Now there are cheap virtual servers (VPS/VDS) out there, so more and more people use them.
For example, on New Year's sales I got 1 Gb RAM, 15 Gb SSD, 2 Tb monthly traffic and so on, just for $15 a year.
That's cheaper and has more power than in most managed hosting plans.
I'm not an IT geek, but during the past week I dedicated my time to reading manuals and setting software up, and now I have almost working PhpBB 3.2.2.
People with some interest in IT sphere, likewise, can get interesting experience and useful results. (Of course a registered domain is also needed, but that's cheap too).
But the problem is that with the lack of good documentation you are treading in a dark.
For example, installing PhpBB, I stumbled on issues like:
- BEFORE installing, special Nginx server configuration was needed,
- BEFORE installing, I needed to check for PHP modules for database use (I assumed I had them, but because I tried to install the newest - fastest - PHP, I actually got PHP from a repository lacking some modules),
- BEFORE installing I had to check sending mails (was not working), etc.
Nothing like that was mentioned in PhpBB installation guides (as far as I'm aware).
It is hard to find best solutions when you know nothing and have mostly either manuals for specialists, or random tutorials scattered through internet, most of them of poor quality...
So, my friends, I think a guide on PhpBB for VPS would be useful.
My 5 cents: unless you have very little RAM, better start by installing a free control panel (I used Virtualmin; there are several others). Control panel takes care about setting up all the stuff; unfortunately I used outdated guides and messed up mine a bit (with unnecessary "customizations")...
BTW,
- If you want to install on Linux without control panel, for fresh PHP 7 and stuff look here: https://webtatic.com/packages/
And here's a correct phpBB-3 config file for Nginx: https://github.com/phpbb/phpbb/blob/3.2 ... ample.conf