This guide will show you how to install an SMF forum in the event that you do not have Fantastico or cannot, for some reason, install SMF from it.
Step 1:
The first step is to make sure you have access to a MySQL database and enough rights for it (I don’t know exactly what you need but if you have full access rights you will obviously be okay.) To create a MySQL database on your host through cPanel (comes with all Astahost accounts) login to cPanel by going to yoursite.com/cpanel or yoursite.astahost.com/cpanel and entering your username and password. Under site management, click on the MySQL Databases icon. In the new window (or tab) fill in a name for your database (maybe the name of your forum). Note any information about the name of your database (in Astahost cPanel there is a notice telling you that your username followed by an underscore is added to the front of your database’ name). Logout of cPanel.
Step 2:
Download SMF from simplemachines.org. Then upload the files to your webspace. This can be done through an FTP client or through cPanel’s File Manager (I would recommend cPanel because it is easier to extract the file and saves you uploading the extracted version if you do not know how to extract it with an FTP client.) To do it through cPanel, login and open File Manager under Site Management. Navigate to the parent directory of the place you want your forum to appear (often public_html) and create a folder with whatever name you want (this will contain the forum and people viewing the forum will need to navigate to this folder). Navigate into this new folder. Then upload the SMF install zipped file. Next, extract the contents by clicking on the install file’s name and clicking on extract contents on the right hand side of the File Manager window.
Step 3:
Navigate to the following address in your browser: blahblahblah.com/forum where blahblahblah.com is the address of your main website and forum is the name of the folder you created earlier. However: if you did not create the folder in public_html, you will have to work out where to navigate to yourself. An installation page should be on-screen. Fill in all the details, and proceed through the pages, remembering that your MySQL database name may have your username followed by an understroke or some other prefix before the bit of the name that you specified.
You have now installed SMF. Congratulations! biggrin.gif You can now access your forum by navigating to the folder where you extracted all of the files. Don’t forget to check that the file install.php has been deleted, as it is a major security risk to leave it how and where it was.
Happy foruming! 
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