Just signed up yesterday...

[joannegreco]

...and am waiting to be approved for the rest of the forums.

I've been back and forth a few times with support (Ticket ID: SRI-637665) but am wondering is someone here can answer some questions for me.

I already have a domain and a webpage.....foreverparents.com. I want to leave that as is.

I downloaded the phpBB software to use here at hostgator. I want the address to be foreverparents.com,/forums

I did the installation here at hostgator with help from their support team here. I chose foreverparents and in the directory field put 'forums'

It doesn't work and support said to change the nameservers. When I called homestead (which is where foreverparents.com is hosted), they said that if I change the nameservers them the forum will be foreverparents.com and that's not what I wanted. I want to leave foreverparents.com alone and make the forum, foreverparents.com/forums

I hope I explained it right. I'm not used to this at all. I've always used places like homestead, ezboard, blogger, etc...where all this is not neccessary.

Thanks for any help you can give.
Joanne (who is freaking out right now)

[JeanPierre]

hi!
Ok so this is what you would need to do. Create a folder in the main htdocs folder that says "forums". This is were the forum board would have to be installed. Then you would need to tell homestead to change the name servers to hostgators name servers. Or if homestead has a login just login and do it yourself. Installing phpbb is really easy with the fantastico tool that is in the control panel.

[joannegreco]

But from what I understand, changing the name servers will make foreverparents.com become the forum and that's not what i want. I want the forum to be foreverparents.com/forums.

Also...I have phpBB3. I already used fantastico after one of the suppport team told me to and I wrote 'forums' in the field for directory and it's not working.

[quietFinn]

Originally Posted by joannegreco

But from what I understand, changing the name servers will make foreverparents.com become the forum and that's not what i want. I want the forum to be foreverparents.com/forums.

Also...I have phpBB3. I already used fantastico after one of the suppport team told me to and I wrote 'forums' in the field for directory and it's not working.

Install the forum in directory forums, then change the nameservers as suggested, after that you can access the forum using adress foreverparents.com/forums

They don't seem to know what they are saying in homestead so just ignore them.

[tletourneau]

I think the goal is to split the hosting between two providers. The main (or root) hosting to be provided by homestead and then host a forums at hostgator. Although not impossible it would take some custom DNS entries to make it work. You would need homestead to create some A records (or CNAME) to point to the location or the forum.

[joannegreco]

Thank you all for your replies. Did you ever have one of those days where you want to beat your head against your computer? LOL...

Yes, Tom, that's what I want. I'm actually pretty happy with homestead. It's great for people like me with not of lot of know-how. Unfortunately they can not host a phpBB message board, which is why I bought space with hostgator.

This is the last e-mail i got from hostgator support when I ask them if what i want to do is possible:
Since the domain is hosted at homestead, what you are going to have to
do is setup a forwarder at homestead to point the /forum directory to
our servers. To do this, you would need to contact homestead for support
as we cannot edit files on their servers. However this is possible.

With that, I called homestead (just hung up witht them) and they said they could do it. He had me create a new page called 'forums' and then add a piece of code to it. He said that I had to replace the XXXXX in the code with the "target website".

Am I on the right track? (Pleae say yes!-lol)
Where would I find the target website address? Would this be it?
http://74.54.143.226/~joanne/forums/

[tletourneau]

That looks like it should be right as long as that is the IP address for your hostgator server.

[joannegreco]

Thanks...I'm waiting for support to e-mail me back. I'm hoping that that's it.

[GvilleRick]

While the forwarder will work it does use the IP address which means that stats will not work. I am not sure what HG's policy is on using the IP address. I would expect it is for temporary use and not ongoing use. If you want to leave the DNS as it is I would ask them to add an A record for forums to point to your IP address here (just the 74.54.143.226) and set up a subdomain in cPanel for forums and it will cause http://forums.foreverparents.com to point here.

Trying to use multiple hosts for different parts of your site gets complicated. In looking at your main page at Homestead, I think it would be much easier to create a main page here and change the nameservers to the ones your were given here. Just upload the main page to your public_html folder. It is mainly a set of links to other parts of your site (your amazon store or feedburner.) It would certainly simplify things so that you can use your email here, the forum, and add other parts as you become more familiar with what is offered here.

[joannegreco]

Rick, Thanks so much for your answer on my thread. I did a search on your posts and you seem to really understand this stuff. My brain really hurts from all this...it's like trying to have a conversation in another language when all you know is a few words. LOL

Where would my public html folder be? I had no idea I had one.

At this point, I'm thinking of paying someone to do this for me because I have no idea what I'm doing and I really don't want to mess this up.

[slapshotw]

The other choice is to make your forums at forums.yourdomain.com, instead of yourdomain.com/forums. If it's forums.yourdomain.com, you can ask homestead to set an "A Record" to your IP address for forum, and it should work the way you'd like.

[joannegreco]

That sounds like the answer I just got from hostgator support:

The way I would do this is to create a subdomain
forum.foreverparents.com, point dns for that specific subdomain to our servers, and then install phpbb on that subdomain. That way you have a real url to redirect
instead of: http://74.54.143.226/~joanne/forums/

So...the million dollar question is HOW? You guys here make it seem so easy!! Have pity and help me out. LOL

Seriously....can someone walk me through this? Maybe through e-mail or PM if that's better? I'll gladly compensate you for your time.

By the way...where would my public html folder be? That's the first I've ever heard of it.



Joanne =

[slapshotw]

You need to ask your other host to do it as they manage your DNS. It should be fairly easy for them.

On your cPanel here, you'll make a new subdomain as forums., which will make a new folder inside public_html called "forums". You'll put the files there.

[joannegreco]

I went to cpanel, clicked on sub domains, added 'forums' in the box and clicked add. (so far, so good-i hope)

1) What do I do where it says 'setup redirection'
2) where is my public html folder?

Thanks!

[GvilleRick]

You shouldn't have to add anything to the Setup Redirection section. The public_html folder is in your account. If you log into your cPanel and use the File Manager you can see it. You can also see it if you use an FTP program to log into the account.

[joannegreco]

Okay...so nothing in the redirect box. Good...that's one less step. lol

I found the public html folder....and I found the folder titled 'forum".

What the next step? Please go easy on me. Don't give me to many things at once. LOL...

[joannegreco]

Just a quick update...I just finished with chat support (Ben) and he helped me understand how to upload the files.

He tried to explain how to create a database but I went into overload and begged for mercy. LOL So, I'm off to upload these files. Wish me luck!