PhpBB is a free open source forum script and has tons of features to make it one of the most complete open source forum script out there. And best of all, it is pretty easy to setup. Anyway, nowadays a lot of such scripts are pretty easy to setup. You can get your forum up and running in under 20 minutes. If you don’t need the power and the flexibility of vBulletin, then PhpBB is your best choice (plus it is free). And with the launch of PhpBB3, the latest version offers web administrators and webmasters a whole lot of new options and features like new profile option, antispam technology, powerful PM options and many many more.For a more detailed feature comparison, please take a look at the PhpBB website.

This guide is meant for anyone who wants to setup PhpBB3 as their forum script. It is a very basic step by step guide on how to setup your forum script. It doesn’t include details on configuration of the script. Below are the requirements:

1. Basic knowledge of FTP, MySQL setup and general web server configurations
2. Web host or a web server (Standard PHP Support)
3. Understand basic Windows commands

First of all, you have to download the PhpBB3 from PhpBB website. You can do it here. After you have downloaded the file, you will need to extract it as it is zipped.

I am using IZArc to unzip the files. You can use any other software to unzip your files like WinZip or UltimateZip. All of them work fine and the steps to unzip the files should be pretty straightforward. You should extract them to a place where you can remember.

As you can see above, I have extract the files to my desktop so that I can easily access them when I need. You will need to upload these files (the unzipped files) to your webserver using a FTP sofware. Some webhost have their own uploading script which requires you to login to their website and then upload the files from there. Please do the necessary changes needed. However, most webhost supports FTP access to their server so you should be use FTP as it is more stable and gives you more options.

As you can see, I am using Filezilla as my FTP Client (software). This is a very stable and good performing FTP Client and I would highly recommend it to you. However, if you are using other software to upload the files, please do the necessary changes. Other FTP Clients include CuteFTP, SmartFTP and CoreFTP. Their functionality and features are basically the same.

The next step is to upload the files which you have previously extracted to your webserver/account. So after you have connected to your webserver using your FTP Client, upload the files to your server. Ensure that all the files are uploaded. Do note that you should upload the files inside the PhpBB3 folder and not the phpBB3 folder itself, unless you are looking to set it up in a subdirectory named phpBB3.

There you have it, all uploaded.

The next step would be web based so you need a browser for it to work. Internet Explorer is fine. Mozilla Firefox works too. What you need to do is to browse to the website you have just uploaded the files to. So for example, your website address is “http://www.somewebsite.com”, you will key that into your address bar. However, if your files are located in a subdirectory, let’s say in the phpBB3 subdirectory, you will need to type “http://www.somewebsite.com/phpBB3/” in your address bar instead.

PhpBB script will detect that the configuration of your forum has not been done and you will be directed to this page instead. Here you can follow the step by step wizard to setup your very first PhpBB based web forum! Your next step will be to click on the Install tab located at the top left of the webpage.

Before you proceed, you will have to setup your database. This would normally require you to login to your webhost’s control panel and setup the MySQL database. You will be given a database name, database user and password. Please ask your web host for help if you don’t know how to do that. If you are using Cpanel, please refer to this site for a tutorial on how to setup a MySQL database. If you have already done that, well, the only thing you can do is to click on Proceed to next step at the bottom.

From this page, you will see that you are having some problems with the installation. Some files and directories are not writable and this will cause problems with your installation. You will need to remedy that. However, this would require you to use your FTP Client to give write access. The folders you need to change attributes are the cache folder, the files folder, the store folder and the image/avatars/upload folder. You will also need to give write access to the file config.php.

So,  lets go back to the FTP Client and do the necessary changes. As from the picture above, you will need to right click on the folder you want to change the attribute and choose File attributes. Oh, you do the changes on the files which have already been uploaded to the server and NOT on the files located on your PC.

There, ensure that the Write permission is ticked. After you have done all the changes to all the folders and files mentioned above, you will return back to your browser and click on “Test Again” at the bottom of the webpage.

Hoorray, we have done it. Everything is now writable and you can “Start Install”! So, go ahead and start installing.

Now, it’s time to setup your database configuration. Key in the information as indicated. For the database server host, it should very likely be “localhost” as most webhost keeps their database server on the same machine. However, if you have problems accessing your database,  please check with your webhost for the correct settings. For the database server port, you should leave it blank unless you are instructed by your webhost otherwise. For the prefix, you can change to whatever you want, but I would recommend you to left it as it is unless you have another table on the same database with the same prefix. After you have keyed in all the necessary information, click on Proceed to next step.

Done. Your database settings are all done. Click on Proceed to next step to setup your administrator configurations.

This step is simple, just key in the administrator (that means you!) username, password and contact email address. Please write down the username and password so that you won’t forget it. Would be a waste if you do as you will have to do it all over again. After you have keyed in all the information, click on Proceed to next step.

Woohooo! We are almost there. Your only option is to click on Proceed to next step.

Once everything is setup properly, you will be greeted by a page like this. This is where you configure your forum. There are tons of options for you to edit and change to your heart’s content. I will not cover them in this tutorial as the options are just mind boogling. And it would be more fun for you to test them out yourself. However, most of the options are pretty simple and you should not have any problem understanding what they mean.

Anyway, if you look carefully, there is a red coloured remark at the top of the page. It is telling you that the install folder is still on the webserver. You will need to delete it from the webserver for security reasons. So what you need is the FTP Client again.

You will need to delete off the install folder. So right click on the folder and choose delete. You can of course rename the folder or move it somewhere else. But why bother? You are not likely to use it again. And in the rare event that you need the install folder, you can always upload it to the server again. This is actually a very important step as hackers can make use of the files in the install folder to do nasty things to your site.

Anyway, there you have it. You have setup your very first PhpBB based web forum. Do not be afraid to experiment with the settings. And you will later need to change the forum to suit yourself, so you will have to change the themes or even create one yourself. I wish you the best of luck on your newly setup forum and will “many many” visitors frequent your forum. But don’t forget about me.