// $Id$ CONTENTS OF THIS FILE --------------------- * Requirements * Optional requirements * Installation - Drupal administration - Customizing your theme(s) * More Information REQUIREMENTS ------------ Drupal requires a web server, PHP4 (4.3.3 or greater) or PHP5 (http://www.php.net/) and either MySQL (http://www.mysql.com/) or PostgreSQL (http://www.postgresql.org/). Your database user will also need sufficient privileges to run Drupal. Please check the INSTALL.mysql.txt and INSTALL.pgsql.txt for more detailed information. NOTE: the Apache web server and MySQL database are strongly recommended; other web server and database combinations such as IIS and PostgreSQL are possible but tested to a lesser extent. OPTIONAL REQUIREMENTS --------------------- - To use XML-based services such as the Blogger API, Jabber, and RSS syndication, you will need PHP's XML extension. This extension is enabled by default in standard PHP4 installations. - If you want support for clean URLs, you'll need mod_rewrite and the ability to use local .htaccess files. (More information can be found in the Drupal handbook on drupal.org.) INSTALLATION ------------ 1. DOWNLOAD DRUPAL You can obtain the latest Drupal release from http://drupal.org/. The files are in .tar.gz format and can be extracted using most compression tools. On a typical Unix command line, use: wget http://drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-x.x.x.tar.gz tar -zxvf drupal-x.x.x.tar.gz This will create a new directory drupal-x.x.x/ containing all Drupal files and directories. Move the contents of that directory into a directory within your web server's document root or your public HTML directory: mv drupal-x.x.x/* drupal-x.x.x/.htaccess /var/www/html 2. CREATE AND PREPARE THE DRUPAL DATABASE Before you proceed to the next step you should know: - "username" - the username for connecting to the database - "password" - the password for that username - "databasename" - the name of the database Depending on the database of your choice, please read either INSTALL.mysql.txt (for MySQL) or INSTALL.pgsql.txt (for PostgreSQL). 3. CONNECTING DRUPAL The default configuration can be found in the 'sites/default/settings.php' file within your Drupal installation. Before you can run Drupal, you must set the database URL and the base URL to the web site. Open the configuration file and edit the $db_url line to match the database defined in the previous step: $db_url = "mysql://username:password@localhost/databasename"; If you use PostgreSQL, change "mysql" to "pgsql" in the above line. Set $base_url to match the address to your Drupal site: $base_url = "http://www.example.com"; In addition, a single Drupal installation can host several Drupal-powered sites, each with its own individual configuration. If you don't need multiple Drupal sites, skip to the next section. Additional site configurations are created in subdirectories within the 'sites' directory. Each subdirectory must have a 'settings.php' file which specifies the configuration settings. The easiest way to create additional sites is to copy the 'default' directory and modify the 'settings.php' file as appropriate. The new directory name is constructed from the site's URL. The configuration for www.example.com could be in 'sites/example.com/settings.php' (note that 'www.' should be omitted if users can access your site at http://example.com/). Sites do not each have to have a different domain. You can use subdomains and subdirectories for Drupal sites also. For example, example.com, sub.example.com, and sub.example.com/site3 can all be defined as independent Drupal sites. The setup for a configuration such as this would look like the following: sites/default/settings.php sites/example.com/settings.php sites/sub.example.com/settings.php sites/sub.example.com.site3/settings.php When searching for a site configuration (for example www.sub.example.com/site3), Drupal will search for configuration files in the following order, using the first configuration it finds: sites/www.sub.example.com.site3/settings.php sites/sub.example.com.site3/settings.php sites/example.com.site3/settings.php sites/www.sub.example.com/settings.php sites/sub.example.com/settings.php sites/example.com/settings.php sites/default/settings.php If you are installing on a non-standard port, the port number is treated as the deepest subdomain. For example: http://www.example.com:8080/ could be loaded from sites/8080.www.example.com/. The port number will be removed according to the pattern above if no port-specific configuration is found, just like a real subdomain. Each site configuration can have its own site-specific modules and themes that will be made available in addition to those installed in the standard 'modules' and 'themes' directories. To use site-specific modules or themes, simply create a 'modules' or 'themes' directory within the site configuration directory. For example, if sub.example.com has a custom theme and a custom module that should not be accessible to other sites, the setup would look like this: sites/sub.example.com/: settings.php themes/custom_theme modules/custom_module NOTE: for more information about multiple virtual hosts or the configuration settings, consult the Drupal handbook at drupal.org. 4. CONFIGURE DRUPAL You should consider creating a "files" subdirectory in your Drupal installation directory. This subdirectory stores files such as custom logos, user avatars, and other media associated with your new site. The sub-directory requires "read and write" permission by the Drupal server process. You can change the name of this subdirectory at "Administer > Settings > File system settings". You can now launch your browser and point it to your Drupal site. Create an account and login. The first account will automatically become the main administrator account with total control. 5. CRON TASKS Many Drupal modules (such as the search functionality) have periodic tasks that must be triggered by a cron job. To activate these tasks, call the cron page by visiting http://www.example.com/cron.php -- this will pass control to the modules and the modules will decide if and what they must do. Most systems support the crontab utility for scheduling tasks like this. The following example crontab line will activate the cron tasks automatically on the hour: 0 * * * * wget -O - -q http://www.example.com/cron.php More information about the cron scripts are available in the admin help pages and in the Drupal handbook at drupal.org. Example scripts can be found in the scripts/ directory. DRUPAL ADMINISTRATION --------------------- Upon a new installation, your Drupal website defaults to a very basic configuration with only a few active modules, one theme, and no user access rights. Use your administration panel to enable and configure services. For example, set some general settings for your site with "Administer > Settings". Enable modules via "Administer > Modules". User permissions can be set with "Administer > Users > Configure > Permissions". For more information on configuration options, read through the instructions which accompany the different configuration settings and consult the various help pages available in the administration panel. Community-contributed modules and themes are available at http://drupal.org/. CUSTOMIZING YOUR THEME(S) ------------------------- Now that your server is running, you will want to customize the look of your site. Several sample themes are included in the Drupal installation and more can be downloaded from drupal.org. Customizing each theme depends on the theme engine. In general, each theme contains a PHP file themename.theme which defines a function header() that can be changed to reference your own logos. Most themes also contain stylesheets to tune the colors and layouts; check the themes/ directory for READMEs describing each alternate theme. MORE INFORMATION ---------------- For platform specific configuration issues and other installation and administration assistance, please consult the Drupal handbook at http://drupal.org/. You can also find support at the Drupal support forum or through the Drupal mailing lists.