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242 CHAPTER 8 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING PHPBB you perform WHOIS queries, pings, and traceroutes on that particular IP. This link can be useful, for example, if the IP address is of someone who is causing problems on your board, and you need to get in touch with the user s Internet service provider. Another nice feature, found in later revisions of the phpBB 2 series, is an upgrade notification, which shows you when your phpBB version is outdated (you can see this in Figure 8-6). The upgrade notification checks phpBB.com for updates every time you enter the Administration panel, so you can rest assured that it has all the latest information. This frees you from checking phpBB.com daily for major version revisions (although it s still a good idea to keep tabs on the site for interim security fixes, as they can and do happen). Caution If your version of phpBB doesn t have the upgrade check functionality in the Administration panel, chances are your installation is incredibly outdated (and is most definitely at risk for security flaws!). An upgrade is highly recommended. It s easy to be overwhelmed by the vast amount of options offered by the Administration panel. Here s a brief overview of the functionality of the Administration panel, accessed through the navigational links in the left pane. Top-Level Options The following are the first three options listed in the navigation pane of the Administration panel: Admin Index: The very first link, Admin Index, takes you back to the page that you saw when you first logged in to the Administration panel. Forum Index: This link closes the Administration panel and returns you to your main forum index page. Preview Forum: If you ve been working furiously in the Administration panel on your board and want to see what you ve done without closing the panel, click Preview Forum. Your forum index page will load in the right pane, and you will still be able to quickly access the administrative options in the left pane. Forum Administration Options The following are the links listed under Forum Admin in the navigation pane: Management: This link takes you to the Management panel, which allows you to create, reorder, and delete forums and categories. You ll use this tool a lot as you set up your forums. Permissions: Use the Permissions panel to apply the necessary posting rights to each of your forums. You can use Simple Mode, which provides a list of preset permission scenarios that reflect the most common forum configurations, or Advanced Mode, which gives you fine-grained control over who can do exactly what.
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CHAPTER 8 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING PHPBB 241 Using the phpBB Administration Panel To access the phpBB Administration panel, log in to your forums with your user account (if you aren t already logged in) and click the Go to Administration Panel link at the bottom of the page. Your screen should resemble Figure 8-6. Figure 8-6. The phpBB Administration panel in all its glory phpBB s Administration panel is laid out in a straightforward manner. The left pane contains all the navigational links for the various options for phpBB; this will remain on your screen as you work in the Administration panel. The front page of the phpBB Administration panel offers a few useful statistics on forum activity and information about the state of your board. phpBB calculates the average signups per day, average posts per day, when your board was started, and a few additional tidbits of information that can help you determine if you need to tweak your marketing or upgrade your server hardware. You ll also notice an enhanced version of the Who s Online feature. In addition to the usual statistics about who s online and where they are, you also get a look at the IP addresses of the users as they browse the forum, with a link to a network tools site that lets
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240 CHAPTER 8 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING PHPBB Figure 8-5. phpBB after logging in with an administrative account You ll notice a few differences in phpBB while you are logged in. The navigational links in the header of each phpBB page now list the number of new private messages you have, display the option to log out, and hide the Register option. Additionally, your name will show up on the online users list. The most important change you should notice, though, is the link to the Administration panel at the bottom of each page. That link is your ticket to configuring your phpBB installation to work the way you want it to work. Configuring phpBB Now that you ve installed phpBB, the time has come to make it yours by changing settings and styles of the board to personalize it, creating forums and categories to organize those forums, and setting up the rules for what you want people to be able to do. phpBB is unbelievably configurable. Here, I ll walk you through the steps common for just about every phpBB installation. In Chapters 9 and 10, I ll provide more details about configuring phpBB to suit your preferences and for improved security.
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CHAPTER 8 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING PHPBB 239 Making config.php Read-Only Another extremely important step to take immediately after installation is to remove the write permissions from config.php. With your FTP client, remove the write attribute from others and group. This way, no one other than you can overwrite your config.php file, which makes your board more secure. Logging in to phpBB After you ve finished those two tasks, click yourdomain.com Forum Index, and behold you have a working phpBB! Figure 8-4 shows the forum index page. Figure 8-4. A plain-vanilla phpBB, immediately after installation You can use the Log In form at the bottom of the forum index page to quickly log in to your account. Log in using the administrator username and password you created during the installation, and then click the Log in button. You can also set phpBB to remember your session and log you in on every visit. This utilizes cookies, so make sure you have them enabled. After you ve logged in, your screen should resemble Figure 8-5.
