
Originally Posted by
just4kix
The forum, its software, members' registration info, threads/posts, etc. everything is the data. It is stored on the hosting site provider. For example, the hosting provider for this forum is hostgator.com.
When you sign up for hosting, they will give you a server with disk space for you and give you a telnet and ftp access. This server is like a virtual server (tip: seek more info on vitualization and VMWare). It is as if you own a server now.
With this server you can now do anything you like.
In case of forum software, the best are vBulletin (paid) and phpBB (free). When you download the forum software, you get the forum installation script. You need to ftp this script to the host and run this script there and the forum is now up and running.