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Phorum 5 Installation instructions==================================Contents:1. Requirements2. Quickstart guide3. Detailed installation instructions3.1 Download Phorum3.2 Unpack the downloaded archive3.3 Place the Phorum files in your website's document root3.4 Create a database and a database user3.5 Configure the database access3.6 Run the web based installer3.7 Things to do after installing Phorum4. Additional issues4.1 Additional issues for UNIX (Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc.)4.1.2 Cache directory4.2 Additional issues for Windows4.2.1 Cache directory4.2.2 Problems sending mail to end-users4.2.3 Date formatting5. Support1. Requirements-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Requirements for running Phorum are:* A webserver;* PHP, version 4 or above;* A MySQL server, version 4 or above.If you do not run your own website, but have hosted your website witha hosting provider, then please ask your hosting provider if youraccount meets these requirements.2. Quickstart guide:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is the quickstart guide for installing Phorum, aimed at people thatare used to working with websites, PHP and databases. If you are havingproblems following this guide, then please read chapter 3 instead.1. Unpack Phorum into a directory below your website's document root;2. Create a database and a full-access database user for that database;3. Edit include/db/config.php.sample, save it as include/db/config.php;4. Open {phorum url}/admin.php in your web browser and finish the install.3. Detailed installation instructions-------------------------------------------------------------------------------3.1 Download Phorum-------------------If you haven't already done so, download the latest Phorum distributionfrom http://phorum.org/downloads.php3.2 Unpack the downloaded archive---------------------------------From Windows:If you have downloaded the .zip file, you can extract thefiles from that archive directly using Windows XP's zipfile support.If you downloaded the .tar.gz file, you will have to download anappropriate tool for unpacking, e.g. WinZip (http://www.winzip.com/).From UNIX:If you have access to a UNIX shell, you can unpack the .tar.gzarchive using the following command:shell> tar xvzf phorum-x.y.z.tar.gzOr if the tar program on your system does not support the -z flag:shell> gunzip phorum-x-y-z.tar.gzshell> tar xvf phorum-x.y.z.tar3.3 Place the Phorum files in your website's document root----------------------------------------------------------The document root for a website is the directory in which your site'sweb pages are stored. If your website's URL is "http://www.example.com"and you place the Phorum files in a directory called "forum" insideyour document root, your Phorum installation will be available at theURL "http://www.example.com/forum". From now on, we will name thisURL simply {phorum url}. So if you see {phorum url}/admin.php, using theexample we mean http://www.example.com/forum/admin.phpIf the webserver is running on the same system as where you haveunpacked the downloaded archive, you can move the unpacked filesto your website's document root.If the webserver is running on another system, you will have to uploadthe files to your website's document root. In most cases, you will useFTP for this, but some hosting providers require SCP (secure copy,which is more secure than FTP). If you do not know how or where toupload the Phorum files, please contact your hosting provider.Security note:(simply ignore this if it does not make sense to you)There are software packages that require you to make files writablefor the webserver (using the infamous "chmod 777"). DO NOT DO THISFOR ANY OF THE PHORUM FILES. The webserver only needs read access onthe disctribution files, because all dynamic data is stored in thedatabase. If you run into problems running Phorum, it will never bebecause you "forgot" to do "chmod 777" on any the Phorum files.3.4 Create a database and a database user-----------------------------------------Phorum stores all its data in a database. So you now need to createa database. Officially, only the MySQL database server is supportedby Phorum, so we recommend to use MySQL whenever possible.If you have hosted your site with a hosting provider, then askyour hosting provider to setup the database and a full accessdatabase user for you.If you run your own database server, then you will have to createthe database and the user yourself. If you are using a controlpanel, like phpmyadmin, then use that control panel to createthem. Else, you can use the mysql prompt to create the databaseby issuing commands like:mysql> CREATE DATABASE phorum;mysql> GRANT ALL ON phorum.