Currently, forums are an integral part of many Internet projects. Forums allow you to organize communication in a simple, natural and familiar way, thereby creating conditions for the formation of a strong permanent community of users. There are also projects where the forum has surpassed the main information site in popularity, becoming in fact the core of the resource. That is why the question of the need to install a forum is considered one of the first when working out the concept of a new website. Fortunately, these days you don't have to puzzle over how to make a forum on your site, thanks to the existence of several popular forum engines, both paid and free.
It is necessary
Hosting site that allows the execution of PHP scripts and the creation of MySQL databases. Modern web browser. FTP client program. Data for access to the site via FTP. Access to the administrative panel of the website hosting account
Instructions
Step 1
Download the latest SMF forum distribution package. Open the address in the browser https://www.simplemachines.org. Click the Download SMF button. On the page that opens, select the "zip" link under the "Full install" inscription. The download process will begin. Save the distribution archive to your hard drive
Step 2
Unpack the SMF distribution. Create a new directory on your hard drive. Unpack the archive with the forum engine files into it. To do this, use the unpacker program or the unpacking functions of the file manager.
Step 3
Create a subdomain for the forum on the site's domain. Go to your hosting account control panel. Select the domain of the site where the forum will be installed. Go to the subdomain management section. Add a new subdomain.
Step 4
Upload forum scripts to hosting. Connect to the site server using an FTP client program or file manager. Go to the root directory of the forum subdomain on the server. Copy all files of the distribution package from a folder on your hard drive to a folder on the server.
Step 5
Create a MySQL database for the forum. Go to the MySQL database management section. Create a new database and a new user to access it.
Step 6
Install the forum. Open an address like https://../install.php in your browser. For example, if the forum is installed on the forum subdomain of the codeguru.ru domain, then in the browser you will need to open the address https://forum.codeguru.ru/install.php. The first time you access the forum, the setup page will open. Follow the instructions of the installation wizard. On the first page of the wizard, enter the data for accessing the database, the name of the forum. On the second page of the installation wizard, enter the administrator credentials and password for accessing the database (entered here for security reasons)
Step 7
Check the functionality of the established forum. Go to the established forum by clicking on the link with the text "your newly installed forum". Make sure there are no error messages. Go to your admin panel. Open the logs and errors section. Make sure there are no errors. Then you can start creating forum sections.
