Joomla installation and configuration: Difference between revisions

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Introduction

This is a short installation tutorial for the Joomla CMS.

Installation

These installation tips are for Joomla 1.5, but the principle is the same for an older version. The preparation step is exactly the same.

Preparation

Technical infrastructure

You will need a L/W/WAMP system. The minimal requirements are:

For Joomla 1x: PHP 4.2 - MySQL 3.23 - Apache 1.13.19
For Joomla 1.5: 4.4.3.

As of Nov 2007, most installations will have PHP 5.2 (or better) so shouldn't worry about this unless you you stumbled on a really bad provider or a very old server ....

There are several alternatives to get your infrastructure.

(1) If you just want to play with Joomla and you don't already have a LAMP or (M)WAMP bundle installed on your machine, you can get a Apache/MySQL/PhP + Joomla package either from

WOS
JSAS]

If you do so, you can skip the rest of this installation tutorial since these systems are pre-installed. Such packages are best if you you want to explore CMS technology on your personal computer.

(2) A similar (but more difficult) solution is to install a WAMP bundle on your PC or a LAMP under Linux or MAMP under MacOSX and then download and install Joomla!

(3) Get an account with a web hosting service.

Make sure that this service provides you with Apache/Php/MySQL, the technical infrastructure needed for Joomla.
There are free services (but with some caveats).

Download Joomla

Download Joomla from http://www.joomla.org/

As of nov 2007 you can either take the

latest 1.x version
latest 1.5x version (on nov 10 2007 it still was RC3, i.e. a release candidate, but it is stable enough).

You can find links to downloads in some boxes to the left

Database configuration

Joomla needs to install with a MySQL database. The installation procedure will create many tables. In order to do so, you must have or create a database user with full rights to the given database, so that the Joomla program can install the tables and the use the tables.

You have two options here:

(1) If you have a cheap or free provider or if you have a student account, you only may have access to single database. This means that Joomla will have to co-exist with other applications. That is not a big problem, since most applications add a prefix to each table. By default, Joomla adds the jos_ prefix.

(2) If you have your own MySQL server, then you should install Joomla in its own database and create one (see below)

In both cases you must create and/or remember:

The name of the database
The name of the database user
The password of the database user

Database configuration with a web hosting service

Some web hosting services will not allows you to create randomly named databases. E.g. Infomaniak (Geneva's most popular hosting company) let's you create about 15 databases from a special administration tool.

In such a situation use the provided database tool and:

Create a database: E.g. call it joomla if you are allowed, otherwise just pick a a free name.
Create a database user: e.g. call it j_user
Give this new database user full rights to the the database, e.g. modify the database joomla

Database creation with phpmyadmin

Most web hosting companies provide you with this webbased online database administration tool. Sometimes, a few functionalities (e.g. database creation or user privileges) are removed. In this case, see above.

phpMyAdmin is distributed with all popular WAMP systems. It's also available for some Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu). There are quite frequent updates of this system.

Note: If you don't have phpMyAdmin installed on your server, do it now. It's the same kind of installation procedure as for Joomla, except that there some more difficult permission issues.

As we said before, it is best to create a new database and a database user that has full access rights to this database. (Ignore this step if you only are allowed to use a single database with your web hosting provider).

To add a new database

Fill in the create new database field with a database name and hit return. E.g. call it joomla (not test as is the screendump below).

Create a new database

To add a new database user:

Click on the home button
Click on privileges
Click on "add new user"

Create a new database

To give this user full rights on a new database:

Click on the home button
Click on privileges
Then edit priviledges of your new user
Check most boxes (adminstration is not needed)

Create a new database

Now you should be almost ready to install Joomla!

Unzipping the Joomla Distribution

To install the Joomla distribution you have 2 options:

Unzip the distribution in a directory on you personal machine then transfer the files with FTP
Unzip the distribution directly on the server.

In both cases you must create a new directory on the server, e.g. call it "j" or "joomla".

Most often, you will have to dezip Joomla on your own machine first before you can transfer it.

Transfer the files now to new joomla directory (in either way).