Getting a forum subdomain to work on cPanel
Note: In most instances, the instructions in How can I run the Discussion Forums from a subdomain will be adquate. These instructions are specifically for cPanel hosted websites.
cPanel subdomains are a bit different then standard subdomains done via htaccess. Here are the steps to make a forum work as a subdomain with cPanel.
1) Go into cPanel, and “Create a Subdomain”. Set it to forum.yourdomain.com. cPanel will want to create a directory for you at home/public_html/forum. This is a good thing.
2) FTP into this newly created directory, and follow the directions for Running Multiple Domains or Subdomains or Subsites the “classic” way.
3) You should now have identical sites at http://www.yoursite.com and forum.yoursite.com. The trick now is to point all the subdomain requests to http://www.yoursite.com/index.php/forum. There are many techniques you could use for URL rewriting, but here’s a simple .htaccess file that will move all requests
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php) [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/forum/$1 [L]
