vBulletin Duo-Sync Bridge

vBulletin Duo-Sync Bridge

vBulletin Duo-Sync Bridge can be used for synchronization of Joomla with the famous forum software vBulletin 3.6.x, 3.7.0, 3.8 and 4.0. The main advantage of this joomla vbulletin bridge over other bridges is that our extension is installed to your system without modifying the core files of both your Joomla and vBulletin.

Features of vBulletin Duo-Sync Bridge

No core hacks will allow you to update your systems much easier than if you had them modified. This will also allow you to install any other joomla components on your site without any limitations that can usually be found in other bridges. Please carefully read the help section as we put much effort into this component and we hope it will be very useful for you.

Please, note that we can't guarantee proper work of our bridge with any 3-rd party mod installed on the forum. If you decide to install any free mods you can previously send us a request with the link to download it and we will test the compatibility of JvB Bridge with that mode for you for free.

You can switch between "Community-Builder" or "non-Community-Builder". So this version carries both versions. But if you don't use CB, it's extremely important that the CB support option was set to No.

You can choose the vB-Database manualy, so there is no need to have the forum-path aligned with the Joomla-path. You can synchronize the Joomla-DB with any vB-database no matter on which domain and with which database it's connected.

Nice thing: If you insert the vB-directory it automatically takes all the database-date from the vB-Config-File.

How it work

a user will need to login to Joomla at least once after synchronization so that the passwords should synch and autologin would work.

The thing is that Joomla and VB don't store the passwords abroach. They save hash sum of passwords. Moreover, the algorythm of hash sum is various, so it's not possible to use password hash sum from Joomla in VB or from VB in Joomla. If you synchronize the users from Joomla to VB, it's impossible to convert Joomla password hash sum to VB one. So incorrect (Joomla's) hash sum is stored in VB table.

When a user logs in Joomla and passes the check, for VB hash sum update we use the password, which the person has entered; then it's possible to log direct in VB. But right after the synchronization you cannot log direct in VB.

NOTE: that makes it impossible for people to log into vBulletin directly or change the password in that situation.

Currently we don't see a way to improve that, and there are several reasons for that:

1.We don't want to develop any scripts that make hacks (as it excludes the possibility of future upgrades)

2.There are several web development barriers with loading scripts from remote servers

Frequently Asked Questions

It is supposed to be single sign-on from both places, isn't it ?

It's single sign-on only from Joomla to vBulletin. I.e. if a user logs in Joomla, s/he will be logged in vBulletin. Otherway, a user won't be logged in Joomla. But you can logg in Joomla using login and password of VB.

If I have some custom fields in VB for user profiles and when I synchronize users from joomla to vBulletin, these fields will be empty?

If I afterwards, add values to these fields in vBulletin and then synchronize again (from joomla to vBulletin) will the data in these custom fields be removed?

The users table in Joomla has less fields by default than the users table in VB. So there's no place physically, where's possible to relocate the data from VB to Joomla. There's the component "Community Builder" for Joomla. It extends Joomla functional and allows to create the additional fields for users. If you use it, all data could be relocated from VB to this component. There's the tab "Community Builder" in the bridge configuration, where you can set what and where should be relocated.

How the synchronization works exactly if I place the users copied into VB (Registered group by default) into their proper user groups? What happens next time when I synchronize? Will the users double?

The users won't be doubled, because there's the check on uniqueness. Just the profile fields will be updated.