In order to properly install and configure the banner module, you might need some knowledge of PHP, the Drupal themeing system, and of using tools such as patch. This module can be difficult to install.
The following document attempts to make the installation process more clear. Please follow these steps carefully and exactly as written before filing a support request. It is advised that you review this entire document before you try and install this module.

Preparation

Properly configure 'File system' support for your Drupal installation. Goto :: administer -> settings :: then find "File system settings". Follow the directions on this page to set a proper "File system path" and "Temporary directory". When this is properly configured, you will not see any errors.

Installation:

1. The first thing to do is to update your database, adding the 'banner' table. This can easily be done from the command line by copying the included 'banner.mysql' file to your webserver, then running a command something like:
   
   $ mysql -u<username> -p<password> <database> < banner.mysql
   
   For example, if your username is 'drupal', your password is 'secret', and
   your database is called 'drupal', you'd type the following command:
   
   $ mysql -udrupal -psecret drupal < banner.mysql
2. Move 'banner.module' into your modules/ directory.
3. Move 'banner_db.php' and 'banner_file.php' into your top level Drupal directory. Give these files proper permissions so that they can be read by the webserver. These files are added for performance reasons. By utilizing these files the banner.module can display different banners to different people even on cached pages. The actual performance gain is realized by not including Drupal's include files each time a banner needs to be displayed.
4. Now you need to log in to your site and enable the new banner.module. Goto :: administer -> modules :: then check 'banner'.

Configuration:

Configure the banner module. At minimum, it is _HIGHLY_ recommended that you enable the file caching mechanism built into this module. The rest of the settings can be left at their defaults for now. Goto :: administer -> settings -> banner . The file-caching mechanism used by this module greatly increases  banner-display performance. It is not required, but you will not get very good performance from this module without it.

Setup banner module permissions. Goto :: administer -> users -> configure -> permissions:

1. Give 'show banners' permission to users that should see the banners.
2. Give 'manage banners' permission to users that should be allowed to track view/click statistics for their own banners.
3. Give 'upload banners' permission to users that should be allowed to upload new banners. Usually you would also give those users 'manage banners' permission at the same time.
4. Give 'administer banners' permission to users that should be allowed to add/edit/delete all banners on your site.

Uploading graphical banners:

1. Upload a new banner via the administrative interface. Goto :: administer -> banners -> add.
   
   1. give the banner a descriptive title. (when you are managing lots of banners, it becomes important that this title describe the banner)
   2. enter a URL where you want clicking on the banner to take you.
   3. set the status to 'enabled' so that the banner is displayed.
   4. scroll to the bottom of the page and click 'browse' to select a banner image to upload. (it is important that the filename of your image end in three characters indicating the filetype. Supported image types are: jpg, jpeg, gif, png, bmp and tiff)
   5. click save. For now, we'll leave the rest of the options set to their defaults. Once everything is confirmed to be working on your installation, then you can worry about the more complicated configuration options.
2. Preview the newly uploaded banner. Goto :: administer -> banners. You should currently see a list of all the banners you've uploaded. Find the name of the banner you just uploaded, and click 'view' in the options column. You should now see your banner at the top of the page, along with general information and statistics about the banner. If you don't see the banner you just uploaded, something has gone wrong. If you're seeing garbage text instead of the image, then the module failed to recoginze the file type and is instead trying to display the image as text. Be sure the file name is something like "banner.jpg" or "banner.png", specifically including the three letters at the end appropriate to the file type.

Uploading text advertisements:

1. Prepare the text ad. Text ads require a little extra manual effort. Specifically, you must add a link within the the text of the ad that points to the banner's appropriate link url. After the banner is created, you can find the  banner's id at "administer -> banners". This means you will need to upload the banner twice. The first time you upload the banner you won't know the new banners id. Assuming the banner has an id of 13, you will need to include a link in the banner's text to the URL "/banner/13". For example:
   
   
   <a href="http://mysite.com/banner/13">banner text</a>

   Note: Do NOT link directly to where the banner is actually taking you, or the clicks will NOT be counted. When uploading the banner, you will be able to set the end URL.
   

2. Upload a new banner via the administrative interface. Goto :: administer -> banners -> add.
   1. give the banner a descriptive title. (when you are managing lots of banners, it becomes important that this title describe the banner)
   2. enter a URL where you want clicking on the text ad to take you.
   3. set the status to 'enabled' so that the text ad is displayed.
   4. scroll to the bottom of the page and click 'browse' to select the text file to upload. (it is advised that the filename of your text ad end in with '.txt'. If you do not do this, the banner module may not recognize your ad as being text and it may not display properly.)
   5. click save. For now, we'll leave the rest of the options set to their defaults. Once everything is confirmed to be working on your installation, then you can worry about the more complicated configuration options.
      
3. Preview the newly uploaded text ad.(Goto :: administer -> banners) You should currently see a list of all the ads you've uploaded. Find the name of the text ad you just uploaded, and click 'view' in the options column. You should now see your text ad at the top of the page, along with general information and statistics about the ad. If you don't see the text from the ad you just uploaded, something has gone wrong. Try renaming the text file to end with '.txt' and uploading it again.

Displaying banners and text ads from blocks:

The easiest way to display banners and text ads on your site (easiest because then you do not have to edit your theme) is to display them from a Drupal block. (Goto :: administer -> blocks -> add)

1. set a title for the block, such as 'Advertisement'
2. set the input format to 'PHP code'
3. In the block body, enter the following:
   
   
   <?php return banner_display(); ?>
4. optionally enter a block description
5. click 'Save block'
6. at "administer -> blocks' enable your new block
   

Displaying multiple ads on one page:

The banner module currently supports up to ten different unique groups of banners. The default display group is 0. You can also display banners from groups 1 thorugh 9. This allows you to for example display banner ads at the top of your page, and text ads in a block on the side. The display group of a given ad is set when you add the banner, or later by editing it. To display banners in a different group, you need to pass in the group number when calling banner_display. For example, to display banners from group 3 you would use the following call:

Displaying banners and text ads from your theme:

To display a banner from your theme, you will need to modify the theme. How this is done is different for each theme. Essentially though, you need to add a call to banner_display() in the appropriate place. Finding the appropriate place is the challenge. For some simple examples, refer to the sample patches that come with the banner.module. The sample patches are in contributed/theme.

Sorry, I am unable to provide sample patches for all available themes. Please refer to the provided sample patches to better understand how you can patch your favorite themes yourself.

FAQ

Q. I don't see any images. What's wrong?

A. Be sure you installed 'banner_db_php' and 'banner_file.php', and properly set the permissions on these files so they can be read by your webserver. (See above)

Q. I did install the files correctly, but I still don't see any images.What's wrong?

A. Try refreshing the banner cache. Go to: administer >> banner >> refresh cache

Q. I've refreshed my cache, but I'm still not seeing images. What's wrong?

A. Edit the banner and be sure that the MIME type was properly detected. Go to: administer >> banner >> list then click 'edit' next to problematic banner. At the bottom of the page you can update the MIME type.