phpBB

By Joe Gardiner Tuesday, 2nd March 2010

You can What you will need:

All the information from you vCluster Details page and Database Settings page. This includes: access server, public IP, database server, username, database name (the same as your username), and your database password. For quick reference during the phpBB install, you may find it useful to copy these details into a text file.

The newest version of phpBB, available to download from phpbb.com.

A file extractor that is compatible with the .zip format. OSX and Windows handle this format natively.

An FTP program. You can use a program like FileZilla, or if you use Firefox web browser, there is an FTP add on available called Fire FTP. If your not sure which client to use have a look at this article.

A text editor. Notepad or Text Edit will both be fine.

A web browser. We like Firefox.

The official phpBB install guide is available here.

Getting Started

Unzip your downloaded phpBB install to a folder on your desktop. Installing phpBB is relatively simple so we're going to proceed directly to the upload stage.

Uploading

To upload phpBB files to the root directory of your vCluster follow the FTP upload guide.

To upload phpBB files to a sub-domain on your vCluster follow the vHosting guide.

Installing phpBB

Now we're now going to install phpBB using your web browser. Fire it up and navigate to phpbb.username.vc.catn.com. You will be directed to this page:

Click on the "Install" tab to begin the installation process. When you proceed to the next step, after viewing the basic system requirements, you can see a list of the installation requirements, including the databases vCluster supports. phpBB is 100% compatible with our system so you can select "Start Install" to continue.

In the next screen we will enter the database details that we copied from the Database Settings section of the CatN Control Panel.

You can leave the first field, "Database Type" on its default value, "MySQL with MySQLi extenstion".

In the "Database server hostname or DSN" field enter the name of your database server, for example, xserve1.dc.fubra.net.

Leave the next field, "Database server port" empty, as our database servers operate on standard ports.

In the "Database Name" field, enter the name you copied into the text file. (Note: this will be the same as your username and vCluster name.)

In the "Database Username" field, enter your username. Again, this will be the same as your vCluster name.

In the "Database Password" field, enter the password you copied into a text file. You can change your password in the Database Setting section of the CatN Control Panel.

In the "Prefix for tables in database" field leave the default, "phpbb_".

Select next step, if you have been successful, the phpbb install will display this message. Select proceed to next step.

In the "Administrator Settings" screen enter your username and password for the admin account, as well as the email address you wish to receive alerts to. Once you have entered this information proceed to the next step.

You will be displayed with another success screen, click to continue. The configuration file will then be written, and if successful you will be notified. Again, click to continue.

The next screen with advanced settings are dependant ont he user and their current resources. Enter your email and SMTP settings if this resource is available to you. If not, leave the default settings. In the "Server URL Settings" section, the only option you should change is the Cookie Secure option, and this, only if you have purchased an SSL certificate for your domain. If not, leave this to the default setting, "disabled".