WordPress Relief

Installing WordPress to Your Server

Preface

This article assumes that you already have a domain name, DNS settings, and host set up to house your website.

If you do not have these things, try:

• Bust A Name - for finding your ideal domain name (this is what you would type in to get to your site)
• 1and1 for registering your domain name that you found at Bust A Name
  • I have been with these guys for a long time, they have an easy to use interface for managing your domains, and .com domains are only $6.99/year with automatic renewal. This means you don’t have to worry about someone stealing your domain if you forget to renew it.
• Dreamhost for hosting your website/blog/etc
  • The beauty of Dreamhost is that they are extremely affordable and provide a quality product, especially for people who are just starting out.  If at some point you outgrow all 500GB of storage and the 5 TB of monthly bandwidth for between $5.95 and  $9.99 per month, then get a new host and just transfer your whole site.
  • Also, if you use the code “WPRELIEF” (without the quotes) you will get $25.00 off of the first installment of a package deal with them.

The reason I suggest doing it this way, is that you get the the most flexibility from each of the services, and you save the most money possible.  Other registrars and hosts can and will jack up their prices.  1and1 and Dreamhost have stayed at the same price or gotten cheaper for over 2 years.

Downloading WordPress

If you do not have a “1-click install” option available to you through your host, you will need to go to http://www.wordpress.org to download the wordpress system files to your computer.  Typically, the easiest to download is the .zip file.

Moving Files to the server

Unpack the zip file you downloaded from the WordPress website to a location you can easily find on your computer.

You will need FTP software and an ftp username/password in order to get the files to your server.  If you do not have the software, try FileZilla. FileZilla is both free, and easy to use.  If you do not have an FTP username/password you will need to contact your host for this information.

Add your site, username, and password to the FTP program.  Find the directory where your website will be housed (for example on this site (on Dreamhost) the files for wordpress go into the wp-relief.com/ directory).  Now, you want to highlight and drag all the files that were in the .zip file to the server window in your FTP program.  If, when you unpacked the .zip file, you got a directory called “wordpress”, move all the files INSIDE that directory NOT the “wordpress” folder itself.

When it is all done, you should see three directories and a bunch of files.  Something like this:

Using The Installer

The installer is found when you go with a browser to the location where you have uploaded all of your WordPress files.  The only time you will see these pages are when a WordPress site has not yet been properly installed.

You will know when you are at the installer, because you will not see a blog.  You will see a form asking you to name your blog, among other things.  This is a very quick and painless process to do the most basic settings for your WordPress site.

You can use the installer to do all of the server settings, however you can also manually edit your wp-config.php script.  If you manually set up the wp-config script (see next section), your trip through the installer will be relatively short.  If not, you will just enter the same data into the forms in the installer.

Once you are complete, you will get a username and password.  Typically, the username will be “admin” and the password is autogenerated for you.  YOU MUST KEEP THIS PASSWORD, until you log into the site and change it.  You will either get a link to the login page, or you can just add /wp-admin to the end of your URL to see the login page.

Setting Up Your Config File

You can skip this step by using the installer, go to “Using The Installer”.

As you will find in your directory, and in the picture above, there is a file called “wp-config.php”.  This file tells your WordPress installation where to look for the database that will house all of the information you enter in to the site.

You will need to have a host url (typically this is localhost), a database name, a database username, and a database password.  This information will come from your host.

Your completed wp-config file should look like the following, where you replace the second quoted string in each of the “define” statements with the information from your host.

// ** MySQL settings ** //
 
define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere');    // The name of the database
 
define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere');     // Your MySQL username
 
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere'); // ...and password
 
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');    // 99% chance you won't need to change this value
 
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
 
define('DB_COLLATE', '');
 
// Change SECRET_KEY to a unique phrase.  You won't have to remember it later,
 
// so make it long and complicated.  You can visit http://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.0/
 
// to get a secret key generated for you, or just make something up.
 
define('SECRET_KEY', 'put your unique phrase here'); // Change this to a unique phrase.
 
// You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique prefix
 
$table_prefix  = 'wp_';   // Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!
 
// Change this to localize WordPress.  A corresponding MO file for the
 
// chosen language must be installed to wp-content/languages.
 
// For example, install de.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to 'de'
 
// to enable German language support.
 
define ('WPLANG', '');
 
/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */
 
define('ABSPATH', dirname(__FILE__).'/');
 
require_once(ABSPATH.'wp-settings.php');

If you noticed in that file, there are a couple other values that can be changed.  More than likely you will never need to change the lines that contain DB_CHARSET, DB_COLLATE, or $table_prefix = ‘wp_’.  However, it is wise to change the value of the SECRET KEY.  As the comments say, you do not have to remember it. This is used as a security measure to protect your site from hackers. If you create it, or use one from the auto-generator (link in the comments), then it will be distinct for you, making it harder for a hacker to guess it.  Typically, you can ignore all the other lines in that file.

Once you have made the changes, move the newly edited file up to the server.  When your FTP program ass if you want to replace the file, answer yes.  You can now breeze through the installer by going to your WordPress site’s URL with a web browser.

Next Article: How to Log Into Wordpress