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238 CHAPTER 8 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING PHPBB If you see the screen with the Finish Installation button, congratulations! You re just a couple tasks away from having a fully functional phpBB setup. Go ahead and skip to the section named Performing Post-Installation Chores for what to do next. Troubleshooting Installation Perhaps when you clicked the Start Install button, you saw something very different from the display in Figure 8-2, such as Critical Error with a bunch of MySQL error messages. Here, I ll take you through a few common errors that you might encounter along the way. Access denied for user@localhost (Using password: YES): MySQL ran into a problem letting you use the database with the database username and password you specified in installation. You should examine your database username and password settings to ensure that they re correct, and make sure the username and password you supply have rights to access that particular database. Not a valid MySQL-Link Resource. . .: This is an obscure message that doesn t tell you exactly what the problem is. Check to make sure you have the correct database name entered into the form. If the database name is correct, make sure that you have the right server settings. Unable to write config.php: If phpBB tells you to download config.php because it couldn t be written, go ahead and do so. This is the installer s fallback method when the config.php file is unwritable by the server. Performing Post-Installation Chores Now that you ve successfully run the install script, you need to do a little cleaning up and securing of the board before you continue with phpBB configuration. Deleting the /install and /contrib Directories If you click Finish Installation immediately after finishing with the installer, you ll see a message like the one shown in Figure 8-3. Figure 8-3. phpBB reminding you to delete the /install and /contrib directories Why won t phpBB run after this point? Leaving the /install and /contribdirectories provides a great way for a hacker to overwrite your database settings and cause havoc. At this point, anyone can rerun the installer and hijack your board. So, it s vital that you remove these directories. Simply log in with your FTP client or with your shell, navigate to where phpBB is located, and delete the /install and /contrib directories.
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CHAPTER 8 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING PHPBB 237 Server Port: Again, phpBB s installer fills this in for you, and it s best to leave this value as is, as this port is determined automatically. Script path: Another gimme courtesy of phpBB. Again, there s really no reason to change this path. Administrator username: Enter the username you wish to identify yourself with on your board. You can use the Administration panel to change this later, if you wish. Administrator password: Enter a strong password (using a mix of numbers, letters, and symbols) for your administrator account. In the next field, confirm that password. Starting the Installation Verify that all the fields in the installation form are filled in, take a deep breath, and click Start Install. With any luck, phpBB will be installed, and you ll see a screen like the one shown in Figure 8-2. Figure 8-2. The screen every prospective phpBB administrator likes to see, indicating the installation was a success
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236 CHAPTER 8 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING PHPBB Completing the Basic Configuration Section In most cases, this part of the form defaults to the settings that you ll be using. Typically, the only field you may change is the Database Type field. Default board language: In most cases, you will leave this as English. However, if you uploaded additional languages, you can set one of those languages as the default if you wish. Database Type: Here, you tell phpBB which kind of database driver to use. If you are using MySQL, you need to check if your server still uses MySQL 3.x or if it has been upgraded to MySQL 4.x, as phpBB has a specific driver for MySQL 4. You can ask your host provider, or you can use phpMyAdmin, a popular web-based MySQL administration tool, to check the version. Choose your installation method: In most cases, you will leave this as Install. The Upgrade option is for those upgrading from phpBB 1.4.4. This chapter describes a new installation (the Install option). Completing the Database Configuration Section Here, you will need the database connection information that you collected from your host. Database Server Hostname/DSN: phpBB assumes that you will use localhost as the database server. In most configurations, this is correct; however, if the database server is hosted elsewhere, insert the name of the database server. Database Name: Enter the name of the database that you plan on using for phpBB. Database Username: Enter a username that you can use for access to the database. Database Password: Enter the password for the username that you entered on the previous line. Prefix for tables in database: Generally, you will do well to leave the default set to phpbb_. However, if you are installing an additional instance of phpBB into the database, you must use a different prefix than used by any other installations that may persist in the database; otherwise, nasty things will happen. Completing the Admin Configuration Section Here, you will set up a few final items, including information for cookies and your own personal administrator account. Admin Email Address: Enter the e-mail address that you wish to use for your phpBB account. Make sure you enter a valid address, as phpBB uses this address for several administrative purposes, including password resets, notifications of new registrations (if you set phpBB to screen all new registrations, as described in Chapter 10), and private messages sent to you. Additionally, this is the e-mail address that is appended to e-mail sent from the board. Domain Name: This will already be filled in for you. This is for cookie purposes, and in most cases, you won t have a reason to change it.
