How to Create a Forum on a custom domain

Steps

Register a domain (or subdomain) at a PHP host.

Go to http://www.phpbb.com/ or http://www.simplemachines.org/ and download their PHP forum software. Another great one to download is Integramod. This is a standard copy of phpBB, but it comes with many mods. You can get it at http://www.integramod.com/

Download an FTP Client and use it to upload all your PHP content to your host.

Create a MySQL database on your host through the control panel.

Go to yoursite.yourhost.com/forumdirectory/install.php to install and configure your forums.

In your FTP client, go to config.php > Properties and set the CHMOD settings to 666 (if you are using phpBB 2).

Follow the instructions on install.php.

After finishing installation, go to the CHMOD settings of config.php again and set them to 644 (if you are using phpBB 2).

Delete the install and contrib directories.

Go to yoursite.yourhost.com/index.php.

Login and go to the admin panel to customize your forums.

Tips

• If you are not very technical, register at site that automatically set up forums for you. A good example would be: 'www.youforum.cc'.
• If you want to run the forum on your own computer for development reasons, testing, customizing..etc then see how to Install Apache, MySQL, PHP, and phpMyAdmin on a Windows PC
• if you use Mozilla Firefox as your browser then go to http://fireftp.mozdev.org/ for your ftp add-on.