Installation and Upgrade Instructions

Instructions for the installation of PunBB and for upgrading from previous versions.

Requirements

• A webserver.
• PHP 4.3.0 or later (PHP 5 included).
• MySQL 4.1.2 or later, PostgreSQL 7.0 or later or SQLite 2 (see details below).

MySQL: PunBB will not work at all with any version prior to 4.1.2.

PostgreSQL: PunBB has been tested on various versions between 7.3.3 and 7.4.5, but it should work fine with any version greater than 7.0.

SQLite: PunBB should work with any SQLite 2 version. PunBB does not support SQLite 3.

Installation

1. Copy/upload all contents of the directory upload/ into the directory where you want to run your forums.
2. Run install.php from the forum root directory (e.g. open http://example.com/myforums/install.php in your browser). Follow the instructions.

Please report any problems you might encounter during installation in the PunBB.org forums.

Upgrading from 1.2.*

Follow these instructions to update your current 1.2.* installation to the latest version.

NOTE: Make a backup of your current forum directory before proceeding. Also, don't forget to make a backup of your forum database. Use the tool mysqldump for MySQL and pg_dump if you are using PostgreSQL. If you're using SQLite, just make a backup copy of the SQLite database file. You can also make database backups via most administration tools such as MySQL Administrator, phpMyAdmin and phpPgAdmin.

1. Copy/upload all contents of the directory upload/ into your old 1.2 directory (overwriting any existing files).
2. Copy/upload the script db_update.php from the directory extras/ to the forum root directory and run it through your browser. Follow the instructions. Once the update script has finished you should remove the script from the forum root directory.

You should now be running the latest version of PunBB.

Upgrading from 1.1

In order to upgrade from PunBB 1.1.* to the latest version, you must first update your current installation to 1.2. Download PunBB 1.2 from the PunBB.org downloads page and follow the upgrade instructions in the included install.html.

Upgrading from 1.0

In order to upgrade from PunBB 1.0.* to the latest version, you must first update your current installation to 1.1. Download PunBB 1.1 from the PunBB.org downloads page and follow the upgrade instructions in the included install.html.

Maximizing Performance

Here are some recommendations for maximizing the performance of PunBB.

• Run it in a UNIX-like operating system!
• Use a PHP cache/accelerator tool such as Alternative PHP Cache or eAccelerator.
• Make sure that PHP has zlib support and enable gzip output compression in Administration/Settings/Features. This greatly reduces the size of the XHTML output at the cost of a little CPU time. An alternative is to use a webserver module (e.g. mod_gzip or mod_deflate). The two methods yield similar results.
• Visit the administration interface and disable any forum features that are not used or that you feel are unnecessary.