Installing MyBB 1.8.12 on Ubuntu Server

In the following tutorial I will explain how to install MyBB 1.8.12 on Ubuntu Server. I will be doing this from the command line so no GUI needed.

1. Download the MyBB package. You will want to get the latest version of MyBB.

wget --content-disposition https://www.mybb.com/download/latest -O mybb.zip

2. By default Ubuntu does not come with unzip. Install that now.

sudo apt install unzip

3. Unzip the MyBB zip file

unzip mybb.zip

2 folders should now be in your present working directory. Unload and Documentation.

4. Install LAMP (Linux, Apache2, PHP and MySQL) Restart Apache after

sudo apt install apache2 mysql-server php-mysql php libapache2-mod-php php-mcrypt
sudo systemctl restart apache2

This install will ask to create a root password for the MySQL database.

5. Move MyBB files to the server folder

cd /var/www/
sudo mkdir mybb/
mv ~/Upload/* /var/www/html/mybb/

You should now see all the files in the www/mybb directory.

6. Rename the inc/config.default.php

sudo mv inc/config.default.php inc/config.php

7. Now change permissions on the following files and directories

sudo chmod 666 inc/config.php inc/settings.php inc/languages/english/*.php inc/languages/english/admin/*.php
sudo chmod 777 cache/ cache/themes/ uploads/ uploads/avatars/ admin/backups/

8. Login to MySQL and create Database.

mysql -u root -p

Enter the password that was create for MySQL.
Now create the database and a user to have access to this database only.

create database MyBB;
grant all privileges on MyBB.* to 'MyBB'@'localhost' identified by "S0mePassw0rd";
flush privileges;
exit;

9. Browse to the install page.

You can now follow the step by step installer. Be sure to specify the database credentials you create above. Do not use the root account.

Go to your main web URL and you should see your new forum ready to go! If you have any questions please leave them below.