vBulletin Installation Tutorial

.::Installation Tutorial::.

Resources & Information:

http://afterdawn.com

Requirments:
Hosting, I'll be using BlueHost for this tutorial. Make shure the hosting you have supports PHP and MySQL (All hosting services should).

The actual vBulletin files. More information here.

WinRAR, you need it to unzip the vBulletin files.

SmartFTP, you need this to upload all the files.

Adobe Dreamweaver, sign-up and get the free trial (you can use notepad but it's highly not recommended).

Download your files from the vBulletin site, it's in the members area (if your going to be using a nulled version then all you have to do is download the file from the site that's offering it).

Navigate to where you saved the download to and unzip the files you just downloaded to your Desktop. (you should have something like in the picture below on your desktop after it's been unzipped).


Inside the newly created folder there should be to more folders. One called upload and the other one should be named do_not_upload.




Now that we've made shure the files were unzipped properly. Go to your hosting site (ie. Bluehost.com) and log into your account.




Most hosting services will use cPanel 10 so once your logged in scroll down to the Databases section and click on MySQL Databases.




You will now have to create a database and a user for it so in the Databases section (it's the one at the top) make shure in the "Privileges:" section the "ALL" box is checked and then for a name make it something simple ie. site_forums. Once you have chosen a name for your database click the "Add Db" button.




You should be taken to a message saying that the database was created so just click the "Go Back" so you can make the user for the database.



Now back in the MySQL Databases section go the "Users" section and make a user. It says the username must be shorter than 7 characters so if it's more than 7 it will automatically cut it off (you'll see what I meen in the next step). I made the username the same as the database name and for the password I named it... well you guessed password! Once you've filled out the name and password boxes just click on "Add User" (as you can see I have another user made but that's for something else so just ignore it).



You should be taken to a message saying that the user was created so just click the "Go Back" to add the user to the database.



Back up near the top there's 2 drop down boxes. Select the user you just made and then select the database you created earlier (there should be only one of each anyways). Once you have both of them selected make shure the "ALL" box in the "Privileges:" section is checked and the click "Add user to Db". (ignore the sinergyh part in both the database and username, yours will say something else).




You will now be taken to a message saying that the user was added to the database. IMPORTANT: Write down the user and database name that the message displays you'll need them later on. So for mine i'd write down "sinergyh_sitefor" and "sinergyh_siteforums". Hit the "Go Back" button and you will be done to MySQL part.




Now we have to edit one of the files and this is where Dreamweaver comes in. The first thing you need to do is go the your vBulletin folder and then into the "upload" folder. Once in there go into the "includes" folder and find "config.php.new". Once you've got that file located rename it to "config.php" so basicly remove the ".new" part from it.

Changes To:

Now assuming you have Dreamweaver installed right click on "config.php" and select "Edit with Dreamweaver".




In Dreamweaver there is only 4 things that you need to edit and they are:

PHP Code:

$config['Database']['dbname'] = 'forum'; 


PHP Code:

$config['Database']['technicalemail'] = 'dbmaster@example.com'; 


PHP Code:

$config['MasterServer']['username'] = 'root'; 


PHP Code:

$config['MasterServer']['password'] = ''; 


Hopefully your wrote down the MySQL Database name and the username for it, you'll also needto put a e-mail address in (I just use my normal hotmail account). You'll also need to enter the password for the user that you created. Hopefully you made it "password" so it entering that one will be easy. You can see what mine looks like below but your database name, username, email will be different and if you made your password something else than it will be different aswell.

!~Remeber this is my info, yours will be different~!

Also make shure your putting the information in to the RIGHT of the equal sign and inside the quotation marks. Once your done editing click the refresh button at the bottom and then File > Save.

PHP Code:

$config['Database']['dbname'] = 'sinergyh_siteforums'; 


PHP Code:

$config['Database']['technicalemail'] = 'TSS_JAY@hotmail.com'; 


PHP Code:

$config['MasterServer']['username'] = 'sinergyh_sitefor'; 


PHP Code:

$config['MasterServer']['password'] = 'password'; 


We are nearing the end! Now we must upload all the files to are website and to do this we will be using smartFTP. So assuming you have already install smartFTP open the program up. In the address bar type the address to your site, don't put http://. All you need is "www.yoursitehere.com" and when you bought your hosting plan you created a username aswell as a password so enter those in the fields provided and make shure the port number is set to 21.




Make shure you expand your SmartFTP window so you can view everything. Alright there's two folders where you can upload things they are called "www" and "public_html". I'll be using "public_html" so open that folder up.



As you can see I already have a folder called "forums" but just ignore that. What you are going to want to do now is right click anywhere in the box displaying all the files for "public_html" and select "Upload" > "Direct"> "Select...".




A new box will come up. Click on the "Add Folder" button and then navigate to the "upload" folder that was made when you unzipped the vBulletin file.



Click the "OK" button and you should have something that looks like the picture below.



If you have a folder called upload and it's the only thing there than hit OK and let the uploading begin! (This process will take awhile).

Hurray it's all done being uploaded that part takes the longest by far. Anyways open up your internet browser and in the address type the following:

http://www.yoursitehere.com/upload/install/install.php

Of course you'll replace "yoursitehere" with the actuall address to your website.

If the following screen comes up you've been doing everything properly up to this point:



Keep on hitting next until you reach step nine. You may want to change the title of your board aswell as giving the homepage a name.

At step eleven you will be asked to create your account for the forums so fill in the information and hit next.

For the last step it will ask you to delete two files: install.php and init.php. Why you may ask? Because if they haven't been deleted than anyone can practically reformat your site if they know what to type in the address bar.



To delete these files go back into SmartFTP and navigate to and go into the "upload" folder and then into the "install" folder. The two files that you have to delete are right near the top so just hold CTRL and select them both and then press the delete key. Or you can just right click on them individually and select delete aswell either way it doesn't matter but you must delete them.



Now that those are deleted the finall thing your probably going to want to do is change the url to your forums from "upload" to something more suitable like "forums" or "forum". This is very easy to do. Right click on the "upload" folder and select rename you can now change it to whatever you want. I renamed mine to "forum" since I already have one called "forums".



Congrats your done! Now just enter the new url to your forums and log in on your account. Since you made the forums you'll be the root administrator, if your wondering where the AdminCP is there's a link to it in the bottom right corner of your forums.

[Chris P]

Nice post, this is a good guide. Although vBulletin has a GREAT user manual that covers EVERYTHING! You can find it here:

http://www.xiist.com/forums/vbulleti...tin-guide.html