How it works
From nothing to a live forum in an afternoon
There are six steps and none of them need code. The only one worth slowing down for is DNS, which is where almost everybody's first hosting problem happens.
The six steps, in order
Do them in this order and nothing has to be undone later.
Get a domain name
Your forum needs an address of its own — yourcommunity.com or yourcommunity.co.uk. Register it with any registrar for around £8–£12 a year. Your domain stays at a registrar you choose, which means it is never tangled up with your hosting: if you leave, the address goes with you. Pick something short, easy to say out loud and not a near-miss of an existing community.
Create your free Traxio account
Order Traxio Free Start in the Traxio client area. You will be asked for the domain you just registered and nothing more — no card details, no payment method on file. The account is created automatically and the welcome email carries your DirectAdmin login and the nameservers for the next step.
Point your domain at Traxio
Log in at your registrar and replace the existing nameservers with the ones in your welcome email. This is the step that trips people up, so do it carefully and then leave it alone: DNS usually resolves within an hour or two, occasionally up to 24. SSL is issued automatically once it does, so the padlock appears without you doing anything.
Install your forum software
In DirectAdmin, open Softaculous and pick MyBB, phpBB or SMF. Fill in the forum name, the admin username, a real password and your email address, then submit. Softaculous creates the database, writes the configuration and leaves you at a working forum. This takes about five minutes, and you can do it while DNS is still settling.
Set up boards, permissions and anti-spam
Fewer boards than you think. Three or four to begin with, because ten empty ones look abandoned and you can always split a busy board later. Then turn on email verification and a CAPTCHA before you open registration — spam bots find new forums within days, and cleaning up afterwards is far more work than preventing it.
Invite your first members
Post the five or six discussions your community has over and over, so arrivals find something to reply to. Then invite a small group personally rather than announcing publicly. Twenty people talking looks like a community; two hundred registrations and no posts looks like a ghost town.
Moving an existing forum
If you already run a MyBB, phpBB or SMF board somewhere else, this is a copy job rather than a rebuild. The order matters:
- Take a full backup at the old host — files and a database export.
- Upload the files here by FTP or the DirectAdmin file manager.
- Create a database, then import the export through phpMyAdmin.
- Edit the forum's configuration file with the new database name, user and password.
- Test the copy thoroughly before you touch DNS.
- Only then switch nameservers, so the forum is never pointing at a broken copy.
Post a notice on the old forum first and turn off registrations there while you move, so nothing is written to the database you are about to abandon.
The full move sequence on traxio.co.uk covers the DNS timing in more detail. Coming from ProBoards, Forumotion or another hosted service instead? See moving from a hosted forum.
What happens at day 30
An invoice for £0.99 appears in the client area towards the end of the free period. Pay it and nothing changes. Ignore it and the account is suspended 7 days after the invoice date, then terminated after 14 — with no charge, because no card details were ever held.
If you are undecided, take a DirectAdmin backup before that deadline. It is a single file containing your whole community, and it will import into any other DirectAdmin or cPanel host.
Where to ask for help
Hosting problems — DNS, SSL, mail, databases, the server — go to the knowledgebase first and then a Help desk. Questions about running the forum itself belong in the software's own community: MyBB, phpBB and SMF all have large support forums, which is a good reason to pick a mainstream package.
Questions about getting started
How long does the whole process take?
Signing up takes a couple of minutes and the forum install takes about five. The variable is DNS: nameserver changes usually resolve within an hour or two but can take up to 24. You can install your forum before DNS finishes propagating.
Can I move an existing forum here?
Yes, if it is MyBB, phpBB, SMF or another PHP/MySQL package. Copy the files over by FTP, import the database with phpMyAdmin, update the configuration file with the new database credentials, then switch DNS. Do it in that order and the forum is only offline for the DNS change.
Do I need to install anything on my computer?
No. Everything runs in the browser through DirectAdmin — file manager, database tools and Softaculous. An FTP client is useful for bulk theme uploads but is not required.
What if I get stuck on the DNS step?
It is the step that catches most people. The knowledgebase has per-registrar instructions, and a Help Desk ticket is the right move if the nameservers look right but the domain still does not resolve.
Ready? Step two takes two minutes
Create the account, install the forum, and decide about paying in thirty days.
Create my free account Read the launch guide
Free for 30 days with no card details required. Then £0.99/month if you choose to continue.