Under most circumstances, WordPress installation is a simple process to complete. These days, many hosting providers offer tools to automatically install WordPress for you, for example Fantastico or Softaculous. However, this guide will help if you would like to install WordPress yourself. Because WP introduced Automatic Upgrade, the upgrading process is even easier.
Note: This article is based on WordPress v3.7 but the steps are general and valid for the entire WordPress 3 series. However, if something is drastically changed in near future we’ll update the tutorial accordingly.
WordPress requirements
Here are requirements for WordPress:
- PHP 5.2.4 or greater
- MySQL 5.0 or greater
- The mod_rewrite Apache module
The requirements have changed as of WordPress 3.2. The minimum requirements for WordPress 3.1 are PHP 4.3 and MySQL 4.1.2.
Things to know and to do before installing WordPress
There are some thing you need to have prepared before you begin the install:
- access to your web server (via shell or FTP)
- an FTP Client (e.g. Filezilla)
- a text editor (GEdit, Notepad, Vim)
- a web browser
Begin your installation by:
- ensure that the minimum requirements are satisfied
- download WordPress from http://wordpress.org/download/
- unzip the downloaded file to a folder on your hard drive.
- prepare a secure password for your Secret Key
Note: you can print this page out if you have it handy during the installation
1) Download and Extract
Download and decompress the WordPress zip file from http://wordpress.org/download/.
- If you will be uploading WordPress to a remote web server, download the WordPress package to your computer with a web browser and unzip the package.
- If you will be using FTP, skip to the next step – uploading files is covered later.
- The WordPress package will extract into a folder called wordpress in the same directory that you downloaded compressed file.
2) Create the Database and a User
The next step is creating the database for WordPress and a user and assign valid permissions to the user over the database. Creating the db and a user is out of the scope of this article, because there are many different ways and tools to do this depending on your hosting provider. It’s the best to contact them or to follow instructions on their site.
3) Set up wp-config.php
WordPress needs a valid config file where it reads necessary information from. This file can be created either manually (as this step describes) or WP can do this automatically when you run the installation script (as it’s described in Step 5).
Note: This step is not necessary if you would like to create the wp-config.php automatically, so you can go directly to the next step.
Go to the location where you extracted the WordPress package, find the file wp-config-sample.php, rename it 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). If a port, socket, or pipe is necessary, append a colon (:) and then the relevant information to the hostname.
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.
4) Upload the files
Now you will need to decide where on your domain you’d like your WordPress-powered site to appear:
- In the root directory of your web site. (For example, http://yoursite.com/)
- In a subdirectory of your web site. (For example, http://yoursite.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.
Note: If your FTP client has an option to convert file names to lower case, make sure it’s disabled.
5) Run the Install Script
Point a web browser to start the installation script.
- If you uploaded the WordPress files in the root directory, you should visit: http://exayoursitemple.com/wp-admin/install.php
- If you uploaded the WordPress files in a subdirectory called blog, for example, you should visit: http://yoursite.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php
6) Setup configuration file
In case that WP is not able to find the wp-config.php file, it will inform you and offer to create and edit the file.
Note: You can do also do this directly by loading wp-admin/setup-config.php in your web browser.
You need to enter the database details and go ahead with the installation. If this process can’t pass from some reason go back, create, edit and upload the wp-config.php file yourself. (step 3)
7) Finishing installation
The last screen will offer you to enter the site title, desired username, password and email address. There is also a check-box asking if you would like the site to appear in search engines. If you want the blog to be visible to everyone, leave the check-box selected, but if you would like to block search engines and allow normal visitors, uncheck the check-box. Of course, all this information can be changed later in the Admin Panel.
Enter site, login, email and press the Install WordPress button.
Your WordPress site is now up and running. Happy blogging!
