phpBB :: Knowledge base - Viewing article Step by Step Installation Instructions

Hello all, due to the massive amounts of requests for "somebody please install this for me" I have written step-by-step instructions which should cover a "standard" install. (Does not cover other databases, etc). I'm assuming that you are coming from a windows based system and uploading to a generic webserver, and that you aren't upgrading.

Server Assumptions:

You have a running web service provider
Your web host is running the mysql version 3.x database
Your web host is running PHP 4
Your web host has given you a database to use, along with the username, password, and server address (if different from the webserver)
Your web host has given you ftp access, and you know which directory is the base directory for your web pages.

These instructions only apply if you meet the above requirements. If you don't know any of the above information, none of the people on these forums can help you...you must contact your web hosting provider for details.

Here are the steps:

Download the latest version of phpBB2. Currently it can be found at http://www.phpbb.com/downloads.php. I prefer the .tar.gz files, and winzip has no problems dealing with them.
Decompress the files to a directory on your local system, making sure that you maintain the relationship between directories. I'll suggest that you decompress them to c:\webupload
Now, within C:\webupload, you should have a phpBB2 directory, full of goodies. Open up your FTP client, and connect to where your web host tells you to go for uploading your web pages. Make sure that you are in the base directory for your web pages (there's a good chance this will be either htdocs or httpdocs). Tell your FTP client to upload (set the mode to auto or ASCII) the entire contents of c:\webupload\phpBB2. If all went right, on the webserver you should see a directory named phpBB2, containing all the stuff you unzipped on your windows computer.
Connect your web browser to http://yourfullhostlocation/phpBB2/index.php. You should see a screen asking for a bunch of configuration options. Leave the first 3 options alone (i.e. English, MySQL 3.x, Install). For the next four options, you will need the information your host has given you. The first of the four asks for the location of the database server. You will probably enter "localhost" (no quotes) unless you know for sure that your database is hosted on another server. Your database must have been created in advance by your web host, and you will enter the name in the second line. The username and password should have been given to you by your host, but I'll bet they probably will be the same as your web FTP username and password. For simplicity, leave the "Prefix for tables in database" as phpbb_

On the next three options, you must create an administrator account. This is the person who has total control over the board, and is needed to do the initial set up.
Most likely it will tell you that it can't write the config file. Select the option to "send the file to me." Your web browser will download this file automatically. Have it download it to c:\webupload
Reconnect to the web server using your FTP client. This time, go into your phpBB2 directory on the webserver, and have your FTP client upload c:\webupload\config.php there.
Using your web browser, connect to http://yourfullhostlocation/phpBB2/index.php again. You should now see the board, along with a test forum already set up. Now log in as the administrator username you created during the install, and go to the administration panel. You should be all set now to finish configuring your board!

If you receive errors along the way, then come back here and do a search. There is a good chance you aren't the only one with the error!

If you see something like "can't connect to database" then you have entered your configuration information incorrectly, or your web host didn't meet the assumptions made above. In this case there is very little we can do to help you. Installation procedures for other databases/systems is very similar but I chose the above assumptions since they are pretty common choices. I know there are probably different ways of doing the setup of the board, but I made these decisions based on my experience and for simplicity of installing.