recent_actors Administrator Guide

FPA is a standalone script written in PHP, it does not install through the Joomla! Installer and must be manually installed. This means that FPA users are required to download the FPA Package, extract it and upload the script to the website themselves using either their hosting File Manager tools or an FTP/SCP Client.

Download The FPA Package

Ensure that you are working with the latest release of FPA. This can be downloaded below, or access any beta releases if preferred from the FPA Project on Github.

cloud_download Download Latest FPA Here!

Extract The FPA Package

Locate the downloaded FPA file and extract/unzip the FPA package on your own computer, you should now have the following folders and files available.

You will need an extraction/un-archiving utility to extract the files. Windows users can simply double-click the downloaded FPA file or right-click and use the native Windows Extract Tool, Linux/Unix/Mac users can use use the native Tar/Zip utilities. Alternatively, you can also use tools such as WinZip, 7-Zip, or PeaZip

Upload The FPA Script

The FPA script file now needs to be uploaded to your where your website is located, there are several methods to achieve this depending on your knowledge, experience and web hosting setup.

Note: The Forum Post Assistant script does not need any configuring or editing before uploading.

Access The FPA Script

• To access the FPA script, once uploaded, open your preferred web-browser and in the address bar, enter you websites URL, with fpa-en.php appended to the URL. (EG: https://www.your-domain-name.com.au/fpa-en.php)

  

  If your website is installed in a sub-directory, you will need to append that directory name to the FPA URL as well. (EG: https://www.your-domain-name.com.au/directory-name/fpa-en.php)

• Once the FPA script has loaded, you will see the on-screen report. This is a graphical view of some audit and test routines run by the FPA to discover you hosting and Joomla! environments.

  

  emoji_objectsTIP: It is advisable to review the on-screen FPA report as it may well have found and highlighted an issue that you can solve yourself without the need to post in the forum.

Generate Forum Post Content

• To generate the required content for a forum post, simply Click the Click Here To Generate Post button.

• FPA will re-run and generate your forum post report/conent using the default options. Once the post content has been generated you will see a textarea containing the post content.

  

• To copy the post content, simply Click the Copy Post Content To Clipboard button.

Post FPA Content In To A Forum Post

• Login in to your Joomla! Forum account. Create a new post, or new reply to an existing post.

• Click on the Full Editor & Preview button and go to the Options tab.

  Select Disable smilies and make sure that Disable BBCode is not selected.
  (Quick Start Guide - Steps 6, 7 & 8)

  

• Now paste the previously copied FPA Post Content in to the post textarea.
  (EG: right-click + paste or for Windows : [control] +v and for Mac OSX : [command] +v )

  

• emoji_objectsTIP: If privacy is a concern, please santitise the post data before publicly posting to the forum.

  Click the Submit button to submit the FPA post.

The Forum Post Assistant provides an option to enter additional information to be posted and to display the results of a subset of the default tests.

Accessing The FPA Options Panel

• To access the FPA options panel, Click the Open the FPA Options button.

• If you choose to, you may now enter further details of what problem you are seeing and what you have already done to solve this issue.

  

  if there has been a recent PHP error reported, the FPA will automatically include this in the problem description, otherwise you can enter any error messages you have seen as well.

• If you do not wish to select any optional "Runtime Options", Click the Click Here To Generate Post button to re-run the FPA with the included problem description, otherwise review and select your desired "Runtime Options".

FPA Runtime Options

By default, FPA runs with ALL runtime options selected in order to provide maximum troubleshooting information. However, this amuount of information may not always be required or can be distracting. You can disabled (uncheck) any unwanted option from the "Runtime Options panel".

• If you choose to, or are requested to by someone assisting you, you may uncheck individual or multiple tests routines that are unrelated to your problem or simply not needed.

  

  Information Privacy: The privacy option is only applied to the graphical view, the Forum Post detail has already had sensitive and private information removed or hidden from the post output.

• Once you have entered additional details or selected your desired "Runtime Options", Click the Click Here To Generate Post button to re-run the FPA with the new options.

The Forum Post Assistant user interface is quite comprehensive and maybe a little daunting the first time it is used, please take a little time to familiarise yourself with where to find the the most frequently used information and functions.

FPA Toolbar

• If you choose to, or are requested to by someone assisting you, you may uncheck individual or multiple tests routines that are unrelated to your problem or simply not needed.

  
• 
  Delete FPA

  
  Go To Docs Site

  
  Light/Dark Mode

  
  Download Latest FPA

  
  Print Output To PDF

  
  Reset & Rerun FPA

  
  GUI Privacy Option

  
  GUI Shortcut Menu

FPA Environment Dashboard

The Confidence Rating is calculated based on the initial basic test results and compared to the Joomla! requirements and best practices to successfully run Joomla!

• Displays the basic initial hosting environment audit results, including a Confidence Rating that Joomla! will run based on the results.

  

• Confidence Rating

  The Confidence Rating is scored from F through A+ as an indication of the hosting suitability to successfully run Joomla!

  

  Click the Question Mark icon to review what is tested for, and the environment test results.

  

FPA Discovery Report

The Discovery Report displays groups of information, categorised in to relevenat areas, such as Joomla! Instance, PHP Configuration, Host/Server Information, Permisisons & Ownership, Database Configuration and Database Structure.

• Displays the basic initial hosting environment audit results, including a Confidence Rating that Joomla! will run based on the results.

  

FPA Permissions Checks

The Folder Permisiosns Checks Report displays the permissions and modeset of the Joomla! Core Folders and if found, any other folders with Elevated Permisisons.

• Several of the Joomla! "Core Folders" need to be writable to allow full function of Joomla! and many Extensions. This report provides an overview of the status of these folders.

  

  If found, FPA will also list the first 10 non-core folders with Elevated Permissions. If folders require elevated permissions for Joomla! or Extensions to work, this may be inidicative or poor server configuration and may expose your site defacements or being compromised.

FPA Extension Audit

FPA produces an audit of all available Joomla! Extensions found within the site. This audit includes Components, Modules, Libraries, Plugins and Templates.

• The Extension Audit searches the Joomla! instance and displays a categorised list of all discovered extensions, whether thay are "Core Extensions" (provided with Joomla!) or are "3rd Party" (provided by external developers) and if they are Enabled or Disabled.

  

The FPA script provides a delete button in the page toolbar, once you have finished using the FPA click the Trash/Rubbish Bin Icon.

The FPA script will attempt to self-delete itself. However, this may not work in all circumstances, if you receive a message stating it was unable to delete itself, you will need to manually delete the FPA script through FTP or via your hosting control panel File Manager

From FPA v1.6.0, an Auto-Delete featured was introduced, FPA will attempt to automatically self-delete itself the next time it is opened after being on your server for 5 days. Again, if your server configuration does not allow the delete button to work, this function will also be unable to delete FPA and you will need to manually delete the FPA still.

Security Notice: The FPA script may contain private information that could be used to obtain information by others to compromise your website. We recommend that you remove the FPA script after you use it.

These functions are designed for use by Developers, Administrators and Advanced Users only. There is no need to edit, modify or change them for normal use of the Forum Post Assistant.

To enable or disable any individual function/feature, simply comment-out or un-comment the appropriate constant.