Free Technology Tutorials

Note: The following is made available under GPL from http://codex.wordpress.org/GPL. It may be edited a little from its original form, but probably not a lot. There is no guarantee this information is accurate…use at your own risk.
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Step 1: Download and Extract

Download and unzip the WordPress package from http://wordpress.org/download/.

* If you will be uploading WordPress to a remote web server, download the WordPress package to your computer with your favorite web browser and unzip the package.
* If you have shell access to your web server, and are comfortable using console-based tools, you may wish to download WordPress directly to your web server using wget (or lynx or another console-based web browser) if you want to avoid FTPing:
o wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
o Then unzip the package using:
tar -xzvf latest.tar.gz

The WordPress package will extract into a folder called wordpress in the same directory that you downloaded latest.tar.gz.

Step 2: Create the Database and a User

If you are using a hosting provider, you may already have a WordPress database set up for you, or there may be an automated setup solution to do so. Check your hosting provider’s support pages or your control panel for clues about whether or not you’ll need to create one manually.

If you determine that you’ll need to create one manually, follow the instructions for accessing phpMyAdmin on various servers, or follow the instructions for Using cPanel or Using phpMyAdmin below.

If you are installing WordPress on your own web server, follow the Using phpMyAdmin or Using the MySQL Client instructions below to create your WordPress username and database.

If you have only one database and it is already in use, you can install WordPress in it – just make sure to have a distinctive prefix for your tables, to avoid over-writing any existing database table.
Using cPanel

If your hosting provider uses cPanel, you may follow these instructions to create your WordPress username and database.

1. Log in to your cPanel.
2. Click MySQL Databases.
3. If a user relating to WordPress does not already exist under the Users section, create one:
1. Chose a username for WordPress (‘wordpress’ is good) and enter it in the UserName field.
2. Choose a difficult-to-guess password (ideally containing a combination of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols), and enter it in the Password field.
3. Write down the username and password you chose.
4. Click Add User.
4. If a database relating to WordPress does not already exist under the Databases section, create one:
1. Choose a name for your WordPress database (‘wordpress’ or ‘blog’ are good), enter it in the Db field, and click Add Db.
5. Under Databases, select your WordPress username from the User dropdown, then select your WordPress database from the Db dropdown. Make sure All is checked under Privileges, then click Add User to Db.
6. When you return to the main MySQL Account Maintenance screen, cPanel will list information about the database you just created. You should see the username you just added to the database (with ALL PRIVILEGES), as well as a few sample Connection Strings for you to use in Perl or PHP scripts to connect to the database. The PHP code will have the following format:

$dbh = mysql_connect(“hostname”, “username”, “<PASSWORD HERE>”) or die (“message”);
mysql_select_db(“databasename”);

Write down the values of hostname, username, databasename, and the password you chose. (Note that hostname will usually be localhost.)

Using phpMyAdmin

If your web server has phpMyAdmin installed, you may follow these instructions to create your WordPress username and database.

Note: These instructions are written for phpMyAdmin 2.6.0; the phpMyAdmin user interface can vary slightly between versions.

1. If a database relating to WordPress does not already exist in the Database dropdown on the left, create one:
1. Choose a name for your WordPress database (‘wordpress’ or ‘blog’ are good), enter it in the Create new database field, and click Create.
2. Click the Home icon in the upper left to return to the main page, then click Privileges. If a user relating to WordPress does not already exist in the list of users, create one:
1. Click Add a new User.
2. Chose a username for WordPress (‘wordpress’ is good) and enter it in the User name field. (Be sure Use text field: is selected from the dropdown.)
3. Choose a difficult-to-guess password (ideally containing a combination of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols), and enter it in the Password field. (Be sure Use text field: is selected from the dropdown.) Re-enter the password in the Re-type field.
4. Write down the username and password you chose.
5. Leave all options under Global privileges at their defaults.
6. Click Go.
3. Return to the Privileges screen and click the Check privileges icon on the user you’ve just created for WordPress. In the Database-specific privileges section, select the database you’ve just created for WordPress under the Add privileges to the following database dropdown. The page will refresh with privileges for that database. Click Check All to select all privileges, and click Go.
4. On the resulting page, make note of the host name listed after Server: at the top of the page. (This will usually be localhost.)

