phpBB3 Tutorial and Installation How To

This tutorial describes how to use the new phpBB3 forum software with your NEXCESS.NET web hosting account.

phpBB3 ("Olympus") is open source forum software, and is available free of charge. Version 3.0 of phpBB includes made new features, upgrades and security fixes over the widely popular phpBB2. There is a table illustrating the new features on the phpBB website here.

All NEXCESS.NET hosting accounts fully support phpBB3. This guide explains how to install and configure phpBB3 on your hosting account. You will need an FTP program to upload the software to your hosting account, and you will also need to use your SiteWorx control panel to set up the mySQL database that will be used by the phpBB software.

1. Make sure your host supports phpBB3
   If you're a NEXCESS.NET client, don't worry - all of our shared and reseller plans fully support phpBB3. If not - you can check the requirements for phpBB3 here.
2. Download the phpBB3 software
   The phpBB3 software can be downloaded for free here at no charge. Unless you're upgrading from a previous version of phpBB3, you should choose the full package.
3. Some Decompression utilities:
   

   • Power Archiver - Free trial, Windows
   • WinZip - Windows
   • WinRAR - Free trial, Windows, Max, Linux
   Extract the files from the archive, and upload them
   You probably already have software that can extract the files from the compressed archive - if not, there are many free or shareware utilities available. You should end up with a folder called "phpBB3" with a variety of php files and folders inside it. Upload these files and folders to the location on your hosting account where you want it be hosted from. For example, if you want the forum to be at http://www.yoursite.com/forums/ then create a directory called "forums" in your web root directory, and upload the files to that folder.
4. Create a database for phpBB3 to use
   phpBB3 can use a variety of different database programs to store its data - for this tutorial we'll assume you're using MySQL, since that's a very common choice and is supported on all NEXCESS.NET hosting plans. Log in to your SiteWorx control panel by going to http://www.yoursite.com/siteworx (where "yoursite.com" is your website's domain name) - then click on "Site Services," then "MySQL," then "Databases." Enter a name in the form, then click the "Add" button. Remember the name you've chosen, you'll need it later.
   
   Add a new database for phpBB3 to use
5. Create a database user
   Next, create a database user for phpBB3 to use when it connects to the database. In your SiteWorx control panel, click on "Users" and enter a username and password. Remember these - you'll need to enter them later so phpBB3 knows how to connect to the database.
6. Give the user permissions on the new database
   The new user has to be assigned permissions over the new database, so that phpBB3 will be able to create and change records in the datbase. To do this, click on "Databases" in SiteWorx. You should see your database listed under "Existing Databases" - click the "Manage Users" button next to the database you created previously. Choose the user you created before from the drop-down menu, and click "check all" to give that user all the permissions, and then click the "Add" button. You can leave the "When connecting from" field set to localhost.
   
   Add the user with the appropriate permissions
7. Install the phpBB3 software
   To install and configure phpBB3, point your browser to the folder you uploaded the files to - in the previous example that would mean going to http://www.yoursite.com/forums/. You can now work your way through the phpBB3 installation wizard by clicking on the "Install" tab in the upper left. You'll need to enter the information for the database you already created. You may also need to change permissions on some of the folders and files that phpBB3 uses - this can usually be done with your FTP software. For example, in FileZilla you can right-click on on a file or folder and choose "File Attributes" to change permissions for that file or folder.
   
   Almost done!
8. Delete the install directory
   After you're done with the installation wizard and everything is working, be sure to delete the "install" folder from the forum directory! It is a potential security risk to leave it.

Need more help? The phpBB3 install guide is a good place to start. You can also log in to my.nexcess.net and submit a ticket - and we'll help you out!

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