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  1. #1

    Web Forums Hosting

    Is there a tutorial for hosting your own web forums, including some things to take into consideration?

    Otherwise, I see multiple tutorials online, and have a machine mostly capable...
    I would probably use CentOS on a virtual machine, from what I know.

    The choice/style of forums is already chosen, though unless for more advanced features..

    A more advanced example would be the Curse forums system. It looks fancy anyway.

  2. #2
    This is probably simpler than I am imagining.

  3. #3
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    I can't say I've ever used tutorials to setup my own forums in the past. But what I can say is that forums do not really need that many resources, unless you add tons of plugins and have hundreds-thousands of members.
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  4. #4
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    Do you know what all is required? Forums are easy to hack and overrun with spam. There's more than just hosting to consider.

    For the hosting, you need to have adequate MySQL connection (assuming typical MySQL/PHP forum), as well as plenty of CPU and RAM. Forums can, and often are, a pig. If shared, use semi-dedicated/enterprise shared hosting. I completely disagree with the poster above.
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  5. #5
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    What you may want to also consider doing is bringing someone in with you as your Tech Admin (they should know the technical aspects of whichev er forum software you're using, and it'd help if they have a passion for the content your forums will cover).

    Trying to start from the ground up by yourself can be a daunting challenge. Perhaps you should consider joining another (not necessarily) competing forum and work your way up as a Moderator/Global Moderator/Admin (Be careful, but be honest with the site's owner). Maybe even consider joining a forum for a different subject matter than what you're planning to cover with your own forums.

    At the end of the day, you need to have experience helping run a forum before you consider running your own forums.
    Doug Hazard - "retired" Web Hosting Master
    * Full Stack (Web/WP) Dev for The Catholic Diocese of Richmond (160+ sites)
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  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Duze View Post
    Is there a tutorial for hosting your own web forums, including some things to take into consideration?

    Otherwise, I see multiple tutorials online, and have a machine mostly capable...
    I would probably use CentOS on a virtual machine, from what I know.

    The choice/style of forums is already chosen, though unless for more advanced features..

    A more advanced example would be the Curse forums system. It looks fancy anyway.
    Most forum software runs fine on a linux server with an operating system such as CentOS. A VPS is a fine choice for operating a forum.

    You can start with shared hosting if you are using one of the lighter weight forums, such as MyBB, phpBB, SMF, Vanilla or some of the paid ones such as IP.Board. (I'm not sure if Xenforo and vBulletin now require a VPS or higher.)

    My general rule of thumb is that a forum with about 40 concurrent users will start to consume resources that a shared host won't tolerate. Until that time, shared hosting is fine.

    After that point, and when you get into hundreds of people on line at the same time, forums are probably the most resource intensive application "normal people" are ever going to run on a webserver.

    I have a forum that consumes over 20 GB of bandwidth a month, with over 3,200 members, 7,500 posts and over 9,000 images. It really is too big for shared hosting, as concurrent members on line gets over 100 from time to time.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by fshagan View Post
    I have a forum that consumes over 20 GB of bandwidth a month
    Just slightly off topic, but man, I miss those days. I Tech Admin a forum that bursts up to 25 Mb/s during the weekends of football season. We tend to push around 8-13 TB/mo during peak times.

    Ahh, those were the days when we went through 20 gigs/mo, haha!
    Doug Hazard - "retired" Web Hosting Master
    * Full Stack (Web/WP) Dev for The Catholic Diocese of Richmond (160+ sites)
    * Sports Photographer, Media Personality and CFB Historian
    * Tech Admin for several Sports Networks/Sites

  8. #8
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    If you want to use free software, look into MyBB or SMF. If you want to use paid software then i'd say XenForo or V-Bulletin.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Douglas View Post
    Just slightly off topic, but man, I miss those days. I Tech Admin a forum that bursts up to 25 Mb/s during the weekends of football season. We tend to push around 8-13 TB/mo during peak times. Ahh, those were the days when we went through 20 gigs/mo, haha!
    Yes! Admin'ing forums is sometimes not fun, and a complete time suck.

    I was actually in charge of a fantasy football forum, but this year decided not to "bang the drum" to get participation. That one was never huge anyway, and I just honestly didn't care about fantasy sports anymore. I've moved on. I may just sell it off, because I have 3 other forums (non-sports) where I'd rather invest my time. It has a great name and everything. I'd even mocked up a design a year ago, but just never implemented it. Why? Not enough time.

