phpBB — Installing

phpBB requires a database to store and process your forum data. View the following article to create a new database in your DreamHost panel.

• Creating a MySQL database

There are two options to add the phpBB software to your site.

• FTP (easy) — You can download the software to your computer, then upload it to your site using an FTP client.
• SSH (advanced) — You can also download the software directly to your site via SSH.

Downloading via FTP

1. Visit the following page to download the phpBB software:
   • phpBB Downloads
2. On the Downloads page, you'll see several options. Click the button titled Download Latest. This downloads the file to your computer.
3. Locate the file you just downloaded. It will be titled something like phpBB-3.3.1.zip. Most often you can find it in your /downloads directory.
4. In Windows, right-click the file and choose Extract All... from the pop-up menu.
5. A new window opens. In the new window, click the Extract button. All files are extracted to a new folder titled the same as the .zip file.
6. Log into your server using an FTP client.
7. In the left pane, navigate to the directory on your computer you extracted the .zip file.
8. Click into this directory. You should see a list of files.
9. In the right pane, make sure you're in your website's directory. There should not be any files here other than a possible favicon.ico file.
10. Highlight all files in the left pane and drag them into the right pane to upload them to your site.

    This could take several minutes as there are many files to upload.

Downloading via SSH

1. Log into your server via SSH.
2. Navigate into your user's home directory.

   [server]$ cd ~

3. Visit the following page to download the phpBB software:
   • phpBB Downloads
4. On the Downloads page, you'll see several options. Right-click the button titled Download Latest. From the pop-up menu, choose Copy link address.
5. In your website directory, run the following command to download phpBB.

   Change the URL to the one you copied above.

   [server]$ wget https://download.phpbb.com/pub/release/3.3/3.3.1/phpBB-3.3.1.zip

6. This downloads the software onto your server. Run the following command to unzip the file.

   Change the zip file's name to the one you downloaded above.

   [server]$ unzip phpBB-3.3.1.zip

7. The files are extracted into a new directory titled phpBB3.
8. Navigate into this directory.

   [server]$ cd phpBB3

9. Copy all contents into your website directory. Change username to your Shell user and example.com to your website.

   [server]$ cp -r ./* /home/username/example.com

10. Check your website directory to confirm the files have been migrated.

    [server]$ ls -la /home/username/example.com

Now that the files are in your website directory, you can complete the installation.

1. Visit your website in a browser. You will see the phpBB homepage.
2. Click the Install tab, followed by the Install button to proceed.
3. The first page asks you to create an administrator login. Fill out the fields and click the Submit button.
4. Enter your database credentials on the next page, and click the Submit button.
5. Edit your site's path and URL settings if you want to make any changes, and then click the Submit button.
6. If you want to use SMTP Authentication for your site's emails, enter your email credentials here. When you are done, click Submit.

   DreamHost recommends using SMTP Authentication, which allows you to use third-party mail services and helps to prevent your messages from being incorrectly-flagged by spam filters

7. On the following page, fill out your forum's name and a short description, and then click Submit.

   This launches the phpBB installer.

8. A confirmation message displays informing you that phpBB has been installed. Click the ACP link to proceed.
9. phpBB prompts you to enable or disable statistics and monetization before you proceed. Make your choices and click Submit.

You must now remove the install directory as shown in the next step.

Before you can use phpBB you must first remove the install directory on the server. Once again, you can either choose to use an FTP client or SSH.

Removing the install directory via FTP

1. In your FTP client, navigate into your website's directory. If you previously uploaded the phpBB files, you are already in this directory.
2. Right-click the directory titled install and select Delete.
3. Delete the directory.

Removing the install directory via SSH

1. Log into your server via SSH.
2. Navigate into your website directory.

   [server]$ cd ~/example.com

3. Delete the install directory.

   [server]$ rm -rf install