Talking The Talk (A phpBB Primer) - Starting Up (
Page 4 of 9 )
Once the application has been properly installed, phpBB will automatically
log you in as the administrator and drop you into the administration module so
that you can begin configuring the system for use. In case it doesn't, point
your browser to the "admin/" directory under the installation (continuing the
example above, the complete URL would be
"http://medusa/phpBB2/admin/") and
you should see something like this:

Each section of the administration module deals with a specific aspect of the
system - here's a brief list:
Forum Administration: This section allows you to create and manage discussion
forums, organize them into categories, and decide the access levels for
each.
General Administration: This section allows you to configure the application
for service, controlling variables like file paths, posts to display per page,
date and time formats, default user and forum settings, and mail server
configuration. It also allows you to back up and restore the system database,
and configure smileys, avatars and word control lists.
Group Administration: This section allows you to organize users into groups,
and assign permissions to these groups.
Style Administration: This section allows you to define layouts and style
sheets for the system, allowing you to add new themes, alter the
currently-selected theme, and export themes.
User Administration: This section allows you to manage the users registered
in the system, assigning them appropriate permissions and setting access control
rules.
Your first stop should be the "Configuration" component of the "General
Administration" section.

As you will see, most of the items here are fairly self-explanatory. You
should go through them and alter those you see fit...although most of the time,
the defaults will do just fine. Pay special attention to the domain name, script
path and SMTP server settings, errors in this may cause the application to
malfunction.
Once you're done, save your settings, and flip the page to configure the
forums themselves.