Small Guide to Forum Construction

[The Elite]

Welcome everyone to;

The Elites Complete Guide to Forum Construction

Many people struggle to wrap their heads around forum creation. Many shiver at the sight of cPanel, wondering where everything goes. Others stress and stress to find the correct resources or techniques to get their specific job done.

What I have done, is designed the All-In-One, jam packed tutorial on how to develop a website, from scratch to getting it up and running.

Disclaimer
By continuing past the asterisks (**) shown below, you agree to all that's being said. This guide is created for educational purposes only. I, The Elite (of www.Supportforums.net), can not be held liable for any mishaps or negative occurrences suffered by the reader of this tutorial. Any information gained from this guide is only created to be used for a legitimate purpose (legitimate defining the use for only good). If the information in this guide is misused, I can not be held liable. No negative occurrences are of my own fault.

By continuing past the two asterisks below, you agree to all that has been said above.

**

Now, with anything, when beginning a project or development, there are specific resources and needs.

Necessities:

• $20 USD - PayPal / Credit Card
  
• Dedication
  

Recommended Requirements:

• Fast Internet
  
• Some Photoshop skills / access to good images
  
• Trusted friend

Baby Steps:
To begin, we will need to know what your website / forum is going to be dedicated to / about, we need this information to decide on the domain we are wanting to purchase.

The Elite, why are we purchasing a domain?
When going on to a website, and noticing the domain is something like this:
www.elite.freedomain.com
The website instantly becomes unattractive, if we see a website like this:
www.elite.com
The website looks much more professional, although there are more qualities.
A majority of websites developed do fail, yes, this is a staggering amount, although the ones that do find success, are the ones which have been developed on and on, maybe even for years.
What does websites failing have to do with the need for a paid domain?
Good question, when owning a paid domain, it shows the visitor that you have invested in your website, showing that you are willing to invest further financial assets to develop the website. This portrays an image of the website owner that is positive in the eyes of visitors. This is crucial for gaining members.

Some places where you can purchase a domain name:

• Namesdirect.com
  
• Godaddy.com
  
• Netfirms.com

If the domain registrars listed above don't satisfy you, there are many more great ones on the net.
Here.
A domain (.com / .net / .org) can cost anywhere from $5-$10 USD. A good one would usually be at $7.00 USD, they're the most frequently found ones.
Once you've found a domain which is of your satisfaction, order it. The information will be emailed to you.

Now, we need some hosting.

The Elite, why don't we just get free hosting?
There are many reasons not to use free hosting, such as:
1. Limited space
2. Forced Ads
3. No support
4. Downtime
5. No security
6. No FTP access
7. Much content excluded
8. Short term periods

I hope you understand now, for about $3-$4 USD / month, paid hosting offers so much more than free hosting, for such a minimal price.
Although, we need to decide, will your website allow hacking content, or is it purely based on no hacking content. If it's hacking, you'll need to choose a hosting company which is offshore.

The Elite, what's offshore?
Onshore is hosting in a country where there are federal laws about internet crime, theft and other cyber crime legislations. An Offshore hosting country is hosting in a foreign country where there is/are minimal to no internet laws about, thus allowing you almost anything to be published on your website. Onshore hosting companies are USUALLY in America, Australia, and nearby countries with strong, internet laws, whereas the most frequent offshore companies can be found in Germany, Netherlands, etc.

Some good ONSHORE hosting companies:

• Hostgator - Amazing support, amazing up time. Very cheap.
  
• Webcity.com
  

If you did not find a hosting company (onshore) for you, then click here.

For legal issues, I will not link to offshore hosting sites.

Website Development

Now, all the prerequisites are done, we can finally begin. For any forum, we obviously need the software, so here we go.
I highly recommend using MyBB, it being free, with the amount of developers and flexibility, this forum type is amazing for beginners and experts.
Click here for the website, click here to download MyBB version 1.4.13.

In your email (which you registered with your hosting company), there should be your information for your hosting, things included in the email should be like:

• IP Address
  
• 2-4 Name Servers
  
• Username + Password (cPanel)
  
• Contact Information (for host)
  

What we must do first, is forward your name servers to the correct domain. To do this you must:
1. Go to the website you registered your domain at.
2. Log in.
3. In your account information section, there should be "Hosting", or something on the line of "DNS".
4. If you've found it, in your email there should be 2-4 name servers, name servers are usually things like:

• ns1.elite.com
  
• ns2.elite.com
  
• ns3.elite.com
  
• ns4.elite.com

5. Click "Update name servers", or something similar to that, and paste the name servers you received in your email.
6. Most name registrars send you a confirmation email when that's done.

Now, we have your name servers updated, most name servers require a waiting time of 48-72 hours, so to access your website now, use the IP address sent through email.

Now, we'll need to use our FTP access, to do this, we'll need a FTP software program. I highly recommend Filezilla.


To download Filezilla, click here.

Install it, and update it or complete anything necessary. Now, once that's done, open Filezilla.

What to insert:
Host: The IP address received in email. (Some look like: https://gator1000.hostgator.com:2083)
Username: Username (sent in email).
Password: Password (sent in email).
Port: 20

You should now be in your file manager, if that didn't work, ask your hosting company for information.

Once you're in there, click "public_html".

public_html is the section where all your website files go to, this section is usually the only one used when uploading a file to cPanel.

Now, locate your "Upload" folder in filezilla (the left hand side), double click "Upload", and open it. Highlight all it's content, and drag it it public_html. That'll have uploaded all your needed files for your forum.

Once that's done, we'll need to install the forum to work correctly. You'll need to go to your website.com/forum/install.

-NOTE-
If your domain hasn't been forwarded yet, use the ip sent in email like this -
111.111.111.10/forum/install

We're now at the installer, follow everything, agree, tick yes. When you're at the database section, we'll need to do a few things before continuing:
1. Log into cPanel.
2. Click "Databases".
3. Create a new database, call it anything.
4. Create a new username + password under the database (scroll down a bit).

Your database should look like (say my cPanel username is "elite", and my database is elitedb) elite_elitedb. This is similar to the username.

We can now move further, go back to the installer. Insert your database username and password, and fill in all the rest, it's straight forward. Leave all the pre-set tables, etc.

Now, we're all set, you've got your forum up and running.

Tips and Guidelines:

• Have a strong password.
  
• Advertise through ANY methods.
  
• Invest money in things you believe will get you members.
  
• Make sure reputation is not abused.
  
• Update your help documents.
  
• Purchase a subscriber ($10) at MyBBCentral.com
  
• Make backups of the forum database regularly, as well as backups of :public_html" daily.
  
• Listen to your members
  

If you have any questions, ask them here and I will help you.

[Яichie]

http://elite.freedomain.com/ isn't working for me

Great tutorial though.

[The Elite]

http://elite.freedomain.com/ isn't working for me

Great tutorial though.

Haha, it's not suppose to, it's an example.

[Eve]

Good post. I'll keep watching it for updates.

[The Elite]

Thank you very much Eve, appreciated.

[BRSteven]

I'm really impress how this is organized. You helped me out on some things I had trouble understanding for example the public_html section.Thank you

[The Elite]

Glad you enjoyed it BRSteven.

[groovybluedog]

Its not a complete guide as its not complete ;)

FTP port is 21 btw.

[The Elite]

Thanks for reminding me...

[Alone Vampire™]

Pretty nice.
Thanks for the share.