Now that I’ve shown you how to get WordPress running the right way, it’s time to add a message a board to the website. The message board software I am using is phpBB 3. Olympus.

Tools Used: Ubuntu Server 12.04, Virtual Box, Putty, MySQL, and phpBB.

Use wget to download the zip file containing the installation package and use unzip to extract it (unzip is already pre-installed in Ubuntu)

Rename the directory from phpBB3 to forum so it’s easier to navigate to.  It doesn’t have to be renamed to forum, you can choose anything you like (messageboard, discussion board, community, etc ..), or just leave it the same; whatever’s clever.

Navigate to the directory that contains all your files for the forum to verify that everything is there.

Now let’s log into MySQL so we can create a new/different database, username and password for the message board.  Remember to write this information down, because we’ll need it later.

Create the database, name it to whatever you like.

Create a new user and password for it, and assign it the right privileges.

Implement the changes.

Exit out of MySQL.

Open your browser, navigate to your VM’s LAN IP Address and  forum directory. In my case, it’s 192.168.1.102/forum and you should be greeted with a very well designed intro page. Click the install tab, and follow the straight forward directions.

You may need to change the permissions to make a few files and directories writable so it installs properly. But you guys already know how to do that, so I’m not going to cover it.

Now we create the forum’s primary administrator account and click proceed to next step.

This menu will ask you to configure some email settings. You can skip this part because you can change it later from your administrator account control panel.

Almost Done!

Navigate back to your forum directory in the browser. It tells us that we need to either delete, rename or move the install directory, so the forum becomes functional.

I decided to delete it via Putty, you can also delete it through your FTP client of choice. Whatever works for you.

Open your browser to the message board, and if it worked, your forum should be ready to use. To access the administrator control panel, there’s a link that I highlighted at  the bottom of the front page, make sure you’re actively logged into your administrator account though.

Click on the administration control panel, and click on board settings. This is where you will change the site name and description to something that suits your needs and click submit.

Side Notes: I chose phpBB because they have a great community, tons of documentation, ad a lot of free themes that don’t suck. Experiment with it;  create your own logo, add categories and plugins. But most of all, have fun with it. If you fuck a setting up, don’t get discouraged, just be patient and google the issue. I guarantee that any issue you encounter, it has already been documented on the official website or by somebody else, and it takes a quick google search to figure out the solution.

If you guys have questions about adding a link to the message board on your website, let me know and I’ll help you out.  Other than that, if you have any questions/concerns/feedback, please feel free to express it and I’ll be more than happy to respond to you.