A step by step dummies guide to installing WordPress

!!IMPORTANT!!: This guide assumes you will be installing WordPress to the root of your site, i.e. "/public_html/", "/httpdocs/" or whatever the root folder is on your host. If you already have a site on the root directory then you SHOULD create a new folder and install WordPress there. For example, you could create a new, empty folder named "blog" and upload all the files there and NOT under "/"

Assume you want to install WordPress on a subfolder named "blog" then all references to root directory should be appended with a "/blog"

Further example, if your root directory is "/public_html/" and you want to install WordPress on "/public_html/blog" then "/public_html/blog" is what I will be referring to as root.

If you already have a site under your root directory and you upload the WordPress files there, you'll be OVERWRITING ALL FILES in that directory.

If you are unsure about anything, please post your question as a comment and we'll respond.

Getting Started

This install guide assumes you have no experience working with WordPress, dealing with FTP, PHP or MySQL. The prerequisites for this guide are pretty much none. All you need is about 5 minutes and a cup of coffee.

FTP
FTP stands for file transfer protocol and is by far the most used protocol for transferring files from one computer to another. You have probably signed up for a domain and a web hosting account by now. I will not be covering the process of registering a domain and configuring a webhost to use that domain in this guide. Maybe I'll in a future article but for now,I will assume you have already taken care of these.

After signing up for a web hosting account, you should have gotten details regarding your account. These details include FTP Address, Username and Password.

Examples of how an FTP address and username look like are as follows. Replace example.com with your Domain name or Domain IP address.

Examples of an FTP Address
ftp.example.com or example.com or 208.77.188.166

Examples of a Username
username or username@example.com

To connect to your website using FTP, you will need to use an FTP client. When choosing an FTP client you have options of choosing either a paid or a free one. An example of a good paid FTP client is http://www.cuteftp.com/. And for a free one, http://filezilla-project.org/.

I try my best to use generic examples in this guide so it won't matter what you choose.

Once you are done installing the FTP software of your choice on your computer, all you have to do is load it up and we can set up an FTP connection to our site. Open the application and find the option that lets you create a new connection. If it asks you what type of a connection to set up, choose FTP. There are other variants of this protocol so make sure you select FTP. Or else the sky will fall on you.

Most clients let you assign a name to your connection so let your creativity do its thing and choose a good name. A wise choice would be to assign the name of your site so as to avoid confusions in the future.

Once that is done, find the field which lets you enter your FTP Address. Possible names for this field can be FTP Address or Host Address. Over there give the address that was supplied to you by your webhost. Refer to the Examples section on the top to see what an FTP address looks like.

Next you will need to input your username and password under the Username and Password fields respectively.

If your application asks which port you want to connect to, it's most likely going to be 21 unless otherwise stated by your host.

Now we are ready to connect. Click on the Connect button and you should be seeing a bunch of messages run by. If you followed everything correctly, you should be connected to your host.

Navigating to the root of your domain

Once you have successfully connected to your host, you will need to navigate to the root folder of your account. The user interface of the application will resemble a lot like the interface used by the Windows OS for navigating through files and folders. So it should be a piece of cake for you.

Your root folder will most probably be /public_html/ or /httpdocs/ unless your host uses a Windows OS. Contact your web host if you are unable to figure out the root folder.

What is a root folder?

A root folder is where you keep all your files and folders which can be accessed using your domain. Assume you wanted to upload a file named test.html to your site and you want to access it using the URL http://www.example.com/test.html then you'll need to upload test.html to /public_html/ or /httpdocs/

Your FTP client lets you upload, download, modify access permissions and delete files and folders on your account. Some clients also give the ability of editing files directly on your account

Uploading WordPress

In this section I will cover downloading, unpacking and uploading WordPress to your account.

You can download the latest version of WordPress using the following URL: http://wordpress.org/latest.zip

If you would like to download a .tar.gz instead of a zip package then you can do so from the following URL: http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Tip: When installing WordPress, always make sure you download the latest version. WordPress updates are released on a regular basis so be sure to check if whether you are downloading the latest version or not.

Once you have downloaded the package, open it using your favorite File archiver software (eg. WinZip or WinRAR). You will notice the package contains a folder named wordpress. Extract that folder to a temporary location on your computer. I will assume you extracted the folder to C:\Temp\. The local folder C:\Temp\ will now contain a folder named wordpress.

Using your FTP software, reconnect to your FTP account if you aren't connected already. We are about to upload WordPress to our site. Once connected, go to the root folder of your account. If you don't know what a root folder is, refer to its section above. I am going to assume your root folder is /public_html/. Upload all files and folders under C:\Temp\wordpress\ to /public_html/

An approximate size of all the files and folders is around 5.5 MB so it shouldn't take more than a few minutes for the upload to finish. Once the upload is finished, verify if whether all files and folders were successfully uploaded. Your FTP client will complain if any of the uploads failed.