* TO user@localhost IDENTIFIED BY password;Of course, for security reasons you would use your own user andpassword instead.If you are unsure how to create a database and a database user,please refer to your system documentation.3.5 Configure the database access---------------------------------After setting up the database, you'll have to tell Phorum how thedatabase can be accessed. This configuration is put in the fileinclude/db/config.php inside your Phorum directory. This file isnot in the distribution. Only a differently named sample file isincluded.First, copy or rename the file "include/db/config.php.sample" to"include/db/config.php". Now edit the config.php file to match theaccess settings for the database that was created in step 4.If you run your website on a remote server, then either editthe config.php file directly on that server (e.g. through aUNIX prompt) or upload the file to the correct location afterediting it locally.3.6 Run the web based installer-------------------------------Now all is in place to run Phorum's installer script.Open {phorum url}/admin.php using your web browser. This is the admininterface, which will automatically detect that a fresh install hasto be performed.Follow the instructions on screen to finish the Phorum installation.3.7 Things to do after installing Phorum----------------------------------------Now the installation is complete, test if the forum is workingcorrectly by opening {phorum url} in your web browser. If you runinto problems, please go to {forum url}/admin.php and click on"System Sanity Checks" in the menu. This page will perform a coupleof system checks to rule out some basic problems. If problems arefound, please follow the instructions from the sanity checks pageto solve them.Login into the admin interface at {phorum url}/admin.php and checkout what settings can be done to customize Phorum to your likings.Customize the looks of Phorum to your needs by creating a customtemplate. Instructions can be found in docs/creating_templates.txt.Read the additional issues for your system (below), docs/faq.txtand any other files in the docs dir that may help you.4. Additional issues-------------------------------------------------------------------------------4.1 Additional issues for UNIX (Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc.)----------------------------------------------------------4.1.2 Cache directory---------------------In step 5 above (Edit Settings) There is an entry called CacheDirectory. the installer should set that to /tmp if you appear tobe running a *nix system. This will keep compiled PHP versions ofyour templates in /tmp. You can change the cache dir if you do notwant to have your files sitting in /tmp on the server or if you seeerror messages like:Warning:fopen(/tmp/tpl-default-header-a72fb9dd20915e5953aa9b07d3eb3871.php):failed to open stream: Permission denied in/path/to/phorum/include/templates.php on line 184If you change the the Cache Directory, the best bet is to set itto ./cache and make that dir (that is already there in the Phorum dir)writable by the web server. Most likely this means making it worldwriteable (chmod 777). If you do not have access to the shell promptof the server and are using only FTP to access the server, please seeyour FTP clients help on setting the permissions for a directory.4.2 Additional issues for Windows---------------------------------4.2.1 Cache directory---------------------In step 5 above (Edit Settings) There is an entry called CacheDirectory. The installer should set that to C:\Windows\Temp, if itcan detect you are using Windows. This should work for most modernWindows versions. If it does not, you will see error messages like:Warning:fopen(c:\windows\temp\tpl-default-header-a72fb9dd209153aa9b07d3eb3871.php):failed to open stream: Permission denied inc:\path\to\phorum\include\templates.php on line 184You will need to change the Cache Directory. The Phorum team is notvery familiar with Windows as a web server platform. We can only tellyou that it will need to be something that the web server can write to.Changing the Cache Directory to ./cache has worked for some.4.2.2 Problems sending mail to end-users----------------------------------------PHP has to be configured correctly on Windows systems to be able tosend out mail. If this is not done, you might get errors and mailwill not arrive. What you need to do is edit the file "php.ini" (thisfile holds the configuration for PHP). Find the sections that is called"[mail function]". In this section, set the parameter "SMTP" to thehostname or IP-address of the your SMTP server. If you do not know yourSMTP server, please ask your internet access provider. After this,PHP will know what mailserver to use for sending out mail messages.If you have no access to the php.ini file and the system administratoris not willing to update it for you, you will have to install theSMTP module for Phorum. You can download this module from the module page:http://phorum.org/cgi-bin/trac.cgi/wiki/ListOfModulesIn the settings for this module, you can specify the SMTP server to usefor sending mail. When using this module, you will completely bypass PHP'sbuiltin mail system.4.2.3 Date formatting---------------------Windows does not support the date formatting function strftime() fully.If your dates are not showing correctly, you have to edit your languagefile ({phorum dir}/include/lang/<yourlanguage>.php) and change thedefinitions for $PHORUM['long_date'] and $PHORUM['short_date'] in thereto something that will work for your system. We suggest using thefollowing definitions:$PHORUM['long_date']="%B %d, %Y %I:%M%p";$PHORUM['short_date']="%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p";Go to http://www.php.net/strftime for information on all availableformatting options as well as the formats that Windows does not support.5. Support-------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you have questions about installing Phorum, please visit the websitehttp://phorum.org/ and ask the development team for help in theSupport forum. Also read the file docs/faq.txt for answers to the mostcommon questions.