Simple Machines Forum is a free software used to create online communities. It offers various features such as topic moderation, user management, and messaging, among others. In this tutorial, you will learn how to install Simple Machines Forum on Linux Mint Latest.
Before we go ahead and install Simple Machines Forum, the following are the prerequisites:
You can download the latest version of Simple Machines Forum from their official website. After that, navigate to the location where you have downloaded the file, and extract it:
tar -xzf smf_*.tar.gz
Before we proceed with the installation of Simple Machines Forum, we need to create a database that Simple Machines Forum will use. Login to your MySQL or MariaDB database server and execute the following command:
mysql -u root -p
Enter your MySQL or MariaDB root password when prompted. Then, create a new database for Simple Machines Forum:
CREATE DATABASE smfdb;
The above command will create a new database named "smfdb." You can use any name you want.
Next, create a new user account and grant it permission to access the database:
GRANT ALL ON smfdb.* TO 'smfuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
In this command, "smfuser" is the username, "password" is the user's password, and "localhost" is the server hostname.
If you have not installed a web server on your Linux Mint system, you need to install it first. To check if the Apache webserver is installed, execute:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install apache2
After installing the Apache webserver, create a new virtual host for your Simple Machines Forum site.
First, create the file:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/smf.conf
Add the following content to the file:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName your-domain.com
ServerAlias www.your-domain.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/smf
<Directory /var/www/smf>
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/smf_error.log
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/smf_custom.log combined
</VirtualHost>
In this configuration file, replace "your-domain.com" with your domain name or IP address.
Save and exit the file.
Disable the default Apache virtual host:
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
Enable the new Simple Machines Forum virtual host:
sudo a2ensite smf.conf
Then restart the Apache webserver:
sudo systemctl restart apache2
Now that we have created the database and configured Apache, we can proceed with the Simple Machines Forum installation.
Navigate to the Simple Machines Forum directory:
cd smf
Copy the configuration file:
cp Settings.php.dist Settings.php
Edit the configuration file:
nano Settings.php
Find the database settings, and update the following options:
$db_type = 'mysql';
$db_server = 'localhost';
$db_name = 'smfdb';
$db_user = 'smfuser';
$db_passwd = 'password';
Replace the "smfuser" and "password" with the MySQL or MariaDB database user and password you created previously.
Save and exit the file.
Change the ownership of the Simple Machines Forum directory to the Apache webserver user:
sudo chown -R www-data: /var/www/smf
Now you can open the Simple Machines Forum installation wizard in your web browser. Navigate to http://your-domain.com/install.php or http://your-server-IP/install.php, depending on how you configured your Apache virtual host.
Follow the installation wizard's instructions, and when the installation is complete, remove the "install.php" file:
sudo rm /var/www/smf/install.php
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Simple Machines Forum on your Linux Mint system. You can now log in to your new online community platform and start building it.
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!
Alternatively, for the best virtual desktop, try Shells!
