Tutorial: phpBB 2 forum on a home server for home users on Ubuntu

[AljoshaNL]

Hello,

I noticed some people having trouble with installing phpBB 2 on their home servers. I didn't find any good linux tutorials for this, only some Windows ones. So I decided to write my own. This is a tutorial for Ubuntu, but it should also work well with other distros.
WARNING: this tutorial does NOT provide hints for security, you can even say it's unsecure. If you care for your security or aren't a home user, don't use this tutorial or change it a way that IS secure.

Good luck and have fun!

Configuration:
Apache 2.x
PHP 4
phpBB 2.19
MySQL 4.1
Server dir: /var/www/

NOTE: phpBB 2 is optimized for php 4. It is possible to get it run on php 5, but this goes behind the scope of this tutorial

1) First, you have to install all the packages. Use the following commands on the CLI or use you GUI package manager:
sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-php4 php4-mysql mysql-server-4.1

2) Go to http://localhost and check if you get the apache test page. If not, enable your server in system>administration>services or in the commandline:
apache2ctl start

3) Now time to create the database. Get into the mysql prompt with (on the command line):
mysql -u root
Create the database with:
mysql> CREATE DATABASE phpBB2;

Set the permissions with:
mysql> GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE, DROP ON phpBB2.* TO 'namehere'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'enteryourpasswordhere';
Substitute namehere and enteryourpasswordhere with things that you want. Please note that I keep using this examples, so make sure you include the same name/password in the installation of phpBB2

This reprocesses the password, only do this in MySQL 4.1/5.0 with PHP 4.x
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'namehere'@'localhost' = OLD_PASSWORD('enteryourpasswordhere');


mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> quit;

4) The scariest part of the install is now done. Now get the latest phpBB version for their website: www.phpbb.com. Unpack it in /var/www/forum/ (in this configuration)

5) Set permissions on 777 on install.php and config.php

6) Run in your browser: localhost/forum/

7) Fill in the fields.
Basic Configuration
Default board language: English
Database Type: MySQL 4.x/5
Choose your installation method: Install

Database Configuration
Database Server Hostname / DSN: localhost
Your Database Name: phpBB2
Database Username: namehere
Database Password: enteryourpasswordhere
Prefix for tables in database: phpbb_

Admin Configuration
Script path: /forum/
Fill the rest in the way you like


8) Press install...
9) If you have problems, suggestions or corrections please post them!

Aljosha

Troubleshooting:
a) When I do apt-get it says the packages are not found
solution: go to apt-get.org, search for the package, and add the repo (warning: only on debian-based distros, like ubuntu)

[Compunuts]

I'd suggest you do a PET and put it in PET section. I don't know how to do that on OpenFree though so you might want to ask Peter for it.

I personally prefer PostNuke but that's just me.

[peter]

I'm working on the PET. Stay tuned...

[peter]

Please take a look at this link on PETs and let me know what you think.

http://www.openfree.org/forums/showthread.php?p=107098

----

I used to use phpBB on these forums and decided to move away from it. The primary reason was its email management. Once you get above about 1000 users, the administrator can't send an email to all members on the forum. phpBB puts all the addresses in the BCC field of the email, and when you reach a large number of recipients sendmail fails with an error in /var/log/maillog stating that the email header is too large.

I had to resort to using phplist, and then I started testing a homegrown PERL script to get around the problem. This made me have to consider special documentation to remind me about what to do each timeemail needed to be sent. I like to keep things simple and limit customizations to make a forum manageable.

The subforums feature of vBulletin is good because it can help limit the clutter on the forum's home page.

[AljoshaNL]

Please take a look at this link on PETs and let me know what you think.

http://www.openfree.org/forums/showthread.php?p=107098

----

I used to use phpBB on these forums and decided to move away from it. The primary reason was its email management. Once you get above about 1000 users, the administrator can't send an email to all members on the forum. phpBB puts all the addresses in the BCC field of the email, and when you reach a large number of recipients sendmail fails with an error in /var/log/maillog stating that the email header is too large.

I had to resort to using phplist, and then I started testing a homegrown PERL script to get around the problem. This made me have to consider special documentation to remind me about what to do each timeemail needed to be sent. I like to keep things simple and limit customizations to make a forum manageable.

The subforums feature of vBulletin is good because it can help limit the clutter on the forum's home page.

I don't have that problem. I made a forum for my class, so we could talk about school, provide homework help etc. We won't get more than 30 users so I don't have to worry about mass email. I, however, have another serious problem. We want to open up some forums for the entire second form, but keep some private forums. We should need 2 groups, like our class and the rest. This, as far as I know, isn't possible on phpBB. is it possible on vB?

If so, expect an vB PET

[texasmath]

I copied/pasted the commands you put (changing the obvious usernames, etc.) and still got:

An error has occurred during installation
The PHP configuration on your server doesn't support the database type that you chose

Any ideas how I can get this to work? Thanks!