How to install Simple Machines Forum on OpenSUSE Leap 42.3

To install Simple Machines Forum on OpenSUSE Leap 42.3

Simple Machines Forum, also known as SMF, is a free, open source and popular professional grade forum platform, and it is widely used for setting up an online forum. SMF is built based on PHP and uses a MySQL/MariaDB for database storage. It provides many features and it is user-friendly. One of the most notable features of SMF is its powerful Package Manager which allows you to quickly modify its database, and it also lets you to change from a variety of custom themes so that you can change the way your site looks. In this article we will see the installation of Simple machine forum on OpenSUSE Leap 42.3.

Pre-requirements

LAMP stack
Apache Webserver
Mariadb (Create database, user protected with password)
Php7

PHP Modules
zypper in php php-mysql php-gd php-mbstring php-common

Installing Simple Machines Forum

To start with the installation, you require the latest and stable installation package of SMF. So, get the download link from its official website and use it along with the wget command in the following manner.

 linuxhelp:~ # wget https://download.simplemachines.org/index.php/smf_2-0-15_install.zip
--2017-11-29 10:32:44--  https://download.simplemachines.org/index.php/smf_2-0-15_install.zip
Resolving download.simplemachines.org (download.simplemachines.org)... 66.71.247.134, 66.71.247.135
Connecting to download.simplemachines.org (download.simplemachines.org)|66.71.247.134|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Syntax error in Set-Cookie:  at position 0.
Length: unspecified [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘ smf_2-0-15_install.zip’ 

    [                < =>                                                                      ] 2,696,111    605KB/s   in 4.4s   

2017-11-29 10:32:50 (605 KB/s) - ‘ smf_2-0-15_install.zip’  saved [2696111]

After downloading it in zip format, you need to provide an executable permission for it by running the following command.

linuxhelp:~ # chmod +x smf_2-0-15_install.zip

Later, you need to extract the zip package in Apache document root location. Run the following command in the following manner.

linuxhelp:~ # unzip smf_2-0-15_install.zip -d /srv/www/htdocs/
Archive:  smf_2-0-15_install.zip
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/proxy.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/SSI.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/subscriptions.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/index.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/Themes/index.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/Themes/default/Stats.template.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/Themes/default/ManageScheduledTasks.template.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/Themes/default/Notify.template.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/Themes/default/Themes.template.php  
.
.
.
inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/ssi_examples.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/ssi_examples.shtml  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/Settings.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/Settings_bak.php  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/install_2-0_postgresql.sql  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/install_2-0_mysql.sql  
  inflating: /srv/www/htdocs/install_2-0_sqlite.sql  

Then, move inside the Apache document root location and list it using list command to view and see the extracted files and folders.

linuxhelp:~ # cd /srv/www/htdocs/
linuxhelp:/srv/www/htdocs # ls -l
total 640
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root  74435 Nov 20 04:23 SSI.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root   2863 Jun  5  2011 Settings.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root   1962 Jun  5  2011 Settings_bak.php
drwxr-xr-x 5 root   root   4096 Nov 29 10:33 Smileys
drwxr-xr-x 2 root   root   4096 Nov 29 10:33 Sources
drwxr-xr-x 4 root   root   4096 Nov 29 10:33 Themes
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root   3355 Sep 24  2010 agreement.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 root   root   4096 Nov 29 10:33 attachments
drwxr-xr-x 4 root   root   4096 Nov 29 10:33 avatars
drwxr-xr-x 2 root   root   4096 Nov 29 10:33 cache
drwxrwxrwx 2 wwwrun www    4096 Oct  9 23:15 gif
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root  14612 Nov 20 04:03 index.php
-rwxrwxrwx 1 wwwrun www    2356 Mar 18  2017 info2html.css
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root  90893 Nov 20 10:26 install.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root  64540 Jan  5  2017 install_2-0_mysql.sql
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root 131956 Jan  5  2017 install_2-0_postgresql.sql
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root 122074 Jan  5  2017 install_2-0_sqlite.sql
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root   1490 Jun  5  2011 license.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root   2569 Jan 21  2013 news_readme.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root   5049 Jun 21 10:13 proxy.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root  22204 Jun  9  2011 readme.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root  28560 Jun  6  2011 ssi_examples.php
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root   6070 Oct 25  2010 ssi_examples.shtml
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   root   8614 Jul  5  2016 subscriptions.php

After that, make sure you provide an appropriate owner and file execution permission for your Apache document root location.

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

Now, create a VirtualHost for your SMF by creating a new conf file and add your site configuration inside it as follows.

linuxhelp:/srv/www/htdocs # vim /etc/apache2/conf.d/smf.conf
< 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 providing with your configuration save the changes and restart your Apache Service by running the following command.

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

Switch to your browser and type your FQDN &ndash Fully qualified domain name or your machine’ s ip address. It will prompt an installation wizard on your screen.

In that wizard, you need to provide your database configuration details and proceed further.

Next, povide your name, site URL and other respective aspects required for your site.

The database is getting populated now.

Create your admin account by creating admin credentials and for confirmation and enter the database root password at the end.

It will demand you to remove install.php So, remove your install.php in order to enhance the site security.

For that move to your terminal and delete the install.php by following action.

linuxhelp:/srv/www/htdocs # rm &ndash rf install.php

After removing it, refresh your site and start using it. With this the installation of Simple Machine Forum on OpenSUSE leap 42.3 comes to an end.