1. A Linux server

APBoard runs on a Linux server. This can be:

A VPS (Virtual Private Server) at a provider like Hetzner, DigitalOcean, IONOS, Netcup etc. – this is the recommended and cheapest option (from around €4–6/month)
A dedicated server (your own physical server at a provider)
A shared hosting package with SSH access and PHP 8.5 (only for the LAMP installation)
Your own home server (Raspberry Pi or similar) – good for testing, not ideal for production

Recommendation for beginners

Hetzner Cloud (hetzner.com/cloud) is an excellent choice: affordable (from ~€4/month), reliable and easy to use. Choose a CX22 (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM) with Ubuntu 24.04 – that is more than enough for an active forum.

Minimum server requirements

Resource	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	1 core	2+ cores
RAM	1 GB	2–4 GB
Storage	10 GB	20+ GB (SSD)
OS	Ubuntu 22.04 / Debian 11	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

2. A domain name

You need a domain – the address at which your forum will be accessible, for example forum.my-community.com.

Domains are available from providers like IONOS, Hetzner, All-Inkl, Namecheap and many others. A .com domain costs around $12–15/year.

Setting a DNS record

After you have a domain and a server, you need to set a DNS A record. This tells the internet under which IP address your domain is reachable.

This is done in the domain management area of your domain provider:

Go to the DNS management of your domain
Create a new A record
Name/Host: forum (for forum.my-domain.com) or @ (for the main domain)
Value/IP: the IPv4 address of your server (found in your provider’s control panel)
TTL: leave at 300 or default

DNS takes time

After you set the DNS record, it can take up to 24 hours until the change is visible worldwide (propagation). In practice often faster (15–60 minutes), but plan enough time. You can check with nslookup forum.my-domain.com whether the domain already points to your IP.

3. SSH access

SSH (Secure Shell) is the method you use to connect to your server and run commands. It’s like a terminal window, but running on your server.

Install an SSH client

Linux / macOS: SSH is already pre-installed. Just open a terminal.
Windows: Use the Windows Terminal app (pre-installed from Windows 11) or download PuTTY.

Connect to the server

bash

ssh root@YOUR-SERVER-IP
# Example: ssh root@123.45.67.89
# Or with domain name: ssh root@my-server.example.com

On first connection, SSH asks: “The authenticity of host ... can’t be established. Are you sure you want to continue connecting?” – confirm with yes. This is normal and not an error.

4. Git (Docker installation only)

For the Docker installation you need Git to download the APBoard source code to your server. Git is a version control system.

bash

# Check if Git is installed:
git --version

# If not, install on Ubuntu/Debian:
sudo apt update && sudo apt install git

5. Summary: checklist

A Linux server (Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 recommended) with SSH access
A domain whose A record points to the server IP
An SSH client on your computer
For Docker: Git installed on the server
For LAMP: PHP 8.5, Apache 2.4, MariaDB 10.6 on the server

All ready?

If you can tick all the boxes, you can start the installation. Choose the installation path that suits you: Docker (recommended) or LAMP (classic).

Back Overview Next Installation with Docker

Documentation

What you need before installation