How do I make my board secure?

[pengyou]

This board is to be used for internal purposes only.  I am having a reading group.  Registered users only, no guests allowed, even to have a look.  How do I cinch things as tight as I can to this end?

New users must have my approval.  I don't want people to be able to use rss feeds to snoop.  Are there other things I should pay attention to?

[dodge]

How I would do it is to go to

Admin -  Configuration - Options   and untick the 'Allow guests to browse
the forum


That would make the forum only available to those that login.


If you want to vet your members or rather those that want to join the forum
go to
Admin - Members - Settings   and then under 'Method of Registration'  make it so the it's 'Member Approval'    it's then down to the Admin of the site (you presumably) to either approve or not the new member application.

[ONLiNEZONE]

This board is to be used for internal purposes only.  I am having a reading group.  Registered users only, no guests allowed, even to have a look.  How do I cinch things as tight as I can to this end?

New users must have my approval.  I don't want people to be able to use rss feeds to snoop.  Are there other things I should pay attention to?

Hi,

To have and ensure a safe community take the following into consideration.
• Watch who you take as an administrator or moderator.
• Enable Require Administration re-authentication for when the administrator wants to administrate the forum.
• Make rules, keep them maintained.

Good luck,

[Rumbaar]

I think you've covered most of the bases to make it as secure as possible.  Make sure you always keep your version of SMF up to date, be mindful of any third party mods you install.  Then with Administration approval required to register and you've turned off RSS feed and Guest browsing the forum should keep data secure.

So the weakest link would be your users and compromised accounts, which you can never be secure from.  Try to have admin approval on account deletion as well and lock down any permissions for people to delete/moderate their posts etc.