Howto install phpBB Forum on Ubuntu

Following is a guide on howto install phpBB forum on freshly installed Ubuntu.
PhpBB is a web forum application which runs on apache, mysql and php. With it, you can host your own forum site.
Example of such forum is http://u-dear.com/forum

In this tutorial I use the hostname linux with the IP address 192.168.2.9
These settings might differ for you, so you have to replace them where appropriate.
You need the following components for the phpBB forum.

Pre-Requisite for phpBB3 Forum:

1) Mysql
2) Apache
3) Php

After configuring your networking interface, Install the above mentioned components step by step. I’m running all the steps in this tutorial with root privileges, so make sure you’re logged in as root:

1. Installing MYSQL

apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

You will be asked to provide a password for the MySQL root user – this password is valid for the user root@localhost

2. Installing APACHE2

Apache2 is available as an Ubuntu package, therefore we can install it like this:

apt-get install apache2

Now point your browser to http://192.168.2.9 and you should see the Apache2 placeholder page (It works!):

3. Installing PHP

We can install PHP5 and the Apache PHP5 module as follows:

apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5

Now restart apache by following command

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Install Phpbb3

apt-get install phpbb3

The installation of that package will also install the phpbb3 package and perform all the database configuration for you. You will be prompted for the mysql root user password (not the same as the root user, but the mysql’s user named root)

Run this command to make the forum accessible through the web server

ln -s /usr/share/phpbb3/www /var/www/phpbb

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now point your browser to http://192.168.2.9/phpbb

The PHPBB3 webpage should display that the forum is disabled.

Click Log in.

Use the default username and password:

username = admin
password = admin

Click on the small link at the bottom of the page – Administration Control Panel

• Select the Board Settings link which is located under the sub heading Board Configuration on the left hand side of the page.
• Set the option Disable Forum to No and click Submit at the bottom of the page.

Note: Also, Don’t forget to change the admin password as well.

Now you FORUM is ready, Enjoy !

Just create New categories and add appropriate permissions.  (Give users at least read+write permission for the forum)