Install a Phpbb Forum

Install a Phpbb Forum Organic Design procedure

Introduction

phpBB is a popular Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of PHP Bulletin Board. Available under the GNU General Public License, phpBB is free and open source software.

Features of phpBB include support for multiple database engines (PostgreSQL, SQLite, MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server), flat message structure (as opposed to threaded), hierarchical subforums, topic split/merge/lock, user groups, multiple attachments per post, full-text search, plugins and various notification options (e-mail, Jabber instant messaging, ATOM feeds).[1]

Download

The latest version is 3.0.7, it can be downloaded as a bz2 or a zip.

Installation

Follow the Quick Install in the Installation Guide as root on your Linux server. The install page has the same instructions once you have navigated to it.

Installation details can be found in the New Installation. You need to create a database, just follow the instructions.

Post Install

Follow the Post-Install Tasks section. You need to chmod the config.php file back to 644.

You should also deny access to the cache, files and store folders. This is one way to do it, in apache2.conf, right near <Files>, add:

<Directory /path/to/cache>
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Directory>

One for each directory denied. You can also use wildcards and regular expressions, see the apache2 documentation.

The other way to deny access is individual .htaccess files in each directory - see the Apache2 access control manual.

Nginx and MS server have their own way of denying directory access.