If you followed all the given instructions properly then you are finished with this part. Congratulations!

Database

Other than the core PHP files you just finished uploading; the next major component of WordPress is its database. WordPress stores all posts, pages, settings etc in a MySQL database.

You are now required to create a new database which you can use with WordPress. To do that, you will need to log in to your hosts control panel. Chances are your host either uses cPanel, Direct Admin or Plesk. Because cPanel is the more commonly used control panel software, I'll be using that to demonstrate the examples. The URL of your cPanel will look something like this. Contact your host if you are unsure about this.

http://example.com:2082 or http://example.com/cpanel or http://208.77.188.166:2082 or http://208.77.188.166/cpanel

You will be asked to supply your username and password here. These will be the same as your FTP username and password.

Once you are successfully logged in, you will be presented with the homepage of your Control Panel. This is where you configure your account from, create databases, email addresses etc.

On the homepage, find the heading Databases and from there choose MySQL Databases. You will be presented with a page from where you can create a database.

Under the Create New Database field, enter a name and click on the Submit or Create Database button. You can name it as wordpress or yoursite but this won't be the final name of your database. Once you have successfully created a database, the final name of your database will look something like username_wordpress or username_yoursite, depending on what name you had chosen.

Now that you have created a database, you will need to create a database user and associate it with your database. MySQL databases usually revolve around two things viz. the actual database and a user.

To create a new user, from the same page you created a database from, find the heading MySQL users. Over there you will find two fields, username and password. Choose a username and a password. Example of a username would be yourname but again, this wouldn't be the final name. Once you have added a user named yourname, the final name would be username_yourname.

The final step is to associate the user username_yourname with the database username_wordpress. To do that, find the heading Add User to Database. You should see two drop down boxes there of which one would be labeled as User and the other as Database. From User choose username_yourname and from Database choose username_wordpress. Click on the Add button. You'll now be presented with a new page from where you will need to assign privileges. Select ALL for privileges and click on the Make Changes button.

You are done creating a database and a user which you can use with WordPress. By now you should have the following details.

Database Name – ex: joe_wordpress
DataBase User: ex: joe_joe
Database Password: ex: mightyjoe123

In some cases you will also need a MySQL hostname but the default MySQL hostname is usually localhost. Consult your host if you are unsure about this.

Configuring WordPress and finishing the install

Now that we are done uploading WordPress and creating a database, we need to set up a configuration file for WordPress.

Reconnect to your host and navigate to the root folder. Over there you will see a file named wp-config-sample.php. With the help of your FTP client, rename this file to wp-config.php and then open the renamed file (i.e. wp-config.php) for editing. You should now see the content of the wp-config.php file. Don't be overwhelmed with its content. I will be providing you with precise instructions for editing this file.

The first thing we will do is assign the name of your database. To do this, find the line:

define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere');

Replace the text putyourdbnamehere with the name of your database (ex: joe_wordpress)

Next we will set the MySQL User. Find the line:

define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere');

Replace usernamehere with the name of the user that you had created (ex: joe_joe)

Then we will set the password. Find the line:

define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere');

Replace yourpasswordhere with the password you had created (ex: mightyjoe123)

The final step would be to assign a MySQL hostname but with most accounts this step isn't required. You should consult your host if whether you need to supply a hostname or not. If you have to then find the line:

define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

And replace localhost with the hostname supplied by your web host.

You are done. Now you need to save this file. Once the file has been saved, you can safely disconnect. We are almost done! And yes, you can now forget all these details regarding your database.

The Climax

Open your browser and point it to http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php (replace example.com with your domain name)

You will be presented with a page that will install WordPress for you. The information that you need to input on this page is the title of your blog and an email address. Be sure to supply a valid email address because if you ever forget your password, you can have WordPress send a new password to you on this email address.

After clicking on the Install WordPress button, you will be presented with a page that contains your WordPress username and password. You should consider writing these down because the password is randomly generated by WordPress and is almost impossible to remember (and hence considered very strong).

You are done!

You have successfully installed WordPress on your domain. You can now login to your WordPress admin panel by pointing your browser to http://example.com/wp-login.php

Enter the username and password that was given to you by the WordPress installer and click on the Log In button. You will now see your administration panel from where you can post new entries to your blog, create new pages, modify settings etc.

Hope this blog post was helpful to you, - - A step by step dummies guide to installing WordPress - -

Naif Amoodi

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