Feb 4 2012
How to configure, upload and install WordPress.
First thing to do is to visit http://www.wordpress.org and download the latest version of WordPress. Don’t download it from anywhere else but wordpress.org, as you could end up with a compromised version of WordPress.
It shouldn’t take long to download, but while it is, go to your website host, and create a SQL database. How to do this varies from host to host, but WordPress.org have some instructions based on the various control panels that web hosts use – http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress.
I use 1and1 so I’ll use that to demonstrate how to create a MySQL database. After logging in, I go to MySQL Administration, and click the button New Database, which opens this page.
Description of the new Database – I called it Blah, as I will be deleting it as soon as I’ve taken screenshots. You should call it My WordPress Blog or something along those lines. It’s only use is as an identifier in your account, if you have more than one MySQL database.
Password – self-explanatory. It’s a very good idea to use a mixture of upper/lower case, numbers and symbols to create your password. Don’t be afraid of forgetting it, write it down and hide the piece of paper out of plain sight (if you get burgled then a piece of paper with your database password is the least of your worries).
Then I click setup, and get to this screen.
Now we have the important stuff – print it out if you have a printer, or save the information into a text file on your computer.
By now, the zip file containing WordPress should have downloaded, so extract the files, and you should see something like this
Rename the file wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php and open it in a text editor (DON’T use Wordpad or Word!). If you aren’t sure what to use then Notepad++ for Windows is free, or Textwrangler for Mac is free. The reason for this is that Word and other wordprocessors add extra formatting into the code, which can play havoc with the files.
At the top of the wp-config.php file is this section (yours might not be colour coded)
Where it says ‘database_name_here’ enter your database name – using my example it would say ‘db402114226′
Where it says ‘username_here’ enter your username – using my example it would say ‘dbo402114226′
Where it says ‘password_here’ enter your password – using my example it would say ‘blahblah’
Where it says ‘localhost’ enter your Host name – using my example it would say ‘db402114226.db.1and1.com’
You should now have something looking like this
Now save the file.
Connect to your website using your FTP client, and transfer all the WordPress files to your server (you can use a separate directory/folder if you want to – I use wp).
You now need to run the install script, which you do through your web browser. Go to yoursite.com/wp-admin/install.php (where yoursite.com is whatever your site is called – if you uploaded into a folder then it would be yoursite.com/thefolder/wp-admin/install.php). The installation will finish by prompting you for a Site Title, Username, Password and E-mail address. Fill it in and away you go!
