How to Install MyBB on CentOS 7

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.

Requirements

• 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

Step 1 - Install PHP and required PHP extensions

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

Step 2 - Install MariaDB and create a database for MyBB

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

Step 3 - Install and configure Nginx

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

Step 4 - Install MyBB

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/