Installing a forum on a VPS?

[goodboy133]

How to installing a forum on a VPS pls help me i no know how to do it...

Nah, just kidding. So, basically, a friend of mine told me to try to use a VPS for my forum. To be honest, I've never though of it. I'm using free hosting and having a VPS is something I really never had in mind. But the idea of having a VPS really attracted me.
So, the problem is here: I have ABSOLUTELY no knowledge of that. All I know is my good ol' cPanel. I only know how to use that. He told me about SSH commands. About web servers, and all of that thing you need.
So, my problem I'd love anyone to solve, is HOW do you upload a mybb forum to a VPS? Or move from a host to a VPS? Starting from scratch.. such as knowing the commands, the basics, then creating a web server, then install cpanel or something like that, and finally upload it. Basically, all of the processes that are in between buying a new VPS and having your forum uploaded there. From 1 to 100. If someone would have the pity of getting me through each steps or give me a link to the tutorials from scratch, I'd be most grateful.

Thank you for the care and for reading this

[Alex Smith]

Well if you're on free hosting I would say go to shared hosting first. A vps will probably be overkill and shared will still offer you cPanel.

You can also get a VPS with cPanel installed which make it for the most part the same as managing a shared account (don't recommend it though if you want a cheaper vps because cPanel will eat up a decent portion of your resources).

If you really want to learn. I recommend http://www.howtoforge.com/ combined with google for stuff you don't get. They have tutorials on how to set up a web server for basically every popular distro. For a host look in the host sticky .

[Josh H.]

To learn some stuff, read some guides at http://library.linode.com

[pavemen]

if your site does not require the amount of resources a VPS will give you, then go with basic shared. unless you are planning on starting several new sites or hosting someone else, a VPS is throwing away money.

[weBex]

There are managed VPS, which are pretty much the same as Shared Hosting, in terms of the host setting it up for you.

Unmanaged VPS of course are cheaper but requires you to service it yourself. But if you feel the need for the help, you can always pay for Managed VPS services.

As suggested, you should consider paid shared hosting over free hosting. That should make a huge difference already. I ran huge boards on Shared Hosting for the longest time, the cost did ran up as high as 70-ish per month due to high bandwidth usage, which of course I then moved onto VPS then dedicated hosts.

Using this trick:
http://community.mybb.com/thread-133890-...#pid969004

It helped my big boards last on Shared Hosting for as long as possible.

Check out HawkHost:
http://www.hawkhost.com/shared-web-hosting

[koz]

If you're forum is small without a lot of activity and you aren't running any large web based scripts then you're better off going with a cheap shared hosting plan until your forum grows. Paying for a VPS with a website that isn't active would just be a waste of money. On top of that it's going to be a lot harder to manage your website since you have to manage the VPS too and keep it secure.

[s3_gunzel]

I've only just come across this now, and I'm typing on my phone. Please excuse the lack of grammar.

I was the member that told him a VPS was a good idea (I'm in heavy credit with my provider at the moment...) and I thought it'd be a good idea to challenge him with.

I was wrong.