Campus forum is one of the indispensable parts of the campus network. Although forums based on ASP+ACCESS are simple to use and easy to install, the MySQL database has become the preferred database for many sites due to its advantages of being short, convenient, fast, and free. In addition, the PHP language is also cross-platform, highly portable, and safe. With the advantages of reliability, speed and efficiency, many popular forum programs are currently developed using a combination of PHP+MySQL. However, for novices like me, installing PHP+MySQL Forum on the server is not as simple as ASP+ACCESS. It only needs to be placed directly in the site directory to run. Because most PHP+MySQL forums require installation before use.
If you plan to purchase a virtual space to run PHP+MySQL forum programs, then you must first purchase a space that supports PHP+MySQL. It is generally a virtual space suitable for running small forum programs (about 200 people online at the same time) The minimum annual fee is generally around 300 yuan. In addition, you must establish a MySQL database, create a username and password to successfully install the PHP+MySQL forum. Some virtual space providers provide this information directly to you without having to set it up yourself. For example: Shanghai Edong.com's K300 virtual host, after establishing a database named itlm in the background, automatically created three users itlm_f, itlm_r, and itlm_w (the passwords are all set by yourself). This way you can use it directly during installation.
If the school has its own server (Windows system), then follow the steps below to first set up the server's operating environment so that the server supports PHP+MySQL.
Server-side software installation
PHP+MySQL forum programs run in most cases under Linux, UNIX and other systems, but installing Linux and UNIX systems requires Configuring PHP+MySQL is not something that novices like me can do just because they want to! Here the author recommends a Web server software under the Win32 platform: EasyAPM-Server. EasyAPM-Server is a quick integrated installation kit for Apache+PHP+MySQL operating environment under Win2000/XP/2003 system. As long as you install it once, the following programs are automatically included: Apache v2.0.54 (Win32), PHP v4.4.0 (Win32), Zend Optimizer v2.5.10a (Win32), MySQL v4.0.25 (Win32), phpMyAdmin v2.6.3-pl1 , users do not need to modify any configuration files, it is the most convenient and fastest WEB server platform to install for beginners!
Step 1: Download EasyAPM-Server2 from the following address