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How to install phpBB on OpenSUSE Leap 42.3

To install phpBB on OpenSUSE Leap 42.3

phpBB is a free and open source flat-forum bulletin bulletin board application used for staying in touch with a group of people as it provides a virtual space for discussion among the members of your website. You can create a very unique forum in minutes using the extensive database of user-created modifications and data-styles database containing hundreds of data-style and image packages. Apart from this, it has a huge variety of features like flat topic structure, sub-forums, forum-specific data-styles, user groups, group-based permissions, database query and template caching, support for PHP 7, multiple database engines and much more. It is so simple to install phpBB on OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 and this tutorial covers the ground on the same process.

Pre-requirements
LAMP Stack
Apache
Mariadb
Php7

Install php by
zypper install php php-mysql php-pecl-zip php-xml php-mbstring php-gd

Installing phpBB

Before you begin with the installation of phpBB you should install its installation package from its official site. You can execute this action by making use of the wget command as follows. 

linuxhelp:~ # wget https://www.phpbb.com/files/release/phpBB-3.2.1.zip
--2017-11-13 12:06:48--  https://www.phpbb.com/files/release/phpBB-3.2.1.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: 7767156 (7.4M) [application/zip]
Saving to: ‘ phpBB-3.2.1.zip’ 

100%[===================================================================================================> ] 7,767,156    725KB/s   in 12s    

2017-11-13 12:07:01 (626 KB/s) - ‘ phpBB-3.2.1.zip’  saved [7767156/7767156]

Once it is downloaded, you shall extract the package in the Apache document root.

linuxhelp:~ # unzip phpBB-3.2.1.zip -d /srv/www/htdocs/
Archive:  phpBB-3.2.1.zip
   creating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/
   creating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/language/
   creating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/language/en/
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/language/en/viewforum.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/language/en/memberlist.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/language/en/install.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/language/en/posting.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/language/en/captcha_recaptcha.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/language/en/viewtopic.php  
   creating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/language/en/help/
.
.
.
extracting: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/images/upload_icons/mpg.gif  
 extracting: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/images/upload_icons/mov.gif  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/images/upload_icons/rar.gif  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/images/upload_icons/flash.gif  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/images/upload_icons/zip.gif  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/images/upload_icons/mid.gif  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/images/index.htm  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/images/spacer.gif

Once it is done, you shall move to your Apache document root by running the following command.

linuxhelp:~ # cd /srv/www/htdocs/
linuxhelp:/srv/www/htdocs #ls -l
total 16
drwxrwxrwx  2 wwwrun www  4096 Oct  9 23:15 gif
-rwxrwxrwx  1 wwwrun www  2356 Mar 18  2017 info2html.css
drwxr-xr-x 19 root   root 4096 Jul 16 23:47 phpBB3

And then provide the owner and file execution permissions by making use of the following command.

linuxhelp:/srv/www/htdocs #chown -R wwwrun:www /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/
linuxhelp:/srv/www/htdocs #chmod -R 775 /srv/www/htdocs/phpBB3/

Once it is done, you shouldn' t forget to configure the .conf file for your phpBB. So, open the .conf file by running the following command.

linuxhelp:/srv/www/htdocs #vim /etc/apache2/conf.d/phpbb.conf

And make the following modifications to it. Once it is done, save and exit the file.

< VirtualHost *:80> 
DocumentRoot " /srv/www/htdocs" 
ServerName www.linuxhelp1.com
< Directory " /srv/www/htdocs/" > 
DirectoryIndex index.php
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
< /Directory> 
< /VirtualHost>

After that, restart your Apache service by running the following command.

linuxhelp:/srv/www/htdocs #systemctl restart apache

We shall now continue the process via GUI, so lets switch to your browser and type http://yourdomain, the installation page of phpBB appears on your screen. Proceed with the installation process.

In the installation page, give all the necessary information in the Administrator configuration section, and click on the Submit button.

And then, make all the necessary database configuration by giving all the details in the appropriate fields and proceed further by clicking on the Submit button.

Once it is done, you should also configure the server, and for that, you need to give all the essential information in the related fields and carry on with the next step.

Once you have set the Bulletin board configuration, you shall click the Submit button, which finalizes the installation process.

The installation process has been completed. You can check the phpBB now.

In the Forums menu, you shall check all the available options under it.


With this the installation of phpBB comes to an end.

Tag : OpenSUSE - Leap phpBB
FAQ
Q
I just cannot get gallery avatars to appear.what can I do ?
A
phpBB categorises gallery avatars and it does this by reading through folders contained in the location you specified as being the gallery path. For example, if you set the gallery path to im
Q
My users are complaining that emails are not in their selected language!
A
You must have deleted a language pack or the language pack is incomplete. phpBB will try to send emails in the users selected language. If it cannot find a suitable email template it will switch to the boards default language.
Q
Hi, i can't install phpmyadmin on my system, it seem's no package available on centos . What can I do ?
A
Please install the EPEL repository before you try to install phpmyadmin, use the below command if the epel repo is not installed yum install epel-release -y
Q
My users are complaining about being logged out too quickly?
A
You can increase the default length of sessions (ie. how long before a users session is considered 'dead') in Admin->General->Server Configuration->Load Settings. Set it to whatever value your users feel comfortable with, remember that security issues may affect your decision
Q
I keep getting Mail sending errors when I (or my users) post/send PM's/etc?
A
This error will occur if phpBB cannot send mail. phpBB can send email two ways; using the PHP mail() function or directly via SMTP. Some hosting providers limit the mail() function to prevent its use in spamming, others may rename it or limit its functionality. If the mail() function got renamed, you are able to enter the correct name within the administration control panel. In either case you may need to make use of SMTP.