path: root/INSTALL.txt

// $Id$

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/).

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, 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 THE DRUPAL DATABASE

   This step is only necessary if you don't already have a database
   set-up (e.g. by your host). If you control your databases through a
   web-based control panel, check its documentation for creating databases,
   as the following instructions are for the command-line only.

   These instructions are for MySQL. If you are using another database,
   check the database documentation. In the following examples,
   'dba_user' is an example MySQL user which has the CREATE and GRANT
   privileges. Use the appropriate user name for your system.

   First, you must create a new database for your Drupal site
   (here, 'drupal' is the name of the new database):

     mysqladmin -u dba_user -p create drupal

   MySQL will prompt for the 'dba_user' database password and then create
   the initial database files. Next you must login and set the access
   database rights:

     mysql -u dba_user -p

   Again, you will be asked for the 'dba_user' database password.
   At the MySQL prompt, enter following command:

     GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON drupal.*
        TO nobody@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

   where

    'drupal' is the name of your database
    'nobody@localhost' is the username of your webserver MySQL account
    'password' is the password required to log in as the MySQL user

   If successful, MySQL will reply with:

     Query OK, 0 rows affected

   To activate the new permissions you must enter the command:

     flush privileges;

   and then enter '\q' to exit MySQL.

3. LOAD THE DRUPAL DATABASE SCHEME

   Once you have a database, you must load the required tables into it.

   If you use a web-based control panel, you should be able
   to upload the file 'database.mysql' from Drupal's 'database'
   directory and run it directly as SQL commands.

   From the command line, use (again, replacing 'nobody' and
   'drupal' with your MySQL username and name of your database):

     mysql -u nobody -p drupal < database/database.mysql

4. 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 steps:

     $db_url = "mysql://username:password@localhost/database";

   where 'username', 'password', 'localhost' and 'database' are the
   username, password, host and database name for your set up.

   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.dom 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.