Install on a Cloud Server

Run eveBB on your own £5-a-month cloud server in about ten minutes, without installing anything by hand. You paste one file when creating the server; it does the rest — web server, PHP, database, and the latest eveBB release (integrity-verified) — and leaves you at the forum's two-minute web installer.

Works on any provider that supports cloud-init user data with an Ubuntu 24.04 image: DigitalOcean, Linode/Akamai, Vultr, Hetzner Cloud, and most others.

Step 1 — copy the install file

Copy the raw contents of deploy/cloud-init/evebb-cloud-init.yaml from the eveBB repository. The whole file, starting with #cloud-config.

Step 2 — create the server, pasting the file as "user data"

Create the smallest server your provider offers (1 GB RAM is plenty to start) with Ubuntu 24.04 (LTS) as the image, and paste the file into the user-data box:

• DigitalOcean — Create → Droplets → choose Ubuntu 24.04 → tick Advanced Options → Add Initialization scripts (free) and paste there.
• Linode / Akamai — Create → Linode → Ubuntu 24.04 → under Add User Data, paste there.
• Vultr — Deploy New Server → Ubuntu 24.04 → Settings → User Data / Startup Script (cloud-init), paste there.
• Hetzner Cloud — Add Server → Ubuntu 24.04 → Cloud config, paste there.

Add your SSH key when offered, and create the server.

Step 3 — wait 2–4 minutes, then fetch your database credentials

The server boots quickly, but provisioning continues in the background for a few minutes. Then SSH in:

ssh root@YOUR.SERVER.IP

You'll be greeted by the eveBB banner. Your database credentials were generated uniquely for this server:

cat /root/.evebb_credentials

(If you'd rather not use SSH, every provider listed has a web console button that gets you the same root shell. To watch provisioning progress: tail -f /var/log/cloud-init-output.log.)

Step 4 — run the installer

Open http://YOUR.SERVER.IP/ in a browser. eveBB's installer appears: enter the database details from the credentials file, choose your board title, admin username and password, and install. That's it — you're posting.

After installing, you can delete the credentials note: rm /root/.evebb_credentials.

What you get

• nginx + PHP-FPM + MariaDB, configured for eveBB, firewall (ufw) enabled with only SSH and web traffic allowed.
• The latest eveBB release, downloaded from the official releases and verified against its published SHA-256 checksum before use.
• Future updates through the forum itself — Administration → Maintenance offers each new release with one click, checksum-verified. You never need to touch the server for an eveBB update.

Notes

• Email: the server delivers mail locally only. Cloud providers commonly block direct outbound mail (port 25), so for registration emails point the board at any SMTP service in Administration → Email — your provider's, or a free-tier transactional mail service.
• HTTPS: once you point a domain at the server, certbot works as on any nginx server: apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx && certbot --nginx. Then set the board's Base URL (Administration → Options) to the https:// address.
• Backups: the Scheduled Backup plugin from the plugin catalogue gives you automatic database backups; your provider's server snapshots work too.

Something not right?

Provisioning logs are in /var/log/cloud-init-output.log. Help is at the community forum, Discussions, or the issue tracker.