How to install phpBB on Alpine Linux

phpBB is a popular open-source forum software that can be installed on Linux. In this tutorial, we will explain how to install phpBB on Alpine Linux.

Prerequisites

Before starting the installation, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

To ensure that you have the latest packages and dependencies, update the package repository with the following command:

sudo apk update

phpBB runs on Apache web server, therefore, we need to install the Apache web server on Alpine Linux using the following command:

sudo apk add apache2

phpBB is programmed in PHP and requires PHP modules to run. We can install PHP and other required modules by running the following command:

sudo apk add php7-apache2 php7-json php7-curl php7-mbstring php7-pdo php7-pdo_mysql php7-openssl

Now that we have installed Apache and PHP, we can download the latest version of phpBB from their official website using the following command:

sudo wget https://download.phpbb.com/pub/release/3.3/3.3.4/phpBB-3.3.4.tar.bz2

Once downloaded, extract the archive file using the following command:

sudo tar -xvjf phpBB-3.3.4.tar.bz2 -C /var/www/html/

To allow Apache to access the phpBB files, we need to set the correct permissions:

sudo chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/phpBB3/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/phpBB3/

phpBB uses a MySQL database to store its data. We need to create a new MySQL database and user for the phpBB installation:

sudo mysql -u root -p

After entering the MySQL prompt, create a new database by running the following command:

CREATE DATABASE phpbbdb;

Create a new user for the created database using the following command:

CREATE USER 'phpbbuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

Provide necessary privileges to your newly created user by running the following command:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON phpbbdb.* TO 'phpbbuser'@'localhost';

Now, open a web browser and enter the following URL in the address bar:

http://your.server.ip/phpBB3/install/app.php

Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation of phpBB.

In this tutorial, we have explained how to install phpBB on Alpine Linux. We hope this tutorial has been helpful for you.

If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!