you can technically store the user ID in a column / table in your database and link to it with.

Answer 4

You can use the single sign-on feature in Simple Machines if you want. This is exactly what you must do to seamlessly integrate the software into another. Alternatives are also openid, but harder to implement.