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In this tutorial, we will finish setting up Joomla. You'll first need to get a mysql login from your hosting provider. Mysql is an open source database. Most hosting providers provide a simple means of setting up a mysql database on your server. You'll need to set up the database, and then save the database name, the database username and the database password.
After that, completing installation is very simple. We're going to
- Change some file permissions
- Enter the database information
- Copy the configuration file to the server
- Delete the install directory
And then we're done with the base installation.
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Open a web browser and navigate to the domain where you uploaded the Joomla files. In this tutorial, we are installing Joomla into a domain where there already is a website. When we look at the domain, the old pages are still showing.
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In this case, we need to enter the full url of the Joomla start page, which is, for our example: www.nycircuits.com/index.php . This automatically redirects us to the Joomla installation page.
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Here we have scrolled down a bit. You'll notice the following items in red:
- configuration.php is unwriteable. Don't worry about this, we'll fix it later
- A couple of settings here might be in red, depending upon how your hosting is set up. In most cases you'll be able to ignore these.
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Scrolling down further, we see that we need to set a bunch of file permissions.
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Go back to your site in FileZilla, or open whatever tool you have for configuring your server.
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We need to change some permissions to make some folders writeable. The first folder in the list is administrator/backups. Navigate to the administrator folder on your server. The adminstrator folder is one of the folders that you uploaded when you uploaded Joomla.
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After you click OK, the file permissions are set. Repeat this process until you have set all of the permissions on the installation screen to Write (777).
Then, refresh the install screen. The files are now listed in green.
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Almost done - we just need to enter the mysql db information. Enter the following:
- Hostname (usually "localhost" if the server isn't shared)
- MySql user name (get this from your hosting provider)
- MySql password (get this from your hosting provider)
- MySql Database Name (get this from your hosting provider)
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Click Next. Joomla will ask you if you're sure the settings are correct.
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If you've entered everything correctly, the next screen appears. Enter the name for your site.
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Step 3 has a few more things to check and enter:
- Your domain name
- The path to your domain on your server. You usually don't need to change this, it should be correct if you've gotten this far
- Your email - this is the email your Joomla software uses to contact you (for example, to tell you when someone has entered a new article on your site), and won't be displayed on your site.
- Password - you can change this to whatever you want, but be sure to remember it.
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Joomla is now installed. However, there are two more things you need to do.
- Create the configuration file.
- Delete the installation folder
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Scroll down on the page, and you'll see the following message:
Your configuration file or directory is not writeable, or there was a problem creating the configuration file. You'll have to upload the following code by hand. Click in the textarea to highlight all of the code.
Click to highlight the code as instructed, then Right-click and choose Copy.
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Return to FileZilla. Find a file named configuration.php-dist. (It will be in the folder where you uploaded Joomla).
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Locate the same file on your machine (in the Joomla folder that you originally downloaded).
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You need to:
- Open the configuration.php-dist file
- Paste the code into it that you just copied to the clipboard in the last screen
- Rename the file to configuration.php
- Upload configuration.php
- Change the file permissions on configuration.php to Writeable (777).
If you already know how to do the above steps, you can go ahead and skip the next few pages. For a step by step walkthrough of how to do the above in FileZilla, please continue.
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You get an error message, because no editor program has been specified.
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The FileZilla Options dialog opens. Here we've choosen as our editor C:\WINDOWS\notepad.exe in the File viewing / Editing section.
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Now we can choose View / Edit of configuration.php-dist in FileZilla and notepad opens. (Don't worry if the file contents appear scrambled, we're going to overwrite them).
Delete the contents of configuration.php-dist and paste in the code you copied in the previously.
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Save the file and close notepad. Now Right-Click on configuration.php-dist and choose Rename.
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One more step. Delete the installation directory (Right-click and choose Delete). If you don't delete this directory, Joomla will not run.
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Now you can view the new Joomla installation. In the present example, there is a preexisting index.html page on this domain, so in order to view Joomla we need to type in the full url of the Joomla start page, in this case www.nycircuits.com/index.php. If you are installing Joomla into an empty domain, you can just type the domain name and you will see your new Joomla site.
You can see that Joomla has been installed with some sample conent.
In the next tutorial we'll change the template so that the site looks completely different. Then in subsequent tutorials we'll put all of the content in to build a working site.
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