    Even as "small" as it was, it needed more than shared hosting at peak times. Otherwise it'd crawl.
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  10. #10
    for forum, main thing is load and spam

    because http requests is more for forum, so it's a highly database intensive in peak loads, so check all your js (javascripts) are pointed to google js library , it save a big bandwidth/http requests/and js is handled by google servers so that load faster and you can even handle more user..

    so use google free js library for js files.

    2)
    use spam plugins, and moderate all new threads created by user atleast till 5 posts, because more than 50 % of spams are posted by bots, so use captcha whenever possible atleast till first 5 posts.
    Simple and awesome
    Google

  11. #11
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    The Google servers can be slower than your own servers. Same for Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc.
    Those servers can really slow down your own sites.
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  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Douglas View Post
    What you may want to also consider doing is bringing someone in with you as your Tech Admin (they should know the technical aspects of whichev er forum software you're using, and it'd help if they have a passion for the content your forums will cover).

    Trying to start from the ground up by yourself can be a daunting challenge. Perhaps you should consider joining another (not necessarily) competing forum and work your way up as a Moderator/Global Moderator/Admin (Be careful, but be honest with the site's owner). Maybe even consider joining a forum for a different subject matter than what you're planning to cover with your own forums.

    At the end of the day, you need to have experience helping run a forum before you consider running your own forums.
    The good news is I've been a part of forums for years, and once moderated a forums. Although the above were fairly easy tasks, I've dealt with moderators and tend to know junk posts from otherwise. Example is the prolific FacePunch forums I occasion, which has a fairly strict policy on bans I might imitate. And the forums I am a part of are willing to give good advice on how they handle spam.

    A parent forums I'm basing my forums off of may have a few volunteer moderators..

    I will probably use SMF, I like their format..

    Good to know forums are pigs. Might want to up my resources
    Last edited by Duze; 09-23-2013 at 05:52 PM.

  13. #13
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    Some forum software packages, not all, can be resource hogs. Best recommendation I'll give you is to find a provider you can GROW with.

    The forum I was talking about (the largest one of its kind, UNofficial fan site for the Arkansas Razorbacks), was on a single server when I joined their Admin team 10 years ago. It's since grown beyond the needs of a single, double and even a small cluster. We actually get more traffic than the official Athletics site does. We even changed clusters (trial run right now) a couple weeks ago. I've actually lost count as to how many actual web servers we have now, because we're not done configuring/adding them, haha!

    I should also note that even though we're trialing this new cluster, the forums we run just rolled over 7 million posts (Friday). And added another 12K on top of that since.

    Like I said, I reminisce for the days when we went through so little BW back then. But with the price of success comes the price of growth/expansion pains.

    Do your homework. Find someone that you can grow with from shared to VPS to dedicated to clustered hosting. If your site grows like you think it will, you need a host that would work with you on this.
    Doug Hazard - "retired" Web Hosting Master
    * Full Stack (Web/WP) Dev for The Catholic Diocese of Richmond (160+ sites)
    * Sports Photographer, Media Personality and CFB Historian
    * Tech Admin for several Sports Networks/Sites

  14. #14
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    Many hosting companies that have experience can help you use a 1-click installer (like softaculous) to initially install and then harden the installation. Hardening is important. You would then have to set up all of the settings. Most have good documentation. Work with your host to either have them update the script, or you can do it. But because hardening can sometimes change locations of things (this is a good thing) updates can take a while. But a fully managed host that already knows the software will go along and upgrade everyone as issues arise.

    So I recommend really good security on your side and the hosting company. That partnership of communication will help keep the forum from getting hacked. And if it does they and you will already know what things you are doing so finding solutions will be easier.

    Of course you need regular, minimally daily backups.
    Last edited by gPowerHost; 09-23-2013 at 06:24 PM. Reason: spelling

  15. #15
    -message reserved for later-

  16. #16
    (forgot you couldn't edit posts after a certain length. regardless)

    I did some research for a baseline start, and got some nice estimates. $830 starting, $300 for a storage improvement.

    1tb Enterprise HDD
    Apparently some well-known PSU (450 Antec)
    Xeon M-ATX Motherboard
    2U Rack Case
    Kingston RAM
    Xeon CPU

    Upgrade:
    RAID controller
    another enterprise drive.

    I wasn't altogether sure what to aim for with a CPU. I'm not all too aware what software/processes a forums handles. I would grab a dual slot motherboard, but the growth of the forums is projected to be slow/minimal (I lack funds).
    Last edited by Duze; 09-23-2013 at 09:05 PM.

