How to install PhpBB 3.2.2 on Ubuntu 18.04

To install PhpBB 3.2.2 on Ubuntu 18.04

phpBB is an open source bulletin board forum software that provides a virtual space for discussion among the members of your website. It has a huge variety of features like flat topic structure, sub-forums, forum-specific styles, user groups, group-based permissions, database query and template caching, support for PHP 7, multiple database engines and much more.

Prerequisites

To install LAMP(Apache, MariaDB, php7)

In MariaDB (create database and user and give privileges to that user)

Php installation with required following modules

add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
apt-get update
apt-get install php7.0 php7.0-mysql php7.0-curl php7.0-json php7.0-cgi libapache2-mod-php7.0 php7.0-mcrypt php7.0-xmlrpc php7.0-gd php7.0-mbstring php7.0  php7.0-common  php7.0-xmlrpc php7.0-soap 
  php7.0-xml php7.0-intl  php7.0-cli  php7.0-ldap php7.0-zip php7.0-readline php7.0-imap php7.0-tidy php7.0-recode php7.0-sq php7.0-intl

Download a PhpBB package from the terminal using wget command

root@linuxhelp1:~# wget https://www.phpbb.com/files/release/phpBB-3.2.2.zip
--2018-06-13 23:40:11--  https://www.phpbb.com/files/release/phpBB-3.2.2.zip
Resolving www.phpbb.com (www.phpbb.com)... 140.211.15.244
Connecting to www.phpbb.com (www.phpbb.com)|140.211.15.244|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 7934361 (7.6M) [application/zip]
Saving to: ‘ phpBB-3.2.2.zip’ 

phpBB-3.2.2.zip         100%[==============================> ]   7.57M  1.05MB/s    in 8.4s   

2018-06-13 23:40:21 (921 KB/s) - ‘ phpBB-3.2.2.zip’  saved [7934361/7934361]

The download package is a zip file, so we need to unzip the package as follows

root@linuxhelp1:~# unzip phpBB-3.2.2.zip
Archive:  phpBB-3.2.2.zip
   creating: phpBB3/
   creating: phpBB3/language/
   creating: phpBB3/language/en/
  inflating: phpBB3/language/en/viewforum.php 

  infating: phpBB3/language/en/memberlist.php
.
.
extracting: phpBB3/images/upload_icons/mov.gif 
  inflating: phpBB3/images/upload_icons/rar.gif 
  inflating: phpBB3/images/upload_icons/flash.gif 
  inflating: phpBB3/images/upload_icons/zip.gif 
  inflating: phpBB3/images/upload_icons/mid.gif 
  inflating: phpBB3/images/index.htm 
  inflating: phpBB3/images/spacer.gif

Move the extracted file into the HTML location

root@linuxhelp1:~# mv phpBB3 /var/www/

And then switch to the following directory

root@linuxhelp1:~# cd /var/www/

Change the ownership and permission of the file as follows

root@linuxhelp1:/var/www# chown -R www-data.www-data phpBB3
root@linuxhelp1:/var/www# chmod -R 775 phpBB3

Create a new virtual host configuration for accessing the PhpBB

root@linuxhelp1:/var/www# vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/phpbb.conf
< VirtualHost *:80> 
ServerName www.linuxhelp1.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/phpBB3/

< Directory /var/www/phpBB3/> 
AllowOverride All
allow from all
< /Directory> 

< /VirtualHost> 

Enable the site access

root@linuxhelp1:/var/www# a2ensite phpbb.conf
Enabling site phpbb.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
  systemctl reload apache2

Disable the default site access

root@linuxhelp1:/var/www# a2dissite 000-default.conf
Site 000-default disabled.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
  systemctl reload apache2

Enable the rewrite module

root@linuxhelp1:/var/www# a2enmod rewrite
Enabling module rewrite.
To activate the new configuration, you need to run:
  systemctl restart apache2

Restart the apache2 service

root@linuxhelp1:/var/www# systemctl restart apache2

Now you can proceed the further installation and configuration from the browser by navigating to the following URL of http://local IP (or) domain name

Now, you shall open the browser, and give http://phpbb.com/install as URL. The installation setup of phpBB appears on your screen. Proceed with the installation.

In the next page, you need to fill the admin detail and click Submit.

In the next page, you need to fill database details and click Submit.

Next, you should fill server configuration details and click Submit.

After that, you need to fill the email-configuration details and click Submit.

on the below following page, you need to give the site details and click Submit.

phpBB is getting installed now.

The installation is now complete, Click on ‘ Take me to ACP.’

The admin page of the phpBB now appears on the screen.

with this, the method to install PhpBB 3.2.2 on Ubuntu 18.04 comes to an end.