MyBB is a free and open source, intuitive and extensible forum program. MyBB source code is hosted on GitHub. This guide will show you how to install MyBB forum software on a fresh CentOS 7 Vultr instance.
PHP, at least version 5.2
MySQL, at least version 5.0
Nginx
The following PHP extensions:
SimpleXML
mbstring
gd
The respective vendor specific database PHP extensions
NOTE: Replace all instances of example.com with your domain name.
Check the CentOS version.
cat /etc/centos-release
# CentOS Linux release 7.4.1708 (Core)
Create a new non-root user account with sudo access and switch to it.
useradd -c "John Doe" johndoe && passwd johndoe
usermod -aG wheel johndoe
su - johndoe
NOTE: Replace johndoe with your username.
Set up the timezone.
timedatectl list-timezones
sudo timedatectl set-timezone 'Region/City'
Ensure that your system is up to date.
sudo yum update -y
Install necessary packages.
sudo yum install -y wget vim unzip bash-completion
Disable SELinux.
sudo setenforce 0
Enable the epel repository.
sudo rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
Install PHP, as well as the necessary PHP extensions.
sudo yum install -y php php-cli php-fpm php-gd php-mbstring php-xml php-mysql php-pgsql
Check the version.
php --version
# PHP 5.4.16 (cli) (built: Mar 7 2018 13:34:47)
# Copyright (c) 1997-2013 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v2.4.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2013 Zend Technologies
Enable and start php-fpm.
sudo systemctl enable php-fpm.service
sudo systemctl start php-fpm.service
Install MariaDB.
sudo yum install -y mariadb-server
Check the version.
mysql --version
# mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 5.5.56-MariaDB, for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1
Enable and start MariaDB.
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
Run the mysql_secure_installation script to improve the security of your MariaDB installation.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
Log in to MariaDB as the root user.
mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:
Create a new MariaDB database and user, and remember the credentials.
CREATE DATABASE dbname CHARACTER SET utf8;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Exit MariaDB.
exit
Install Nginx.
sudo yum install -y nginx
Check the version.
sudo nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.12.2
Enable and start Nginx.
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service
sudo systemctl start nginx.service
Configure Nginx. Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/mybb.conf and populate the file with the following.
server {
server_name forum.example.com;
root /var/www/mybb;
location / {
index index.php;
}
# Deny access to internal files.
location ~ /(inc|uploads/avatars) {
deny all;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
}
Test the configuration.
sudo nginx -t
Reload Nginx.
sudo systemctl reload nginx.service
Create a document root directory.
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/mybb
Change ownership of the /var/www/mybb directory to johndoe.
sudo chown -R johndoe:johndoe /var/www/mybb
Download the latest release of MyBB and unzip it.
cd /var/www/mybb
wget https://resources.mybb.com/downloads/mybb_1815.zip
unzip mybb_1815.zip
mv /var/www/mybb/Upload/* /var/www/mybb
Remove the downloaded .zip file, as well as the Upload folder.
rm mybb_1815.zip
rmdir Upload
Change ownership of the /var/www/mybb directory to nginx.
sudo chown -R nginx:nginx /var/www/mybb
Run sudo vim /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf and set the user and group to nginx. Initially, it will be set to apache.
sudo vim /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
# user = nginx
# group = nginx
Restart php-fpm.
sudo systemctl restart php-fpm.service
As the last step, open your domain and follow the installation wizard for MyBB. To access the installer you must navigate to the /install directory of your site in your web browser. For example: if your domain is example.com, and you uploaded your MyBB files to the root directory, navigate to http://example.com/install. To access MyBB admin append /admin to your site URL. You have successfully installed your MyBB.
After the installation, you should remove the /install directory from your server to prevent anyone else from running the installation again.
sudo rm -rf /var/www/mybb/install/