Peter J. Boettcher — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 13:28:16 +0000

If you leave those ASP include files named *.inc then all the ASP code will be visable on the client side. So if you hade any confidential server-side info like passwords or database connection strings that would all be exposed. If you rename it to .asp then all that server-code will be executed before it gets passed to the client and nothing will be exposed. I would do this as soon as possible, it's a good habit to get into!

Sparklebug — Mon, 18 Feb 2002 03:58:45 +0000

Hi Peter. I contacted our site hosts re these issues and asked if the problem might be their end. They came back and said we have 'loads' of disk space and that they thought the problem was probably with the ASP code. However, the problem simply vanished at that point – without me doing a thing. So I suspect it was something their end but perhaps they didn't want to admit it! I've now managed to use the existing database and move it into the new version of the forum by adding some fields – same thing I spent days working on previously took me 10 minutes.

I've since had another error message, which I will put on a separate post as it appears to be a separate issue.

However, I'm intrigued to know what the security issues are re .inc files as opposed to .asp files. Will the files work any differently if they are changed to .asp?

Thanks for your help

Bug

Peter J. Boettcher — Thu, 07 Feb 2002 14:32:15 +0000

Bug,

It's hard to determine what the problem is exactly. While this won't fix your problem you should rename those .inc files to .asp, that is a major security risk. Just out of curiosity, how much disk space do you have.

It sounds like you're using third party software that isn't working correctly.

I don't think the problem is the Access database, but maybe the integration of it into the ASP. Something isn't right. Maybe what you should do is start fresh with the new empty forum and see if it works correctly. If it does then import your data into the new forum database.