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Obtaining SMF
You can download the latest beta from the download page on the official Simple Machines website.
There are a number of packages available, as this guide covers fresh installs, you should download one of the "install" packages as these contain all the files needed to get up and running. We suggest you download the zip option as this is most common and therefore you are more likely to have the tools required to unzip it already installed on your computer.
Unzip the package, ensuring you keep the directory structure, if you are using Windows XP, the easiest way is to right click on the file you downloaded and select the "extract all" option and follow the wizard. If you are using another operating system, then use winzip or a similar programme.
Uploading SMF
You should now be at the stage where you can upload the SMF files to your server. Initiate an FTP connection to the server and create a directory on the server, you can name the directory anything you like but SMF is a good choice.
Now you want to upload the SMF files to the directory you have just created so navigate to the directory in your FTP program and open up the folder that you unzipped the SMF packaged to in Windows Explorer. Select all the files and folders and copy them [goto edit > copy] and in your ftp program paste them. The files should now be uploading and, depending on the speed of your internet connection, this may take some time.
After uploading the files go to www.yourdomain.tfl/smf/install.php (or the directory name you choose).
If the first page comes up with a dialog requesting FTP information this is because you are running on a *nix server. At this stage just enter in your ftp details and the install program will attempt to set permissions on your server accordingly. If however you wish to do this manually or this initial step fails simply connect to your server with a piece of ftp software and change the permissions on the following files and directories to 777. On most client software this is achieved by right clicking on the files you wish to change and typing in the number.
The following files need to be CHMOD'ed to 777.
attachments
avatars
Packages
Packages/installed.list
Packages/server.list
Smileys
Themes
agreement.txt
Settings.php
Settings_bak.php
install.php
Themes/default/languages/Install.english.php
Installing SMF
Assuming the previous steps went well, you should now have the SMF source files on your server and their relevant permissions set, all that is needed now is to run the install.php file to configure your MySQL database, settings and your admin account.
Open up your favourite web browser and browse to http://www.yourdomain.tld/smf/install.php (where smf is the directory name you chose earlier). Provided you set the permissions correctly on Settings.php and Setting_bak.php you should see a form asking for various settings. Fill these in as follows:
Forum Name: This will be the name of your forum. It starts as "My Community" but you should probably change it.
Forum URL: This is the url your forum will be located at, the SMF installer should have worked this out for itself so in most cases you can leave this setting at its default value.
MySQL server name: This is where we specify the server that the MySQL database resides on. 99% of the time this will be localhost.
MySQL username: This is the username for your MySQL database, often you will have to set this up in your web hosts control panel, if in doubt, consult your host.
MySQL password: This is the password for your MySQL database, often you will have to set this up in your webhosts control panel, if in doubt, consult your host.
MySQL Database name: This is the name of your MySQL database, often you will have to set this up in your webhosts control panel, if in doubt, consult your host.
MySQL Database prefix: This is a prefixed to the table names in your database, it enables you to run more than one application on a single MySQL database, you should generally leave it as smf_, unless you are installing a second copy of SMF on the same database.
Once you have filled in all of the settings, click on proceed, you should see a lot of information and the word successful on each line scroll to the bottom of the page and click proceed again.
You will now be asked for details of your admin account, this will create your username on the forum. As a security measure, you are also asked for your database password. Once you have filled in the form, click on proceed.
Your forum is now installed and you can proceed to your forum, however, before doing so, it is VERY IMPORTANT that you delete the install.php file from the server as leaving it there is a major security risk. To do so return to your ftp program in the directory you installed SMF to, locate install.php, select it, and hit delete.
That is their instructions but I don't know how and where to upload those files , please help me. I have to do that in order to creat a Simple Machine Forum and how to use the FTP program to connect to the server if I want to upload them ? Please help . Thank you very much.
