===================================
  ShardStatus PHP-Nuke BLOCK & MODULE
  Written By MuadDib, based from work
    by Kinetix.
  Version: 2.2
  Date: November 7th, 2004
===================================

  1) FAQ
  2) Requirements
  3) How to Install
  4) Thanks To...

===================================
    FAQ
===================================
  Q: Why use AUX scripts?
  A: AUX scripts are a very secure way of transmitting information to 
    external applications (such as websites) without using POL's internal
    webserver, which is very risky.
  Q: What's wrong with POL's webserver?
  A: I've seen much too many shards go down due to attacks on POL's webserver,
     which is why very few people use it.
  Q: What does this script transmit?
  A: This script will send the current sysload and severity, number of online characters,
    POL's uptime and a listing of all online character names. The number and listing of
    online chars does NOT include any characters with cmdlevel.
  Q: What about spammers? Won't people use this page to attack our shard?
  A: In prevention of this, we have already added support to help stop this. The
     website will take the current "Unix" timestamp and compare it to a file's last
     modified time to see how long it has been since it last wrote this file. If this
     comparison is more than 60 seconds, it refreshes the file via POL. Otherwise, it
     takes the information from the FILE (written when pol updates) instead and uses
     that! This is not a realtime update, but updates realtime every 60 seconds of
     access. Much safer than realtime updating.
  Q: Doesn't an open port on our server increase the risk of attacks?
  A: It can yes. Using these methods of scripts, I HIGHLY recommend using some sort of
     firewall or Packet Filter software to limit IP access to any auxillary port you have
     open. For this script, you can limit the port to only be accessible from your
     website's host's ips only. The method we use for connecting the webpage to pol will
     always use the webserver's ip address instead of the client viewing the page!
  Q: Can I change the password while logged into my Admin character in pol?
  A: Yes. Using the textcommand .wwwpass <newpassword> you can change the password that
     the script uses without editing and recompiling anything!
===================================
    Requirements
===================================
  To use these scripts, you will need the following:
    A working and installed copy of PHP-Nuke
    At least a POL core version of POL091-2000-11-01, but newer is better

===================================
    How To Install
===================================
  1) Extract block-Shard_Status.php from phpnuke/blocks to your 
    %PHPNUKEDIR%/blocks directory.
  2) Extract the Shard_Status folder from phpnuke/modules to your 
    %PHPNUKEDIR%/modules directory.
  3) In your administrative panel in Nuke, add the block and enable the module.
  4) If your webserver is not running on the same computer as POL, then change "localhost" in the php
     scripts to the IP address of your server in the getdata function.
  5) Find the word "defaultpass" in the index.php file of the Shard_Status directory you extracted
     into modules area of website. Replace this with a password of your choice.
  6) Extract the folder statuspage to anywhere in your POL/pkg/ directory.
  7) Find the word "defaultpass" in the statuspage.src you extracted into POL. Change this to the
     SAME word you chose for the password in the index.php. Be sure you match the case also!
  8) Compile the POL scripts.
  9) Start up POL and try the page, it should work.

===================================
    Thanks To...
===================================
  Thanks to the NukeCops and PHP-Nuke development team for making such a great
    web portal system.
  Also thanks to the POL dev team for continually developing the best 
    Ultima Online server emulator around.
