Creating your own Forum using PunBB

In this article we create a forum on local machine using xampp.

Prerequisites:

• xampp is installed on your machine. 

Installing the forum:

There are many ready made, easy to install forums are available on the internet. I have chosen "punbb" (which is a php powered discussion board or forum). You can find more info on punbb.informer.com official site.

• Go to download page.
• Download recent version zip file.
• Extract the zip file.
• Go to "C:\xampp\htdocs" (default xammp installation folder).
• Create a new folder as "forum".
• Copy all the contents of the extracted punbb folder to this newly created "C:\xampp\htdocs\forum" folder.
• Start Apache and MySQL server from xampp control panel and check whether they are running or not by typing http://localhost in your favorite browser.
• Click on phpmyAdmin 
• Click on Databases tab

• Create a new database with the name "myforum".

• Go to http://localhost/forum/ in your browser. You will see the below page. Click on install

• You will see a configuration screen as shown below.

• Fill the details as shown below.

• After filling the details click on "Start Install"
• You will be redirected to "successful installation page". Now click on "go to the forum index" link
• We will redirected to the forum home page

That's it we are done with the installation of a forum.

Happy Coding..:)