How to Manually Install Apache, MariaDB, PHP and Discuz Forum on Linux

Prerequisite Check

First verify whether Apache is installed; restart the service if present, or remove any existing installations before proceeding.

Mount Installation Media

Mount the CD/DVD containing the required packages to /mnt (or use mount /dev/sr0 /mnt on RHEL 7) and confirm the files are accessible.

Install Required Packages

Configure a yum repository (e.g., /etc/yum.repos.d/aa.repo) that points to the mounted media, then install the web stack with:

yum -y install http*
yum -y install mysq*
yum -y install php*

Start Services

Restart Apache and start MariaDB using the appropriate commands:

service httpd restart
systemctl restart httpd.service
systemctl start mariadb
systemctl enable mariadb

Configure MariaDB

Secure the database by running mysql_secure_installation, setting a root password, removing anonymous users, disallowing remote root login, deleting the test database, and reloading privilege tables.

Deploy Discuz Forum

Copy the Discuz_X2_SC_UTF8 package to the VM, unzip it on the desktop, then copy the upload directory to /var/www/html. Adjust ownership so Apache can access the files:

chown apache upload html -R

Create Database for Discuz

Log into MariaDB and execute the following commands to create a database and user for Discuz:

show databases;
create database aidata character set utf8;
CREATE USER 'aidata'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY '123456';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'aidata'@'%';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Finalize Installation

Open a browser and navigate to the server’s IP (e.g., http://192.168.6.5/upload) to launch the Discuz installation wizard and complete the setup.