Forum FAQ: How to install CMS in Root, Forums in subdirectory
 

<div>Have you been pulling out your hair trying to figure out how in the world to simply install the vBulletin Suite's CMS or "portal" page as your front page in the root directory (e.g. http://fixxer.com ) and your forums in the forums directory? (e.g. http://fixxer.com/forums/ )

Well, here's the how to guide, courtesy of me after trying to figure what all the confusing instructions in 48 different places meant. I've just done this clean install on a fresh site and it appears that it works...

1) Create a "forums" directory off the root (or call it "forum" if you prefer, whatever)
If you're a novice, the root is the top level of your web site or http://fixxer.com in my case. Using FTP it's /home/fixxeraccount/public_html/ or something similar like:
/home/fixxeraccount/www/

but you get the point.

2) Upload the entire vB 4 suite into that "forums" directory, not into the root, and install into that /forums/ directory. That would be /home/fixxeraccount/public_html/forums/

NOTE: Install the sample content. You can delete it later but at least you can tell if your install works properly.

3) Don't read the manual here since it will just confuse you, although what I'm explaining is the same thing written here: http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/o...tentmanagement

What you need to do is create five blank text files called content.php, editor.php, list.php, widget.php and index.php. If your forum directory is called "forums", you can copy the exact text corresponding to each file into that file, e.g. the four lines below content.php will be copied into the content.php file. Then you will upload all those five files into your root directory: /home/fixxeraccount/public_html/

Note: If you've installed your vb forum into a directory other than one called "forums", just replace "forums" with "forum" or whatever directory you use for each of the five files below.

Note: If you need to understand what is going on, all these files are telling the browser that the files it needs to run the CMS portion in the back end are really contained in your forums directory so use them... but still output the result in this directory, the root or front page of your web site.

content.php

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