Using the MySQL Client

You can create MySQL users and databases quickly and easily by running mysql from the shell. The syntax is shown below and the dollar sign is the command prompt:

$ mysql -u adminusername -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 5340 to server version: 3.23.54

Type ‘help;’ or ‘\h’ for help. Type ‘\c’ to clear the buffer.

mysql> CREATE DATABASE databasename;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON databasename.* TO “wordpressusername”@”hostname”
-> IDENTIFIED BY “password”;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> EXIT
Bye
$

The example shows:

* that root is also the adminusername. It is a safer practice to choose a so-called “mortal” account as your mysql admin, so that you are not entering the command “mysql” as the root user on your system. (Any time you can avoid doing work as root you decrease your chance of being exploited). The name you use depends on the name you assigned as the database administrator using mysqladmin.
* wordpress or blog are good values for databasename.
* wordpress is a good value for wordpressusername but you should realize that, since it is used here, the entire world will know it too.
* hostname will usually be localhost. If you don’t know what this value should be, check with your system administrator if you are not the admin for your Wordpress host. If you are the system admin, consider using a non-root account to administer your database.
* password should be a difficult-to-guess password, ideally containing a combination of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. One good way of avoiding the use of a word found in a dictionary, uses the first letter of each word in a phrase that you find easy to remember.

If you need to write these values somewhere, avoid writing them in the system that contains the things protected by them. You need to remember the value used for databasename, wordpressusername, hostname, and password. Of course, since they are already in ) or will be, shortly) your wp-config.php file, there is no need to put them somewhere else, too.
Using Plesk

Step 3: Set up wp-config.php

You can either create and edit the wp-config.php file yourself, or you can skip this step and let WordPress try to do this itself when you run the installation script (step 5) (you’ll still need to tell WordPress your database information).

(For more extensive details, and step by step instructions for creating the configuration file and your secret key for password security, please see Editing wp-config.php.)

Return to where you extracted the WordPress package in Step 1, rename the file wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php, and open it in a text editor.

Enter your database information under the section labeled

// ** MySQL settings – You can get this info from your web host ** //

DB_NAME
The name of the database you created for WordPress in Step 2 .
DB_USER
The username you created for WordPress in Step 2.
DB_PASSWORD
The password you chose for the WordPress username in Step 2.
DB_HOST
The hostname you determined in Step 2 (usually localhost, but not always; see some possible DB_HOST values).
DB_CHARSET
The database character set, normally should not be changed (see Editing wp-config.php).
DB_COLLATE
The database collation should normally be left blank (see Editing wp-config.php).

Enter your secret key values under the section labeled

* Authentication Unique Keys.

Save the wp-config.php file.

Step 4: Upload the files

Now you will need to decide where on your web site you’d like your blog to appear:

* In the root directory of your web site. (For example, http://example.com/)
* In a subdirectory of your web site. (For example, http://example.com/blog/)

Note: The location of your root web directory in the filesystem on your web server will vary across hosting providers and operating systems. Check with your hosting provider or system administrator if you do not know where this is.
In the Root Directory

* If you need to upload your files to your web server, use your favorite FTP client to upload all the contents of the wordpress directory (but not the directory itself) into the root directory of your web site.
* If your files are already on your web server, and you are using shell access to install WordPress, move all of the contents of the wordpress directory (but not the directory itself) into the root directory of your web site.

In a Subdirectory

* If you need to upload your files to your web server, rename the wordpress directory to your desired name, then use your favorite FTP client to upload the directory to your desired location within the root directory of your web site.
* If your files are already on your web server, and you are using shell access to install WordPress, move the wordpress directory to your desired location within the root directory of your web site, and rename the directory to your desired name.

Step 5: Run the Install Script

Point your favorite web browser to start the installation script.

* If you placed the WordPress files in the root directory, you should visit: http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php
* If you placed the WordPress files in a subdirectory called blog, for example, you should visit: http://example.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php

Setup configuration file

If WordPress can’t find the wp-config.php file, it will tell you and offer to try to create and edit the file itself. (You can do also do this directly by loading wp-admin/setup-config.php in your web browser.) WordPress will ask you the database details and write them to a new wp-config.php file. If this works, you can go ahead with the installation; otherwise, go back and create, edit, and upload the wp-config.php file yourself (step 3).

Finishing installation

The following screenshots show how the installation progresses. Notice in the screen, Entering the details, you enter your Weblog title and your e-mail address. Also displayed is a check-box asking if you would like your blog to appear in search engines like Google and Technorati. Leave the box checked if you would like your blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines, and uncheck the box if you want to block search engines, but allow normal visitors. Note all this information can be changed later in your Administration Panels.