Simple Machines Forum (SMF) is an open-source, feature-rich software product that provides a platform for building online communities. Installing SMF on POP! OS Latest is a straightforward process and can be done in a few simple steps.
Before proceeding with SMF installation, ensure that your system has the following prerequisites:
The first step involves downloading the latest version of SMF from the official website https://www.simplemachines.org/ to your computer.
wget https://custom.simplemachines.org/download/?smf_2-1_x_install.tar.gz -O SMF.tar.gz
The next step involves extracting the downloaded SMF archive file.
tar -xzf SMF.tar.gz
Now, move the extracted SMF folder to the desired location in the website's root directory. In this tutorial, we will move SMF to the "/var/www/html" directory.
sudo mv SMF/ /var/www/html/
We need to set appropriate ownership and permissions for SMF files and directories.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/SMF
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/SMF
We need to create a MySQL/MariaDB database and user for SMF.
sudo mysql -u root -p
Enter your MySQL/MariaDB root password and then execute the following commands:
CREATE DATABASE smf_db;
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON smf_db.* TO 'smf_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;
Replace "smf_db", "smf_user", and "password" with your desired values.
Open your web browser and navigate to the SMF installation page, i.e., http://localhost/SMF/. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Simple Machines Forum on POP! OS Latest. You can now create forums, topics, and other community-related activities. For more information, visit https://www.simplemachines.org/.
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