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SMF installation

Install Forum Fortress 1.2.1 for SMF 2.1 through the SMF Package Manager. Download the package, upload it in the Admin control panel and open Modification Settings → Forum Fortress to connect your forum.

Before you start

Make sure you have:

  • SMF 2.1 (supported range in the package manifest)
  • PHP 7.1 or newer, matching SMF 2.1's minimum requirement
  • administrator access to the Admin control panel
  • file access or FTP/SSH to your SMF installation if you install manually
  • PHP with outbound HTTPS support
  • network access from your server to Forum Fortress services

Privacy and outbound access

Forum Fortress needs outbound HTTPS access to provide spam checks.

If your server uses an outbound firewall, allow HTTPS traffic on port 443 to hosts ending in:

*.ffapi.net

Before enabling the modification on a live community, you may need to update your forum's privacy policy. Forum Fortress receives forum activity details for spam analysis, including submitted content and user details relevant to each check.

Read Privacy and network access before installing.

Install steps

  1. Download the latest Forum Fortress SMF package from forumfortress.com/platforms (Download now).
  2. In the SMF Admin control panel, go to Configuration → Modification Packages → Upload package.
  3. Upload the .tar.gz archive and install or enable the package when prompted.
  4. Open Configuration → Modification Settings → Forum Fortress.
  5. Confirm the detected forum domain and enter any required fields shown.
  6. Use Connection test on the settings page to confirm outbound access to Forum Fortress, then select Open Forum Fortress to open the portal on this forum. Account association is optional and can be started with the registration control shown in the plugin.

See Your account and forums for account linking.

Forum Fortress control panel in SMF

Forum Fortress administration after a successful SMF connection test.

Choose an API region

Use Global unless you need regional processing. Select United Kingdom only, European Union only, or United States only to keep live checks and decisions in that regional API service.

Allow global emergency fallback is off by default. If you enable it and the selected regional service remains unavailable after a retry, Forum Fortress may send the check through the global network. Processing may then occur outside the selected region. Leave it disabled when strict regional processing is required.

This setting applies only to live spam checks. Bootstrap, portal access and account management continue through the Forum Fortress control system in the United Kingdom.

What happens after install

Forum Fortress starts checking supported forum actions such as registration, posting, and profile or signature updates.

Depending on the decision and your settings, suspicious activity may be allowed or blocked.

Use the portal for activity history, moderation, reports, billing and support.

Optional repeat-spammer bans

In Configuration → Modification Settings → Forum Fortress, enable Automatically ban confirmed repeat spammers for seven days only when you want account enforcement. Fresh installs and upgrades default Off.

Two distinct confirmed content BLOCKs within 24 hours must carry the server's strict escalation_eligible: true certificate for original scores above 80. Submission bodies and stable decision references/IDs are independently deduplicated. Evidence is committed after native posting validation at request shutdown; a separate one-minute SMF scheduled task creates a native, member-only seven-day access ban and moderation log. It adds no synchronous API requests. Registration, profile/signature checks, invalid forms, outages, policy-only decisions and legacy responses without the certificate cannot contribute.

Only young ordinary accounts (registered within seven days, at most ten posts) qualify. Guests, user ID 1, administrators, moderators, custom/secondary groups, staff permissions, warned/inactive/banned accounts, established members and edits belonging to someone else are protected. Roles, ownership, settings and evidence are checked again before enforcement. Existing member/email/IP restrictions are protected; any native hostname restriction conservatively disables automatic eligibility rather than performing DNS queries.

The settings page shows availability and the latest 15 account receipts. Native MySQL/MariaDB transaction state must be readable, required tables must use InnoDB, and the task must be present and enabled. An unavailable dependency leaves ordinary spam decisions working while automatic enforcement does nothing.

Use SMF Members → Ban List to review, reverse or expire a ban. A durable account receipt prevents automatic re-banning after reversal or expiry. Switching the feature or protection Off cancels pending evidence. Jobs process at most 50 accounts; evidence is capped at 128 events per account, 50,000 total events and 100,000 state rows. Saturation skips new evidence. Tasks prune up to 500 events older than seven days and 500 obsolete states; receipts persist for existing accounts. Uninstall removes owned tables/tasks without deleting accounts, content, held-post metadata or native bans. Spam-clean and account deletion are outside this feature.

Updating the package

When a new version is available:

  1. Download the latest SMF package from forumfortress.com/platforms.
  2. Back up the SMF files and database.
  3. Upload the new package and use Package Manager’s Upgrade action for versions 1.1.1–1.2. Credentials, forum identity, routing, fail-open settings and existing held-post metadata are preserved; repeat bans start Off.
  4. Review Modification Settings → Forum Fortress after the update.

Removing the package

To remove Forum Fortress from your forum:

  1. In Configuration → Modification Packages, uninstall the Forum Fortress Protect package.
  2. Confirm hooks and files are removed as SMF reports during uninstall.

Reinstalling

If the modification is broken or settings are corrupted, uninstall the package, clear SMF cache if needed, then repeat the install steps with a fresh download.

Troubleshooting

Symptom What to check
Package upload fails SMF 2.1, archive contains package-info.xml at the root, PHP upload limits
Settings page missing Package installed; Modification Settings → Forum Fortress; admin hook registered (reinstall via Package Manager if needed)
Connection errors Outbound HTTPS, PHP allow_url_fopen, DNS, firewall, WAF, or hosting egress rules
Stale settings after file copy Clear SMF cache under cache/ (keep index.php)

For more help, see Troubleshooting and the FAQ.

Licence

The package is free and open-source software under GPL-2.0-or-later. The hosted service is separate and governed by its service terms. See Plugin licensing.