The exact requirements of your, or a, server will depend on many factors, your estimated board traffic being one. While we can offer advice about what hardware would be best to use on your server, there is no one setup that works for all.

You must have a webserver that has PHP 5.1.0 (or better) and MySQL 4.1 or higher (MySQL 5.0 or higher preferred) installed. If you are unsure whether your server has these programs installed, please check with your web host now. If you are capable, you can always download PHP and download MySQL and install it yourself. If your web host does not support PHP or MySQL, consider hosting your entire web site or forums with IPS Hosting services.

There is also a tool to check if your server is IP.Board 3.0 compatible in Tools/check_requirements.php included with this .zip distribution of IP.Board. This file would need to be uploaded via FTP and ran on your hosting account if PHP is installed on your server.

General Requirements
-You do not need a new MySQL database as IP.Board supports table prefixes to prevent tables being overwritten.
--It is suggested that you DO create a separate database to ensure security and that there's nothing more in the database to interfere with your IP.Board installation.
-You will also need the MySQL username and MySQL password for a MySQL user that has permission for "All Privileges" (this MySQL user will create, alter, and drop tables, in addition to running normal select, insert, update and delete queries).
-You will need about 25mb of free web space to allow installation.

If you are unsure on any of these points, please ask your webhost before proceeding.