  17. #17
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    Please avoid one click installers, if at all possible. You need to have 100% control of your forum software.

    Daze, I thought you were looking at strictly shared web hosting, and then to move up as your site grew? I would hold off on outlaying the expenses on a collocation box until you have a legit need for it.
    Doug Hazard - "retired" Web Hosting Master
    * Full Stack (Web/WP) Dev for The Catholic Diocese of Richmond (160+ sites)
    * Sports Photographer, Media Personality and CFB Historian
    * Tech Admin for several Sports Networks/Sites

  18. #18
    That would definitely be relevant, and actually quicker, given the nature of beginning.

  19. #19
    Better explanation:

    Some excess money is available to me is for a temporal time only, and I have several uses for a dedicated server as of now (so I will use a local, small time host), but given the nature of collocation costs, I will use shared web hosting.

  20. #20
    Here's an idea I've run into. My budget would allow for me to buy several servers from Ebay, of varying strength... But it brings up a point of backup.

    I take it I can run an SQL program to send a backup to an FTP server within a collocation (or other environment), then manage transfering that backup to something offsite, or skip step 1 and simply transfer to an offsite FTP. There are probably threads for this kind of discussion, but maybe this is a somewhat simply answer. And of course there's the issue of security, but I'll research securing FTPs/backups at a later point.

    And of course before making the monetary decisions, I'll run down some more basics.
    Last edited by Duze; 09-24-2013 at 03:29 AM.

  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Douglas View Post
    Just slightly off topic, but man, I miss those days. I Tech Admin a forum that bursts up to 25 Mb/s during the weekends of football season. We tend to push around 8-13 TB/mo during peak times.

    Ahh, those were the days when we went through 20 gigs/mo, haha!
    I'll bet you're not running it on a VPS either, are you?

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Duze View Post
    The good news is I've been a part of forums for years, and once moderated a forums. Although the above were fairly easy tasks, I've dealt with moderators and tend to know junk posts from otherwise. Example is the prolific FacePunch forums I occasion, which has a fairly strict policy on bans I might imitate. And the forums I am a part of are willing to give good advice on how they handle spam.

    A parent forums I'm basing my forums off of may have a few volunteer moderators..

    I will probably use SMF, I like their format..

    Good to know forums are pigs. Might want to up my resources
    SMF does pretty good at spam, but you will still fight it. I would never go back to SMF for my busiest forum just because the $50 per year I pay for IP.board is worth every penny ... I get three or four spam posts PER YEAR using their spam service.

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by fshagan View Post
    I'll bet you're not running it on a VPS either, are you?
    Interestingly enough, the answer is both yes and no. Not sure I want to take this thread off topic, though. Find the appropriate forum and ask me there.

    Quote Originally Posted by fshagan View Post
    SMF does pretty good at spam, but you will still fight it. I would never go back to SMF for my busiest forum just because the $50 per year I pay for IP.board is worth every penny ... I get three or four spam posts PER YEAR using their spam service.
    Funny that you mention SMF, because that's the forum software we run on the sites I indicated above and we have very few spamming issues, even with no custom Mod packages installed. If it's good enough for a 7 million post forum (between 1500 - 7500 people online at any time), two 1 million plus post forums (on the same cluster), well then...
    Last edited by Douglas; 09-26-2013 at 12:38 PM.
    Doug Hazard - "retired" Web Hosting Master
    * Full Stack (Web/WP) Dev for The Catholic Diocese of Richmond (160+ sites)
    * Sports Photographer, Media Personality and CFB Historian
    * Tech Admin for several Sports Networks/Sites

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by fshagan View Post
    SMF does pretty good at spam, but you will still fight it. I would never go back to SMF for my busiest forum just because the $50 per year I pay for IP.board is worth every penny ... I get three or four spam posts PER YEAR using their spam service.
    Yeh.....IPB is by far the best option these days!

  25. #25
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    I think you should go ahead with a vps. As correctly said in the above conversation, when your no of users will increase you will require a little more usage of resource which most of the shared hosts won't allow for obvious reasons because they don't want to affect others clients due to just one of them. Secondly from your point of view also in case if your usage increase and you are banned for time being from your services, your entire concept of hosting goes null in case of your case study. The only problem lies is the plan and price, for the you can browse the a variety of hosts and I am quite sure that they might have some plans that suits your needs and fits in your budget. Have a look at them.
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