PhpBB FAQ - How to install a PhpBB Forum
What are the minimum requirements to install PhpBB? How do I install or update a PhpBB Forum?
Chapter 1: The minimum requirements
Chapter 2: How to install PhpBB
Chapter 3: Updating PhpBB
Chapter 1: The minimum requirements
The minimum requirements to install WordPress are really basic so almost every hosting should fulfill them. Here they are: a hosting account with PHP 4.3 (or greater) support and a MySQL Database version 4.0 (or greater).
If you don’t have a hosting yet or your hosting doesn’t fit the minimum requirements have a look at the Hosting and FTP applications FAQ.
Chapter 2: How to install PhpBB
Installing a PhpBB Forum is fairly easy.
Visit phpbb.com and download the latest version of the forum
Unzip the file and you will find a folder named “phpbb”.
Now you need to decide whether you want your URL to look like
yourdomain.com
or
yourdomain.com/NameOfTheFolder/
If you want it to look like the first one you need to upload only the content of the “phpbb” folder. Otherwise, if you want it to look like the second one, rename the “phpbb” folder to whatever you want and upload the whole folder (recommended).
I usually rename it to "forum" so I get
yourdomain.com/forum/ as the URL of it.
Upload the folder to the root of your server.
If you don’t know how to upload the files to your server visit the Hosting and FTP applications FAQ and read how an FTP application works.
Visit its web address to start the installation.
At first you get to this page
Click on install and you will be shown the requirements of the installation
Hit "Proceed to next step" to continue
You will see an installation compatibility test. If ok you will see "Start install" at the bottom of it, otherwise you see "Test again" in this case see what needs to be done to fulfill the requirements. Make the changes yourself or contact your hosting through its support.
If you use HostExcellence remember to set
mbstring.http_input = pass
mbstring.http_output = pass
as described on the page on Using HostExcellence.
Hit Start install and compile the needed informations
Hit "Proceed to next step"
PhpBB will test the connection and hopefully tell you that it's been successful
If so hit again "Proceed to next step"
Enter the administration username you want and the password and an e-mail address
Hit once again Proceed to next step
PhpBB will test the administrator details and hopefully tell you that they're ok
Proceed to next step
The configuration file will be written
Go on and you will find a window with E-mail settings and Server URL settings. I usually leave it as-is.
Continue and PhpBB will be installed
Proceed to next step to finish the installation
And now you're almost done. You will see a page with "Congratulations". Yes you made it! But there's one more thing...
There's one more thing at the end of the page which gets often overseen and causes the forum to not-work
You need to go to your FTP application and open your forum's folder.
There you will see an "install" folder
Select the folder and delete it.
Now you can login to your forum by hitting "Login"
Proceed to Setting up your forum
Updating PhpBB
To update or upgrade your PhpBB Forum login to your administration area and go to System.
Note: If you want to install a PhpBB Forum on HostExcellence before you start click here to download a file called php.ini. Once you downloaded the php.ini file upload it into the “cgi-bin” folder you find when you connect to your account through your FTP client.
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