Hi all! I'm not really sure where to post this, so it sort of falls here as the least-disruptive option. It's not important news by any means, but I figure it might be interesting to see what I've been doing with regards to mlpforums.
2017-10-03: Set up a basic ubuntu VM in virtualbox. Downloaded ipboard (our forum software) from our Github, but couldn't get it running. With Feld0's help, however, I did manage to get the official, vanilla download sort-of running. (ipboard's documentation is really sparse.)
2017-10-07: Installed all the things. Configured nginx, installed mysql and some php extensions. Got the forum 'can it be installed' checker to come up green after some misunderstandings. It seems to want /var/www/html chmod'd to 777, but I gave it 664, which is slightly more secure, and ipboard accepted it.
At this point, I realize I should have installed mariadb instead of mysql. It's too late however - after half an hour and gratuitous use of virtualbox's snapshot ability, I determine I can't uninstall mysql enough to install mariadb.
2017-10-11: Some configuration later, and I finally have a running copy of ipboard! Taking a chance, I unzipped the git copy of the forums overtop of it, and it Seems To Work™. Pushing my luck, I install a few extensions for the forum as well, and everything continues to work just fine. Spooky.
2017-10-18: Today, I started looking at installing the iAwards "application" for us. It seemed to be go fine in testing, after I upped my VM's Nginx's HTTP "POST" size limit. I also installed a few other applications, and upgraded my VM's version of IPS Communit Suite. (Which I think is ipboard? I'm not sure.) I'll hopefully have time to finish that up this weekend.
Anyway, that's it for now! I hope to post updates here as things get on. Nothing important, just the day-to-day maintenance and sysadminnery that I'm doing behind the scenes. Please, comment, let me know if there's a better way to do what I'm doing, and – thanks for reading!