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CHAPTER 8 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING PHPBB 235 Caution Check with your hosting service to ensure that it is taking the proper precautions to protect files you make public, as this can be a security risk. Most host providers are on the ball with ensuring the security of your account, but it never hurts to ask. Now that you ve made the necessary files writable by the server, it s finally time for the easy part: running the phpBB install script. Running the Install Script The phpBB install script is located in the /install subdirectory where phpBB is installed. Get your database information from your host handy, open a web browser, and navigate to the following URL (making the appropriate substitutions for your domain name and path to phpBB): www.yourserver.com/yourphpBBpath/install/install.php When you arrive at install.php, you will be presented with the form shown in Figure 8-1. Figure 8-1. The first page of the phpBB installation script m.
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234 CHAPTER 8 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING PHPBB frequently and will grow, and database performance can suffer if you have more tables than necessary in the database. In addition to performance benefits, using a separate database is a boon to security; if a miscreant should break into your board, the damage is far more likely to be limited to just the phpBB database, rather than affecting the whole site s database, which could lead to real trouble. The method for creating a database varies from host to host. Most hosts using the cPanel control panel system have a MySQL option you can select, which permits creation of a database via a form. Ultimately, your best bet is to check with your host providers on their modus operandi for creating a database. If creating an additional database isn t an option, phpBB plays very well with existing data in the database by attaching a prefix of your choice (the default is phpbb_) to each of phpBB s tables in order to provide a distinguishing characteristic. Also, this functionality lets you run additional instances of phpBB inside the same database. Uploading phpBB to Your Server Now it s time to put the phpBB script in your web space on your server. Start the FTP client of your choice and connect to your server. Before you start uploading the files, you need to check your client s upload settings. Most modern FTP clients can automatically determine whether they are uploading plain text or binary data, and negotiate the connection as appropriate, so you do not need to bother with uploading certain file types separately from others. Check your transfer type setting, usually found in the Options dialog of your program, to make sure it s set for Auto. Next, navigate to the directory where your public web files are placed (typically called www, public_html, or htdocs), and then simply upload the entire phpBB2 folder to that location. Tip If your client can t automatically select the transfer type, you are better off trying a new FTP client. I use and heartily recommend SmartFTP, which handles this with incredible ease. You can obtain it free for personal use from http://www.smartftp.com. After uploading, you may wish to consider renaming the phpBB2folder to something a little more user-friendly, such as forums. It s not necessary, but it s a nice, professional touch forums seems to be a more logical choice to house your board than phpBB2. Making the Configuration File Writable After you ve completed the upload, make the following writable by the web server: /config.php: This file contains the configuration data for the database, and it is written only during installation. /images/avatars/uploads/: This directory does not exist by default in the phpBB installation. If you wish for users to be able to upload avatars directly to your server (explained in detail in Chapter 9), feel free to create this directory and make it writable. You can use your FTP client to make files writable. For example, in SmartFTP, right- click the file you want to make writable, select Properties, and check the Writable box under Group. Depending on your server configuration, you may also need to check the
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CHAPTER 8 INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING PHPBB 233 Obtaining phpBB phpBB is primarily obtained via download from http://www.phpbb.com, but you can also acquire it through sites such as http://www.phpbbhacks.com if you so desire. phpBB is distributed in several flavors: Full package: If this is your first time downloading phpBB, you want the full package. This package contains everything you will need to install phpBB on your server. For the installation described in this chapter, you need to download this package. Changed files only: If you are upgrading your phpBB to a new version, this package helps you migrate to the new version with the minimal files necessary. You can use this package only to upgrade an older version of phpBB. It consists of compressed files that contain the changes from every old version to the latest version, which is useful if you ve missed a round or two of updates. Upgrading is covered in Chapter 10. Patch file only: If you have shell access to your server, you may elect to use this file to upgrade your version of phpBB using the UNIX patch utility, rather than uploading multiple files. The phpBB Group offers three versions of each package, compressed with a different algorithm. Feel free to pick the file of your choice. If you are on Linux, you may want the .bzip packages. Windows users will likely wish to use the .zip files. Further down the download page, you will see that many translations of phpBB are available for just about any language you may ever want. If you wish to display your board in another language, feel free to download its corresponding language pack. You can install as many language packs as you wish, and you can install language packs at any time after initial installation. After you ve downloaded phpBB and whichever language packs you want, decompress phpBB to a folder on your hard drive. If you obtained language packs, decompress those to the /languages directory where you decompressed phpBB. Now that you have phpBB, it s time to get your server ready for installation. Caution Some Linux distributions now ship with a phpBB2 package. Resist the temptation to use it! The package may not put phpBB where you want it to be installed, could complicate adding modifications to your board, and could cause your custom work on your installation to be lost automatically when upgrading the package. Preparing Your Server Now that you have the phpBB software downloaded to your hard drive, you can upload it to your server. But first, take a moment to set up your database. Setting Up a Database for phpBB Creating a database for phpBB is a fairly trivial matter. I recommend that you use a totally . The database will be accessed
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