Icy Phoenix is a free, open source, flat-forum bulletin board software based on phpBB. It enables individuals and webmasters to set up community bulletin boards in minutes to stay in touch with group of people or ideas.
Icy Phoenix is a fully customization with ton of features that were originally developed for phpBB XS Projects and of which are not yet included in the original phpBB platform.
This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install and use Icy Phoenix Ubuntu 18.04 | 16.04 with Apache2, MySQL and PHP support.
Some of the features included with Icy Phoenix are:
- phpBB bulletin board and permission system
- CMS features allowing the creation of new pages and blocks
- Overall template integration among all site sections
- Many ready to use features: Photo Gallery, Downloads, Knowledge Base, Links, Chat.
- Multi-language and multi-template ready
- Almost 100% XHTML and CSS W3C compliant
- .and many others.
To get started with installing Icy Phoenix, follow the steps below:
Install Apache2
Icy Phoenix is PHP-based and requires a webserver. The most popular open source web server in use today is Apache2. To install Apache2, run the commands below:
sudo apt update sudo apt-get install apache2
After installing Apache2, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Apache2 service to always start up with the server boots.
sudo systemctl stop apache2.service sudo systemctl start apache2.service sudo systemctl enable apache2.service
To test Apache2 setup, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address and you should see Apache2 default test page as shown below. When you see that, then Apache2 is working as expected.
Install MySQL Database Server
MySQL database server is a great place to start when looking at open source database servers to use with Icy Phoenix. To install MySQL run the commands below.
sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client
After installing MySQL, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MySQL service to always start up when the server boots.
Run these on Ubuntu
sudo systemctl stop mysql.service sudo systemctl start mymsql.service sudo systemctl enable mysql.service
After that, run the commands below to secure MySQL server by creating a root password and disallowing remote root access.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.
- Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
- Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
- New password: Enter password
- Re-enter new password: Repeat password
- Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
- Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
- Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
- Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y
Restart MySQL server
To test if MySQL is installed, type the commands below to logon to MySQL server
sudo mysql -u root -p
Then type the password you created above to sign on. if successful, you should see MySQL welcome message
Install PHP 7.2 and Related Modules
PHP 7.2 may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories. in order to install it, you will have to get it from third-party repositories.
Run the commands below to add the below third party repository to upgrade to PHP 7.2
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2
sudo apt update
Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2 and related modules.
sudo apt install php7.2 libapache2-mod-php7.2 php7.2-common php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-mysql php7.2-gd php7.2-pgsql php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-imagick php7.2-bcmath php7.2-gmp php7.2-zip
After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open PHP default config file for Apache2.
sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/apache2/php.ini
Then make the changes on the following lines below in the file and save. The value below are great settings to apply in your environments.
file_uploads = On allow_url_fopen = On short_open_tag = On memory_limit = 256M upload_max_filesize = 100M max_execution_time = 360 date.timezone = America/Chicago
After making the change above, save the file and close out.
To restart Apache2, run the commands below
sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
To test PHP 7.2 settings with Apache2, create a phpinfo.php file in Apache2 root directory by running the commands below
sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php
Then type the content below and save the file.
<?php phpinfo( ); ?>
Save the file. then browse to your server hostname followed by /phpinfo.php
/phpinfo.php
You should see PHP default test page.
Create Icy Phoenix Database
Now that you’ve install all the packages that are required, continue below to start configuring the servers. First create a Icy Phoenix database.
Run the commands below to logon to MySQL. When prompted for a password, type the root password you created above.
sudo mysql -u root -p
Then create a database called icyphoenix
CREATE DATABASE icyphoenix;
Create a database user called icyphoenixuser with new password
CREATE USER 'icyphoenixuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';
Then grant the user full access to the icyphoenix database.
GRANT ALL ON icyphoenix.* TO 'icyphoenixuser'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;
Finally, save your changes and exit.
FLUSH PRIVILEGES; EXIT;
Download Icy Phoenix Latest Release
Next, continue below to download Icy Phoenix package. To download, go to the link below and download the latest version.
After downloading, run the commands below to extract the downloaded file into Apache2 root directory.
unzip ip_20160604_220105.zip sudo mv ip /var/www/icyphoenix
Change or modify the directory permission to fit Apache2 configuration.
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/icyphoenix sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/icyphoenix
Configure Apache2
Finally, configure Apahce2 site configuration file for Icy Phoenix. This file will control how users access Icy Phoenix content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called icyphoenix.conf
sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/icyphoenix.conf
Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your own domain name and directory root location.
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot /var/www/icyphoenix
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com
<Directory /var/www/icyphoenix/>
Options FollowSymlinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Save the file and exit.
Enable the Icy Phoenix and Rewrite Module
After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below
sudo a2ensite icyphoenix.conf sudo a2enmod rewrite sudo systemctl restart apache2.service
Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name followed by install. You should see Icy Phoenix setup wizard to complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.
Click on the Icy Phoenix install link to begin the installation.
Confirm that all the requirements are met and continue.
Create the site admin account and database connection info and continue
After that, all should be installed and ready to use
Enjoy!
Run the commands below to delete the install directory
sudo rm -rf /var/www/icyphoenix/install
Congratulation! You have successfully installed Icy Phoenix bulletin board on Ubuntu 18.04.
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