Installing phpBB on Elementary OS

In this tutorial, we will guide you on how to install phpBB on the latest version of Elementary OS. phpBB is a free and open-source forum software that is used to create online communities. Follow the steps below to install phpBB on your Elementary OS machine.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

Step 1: Download phpBB

First, download the latest version of phpBB from their official website https://www.phpbb.com/downloads/. Once the download is complete, extract the zipped file to a directory of your choice.

Step 2: Move phpBB to Apache's document root

After you have downloaded and extracted phpBB, move the folder to Apache's document root directory. The document root directory is usually located in /var/www/html. You can use the following command to move the phpBB folder:

sudo mv phpBB3 /var/www/html

Step 3: Set permissions and ownership

Next, you need to set the correct permissions and ownership for the phpBB folder. To do this, run the following commands in the terminal:

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

Step 4: Create a MySQL database for phpBB

phpBB requires a MySQL database to store information. To create a new MySQL database, open your terminal and login to the MySQL server using the root user:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Enter your MySQL root password when prompted. Once logged in, run the following commands to create a new database and user for phpBB:

CREATE DATABASE phpbb_db;
CREATE USER 'phpbb_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON phpbb_db.* TO 'phpbb_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Make sure to replace password with a strong password of your choice.

Step 5: Install phpBB

Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost/phpBB3. You will be presented with the phpBB installation page. Follow the steps on the page to install phpBB.

When prompted for the database information, enter the following:

Database Type: MySQL with MySQLi Extension
Database Server Hostname / DSN: localhost
Database Name: phpbb_db
Database Username: phpbb_user
Database Password: password (the password you set in step 4)
Prefix for tables in database: phpbb_

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed phpBB on Elementary OS. You can now create a new username and log in to your new phpBB forum.

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