Installing Drupal

Pre-installation software checklist

Drupal requires the following to be set-up and running prior to beginning your installation:

• Apache web server.
• MySQL databases are recommended.
• PHP 4 (4.3.5 or greater) or PHP 5 (http://www.php.net/).

Installation Steps

These are the quick “get-up-and-running” installation steps for Drupal. A more comprehensive installation guide is available from Drupal.org.

1. Obtain the latest Drupal release and extract the contents of the compressed file.

2. Move the contents of  the drupal-x.x directory into a directory within your web server's document root or public HTML directory (ensure that the .htaccess file, a hidden file, is successfully moved into the destination directory as well).

mv drupal-x.x/\\* drupal-x.x/.htaccess /var/www/html

3. Make a copy of the default.settings.php file in the sites/default directory and name the copy settings.php.

cp sites/default/default.settings.php sites/default/settings.php

4. Give the web server “write privileges” to sites/default/settings.php and the sites/default/ directory:

chmod u+w sites/default/settings.php
chmod u+w sites/default

5. Create a database for Drupal. Make note of your username and password as you will need it when the Drupal install script runs.

mysqladmin -u <mysqlusername> -p create <databasename>
mysql -u <mysqlusername> -p

enter your password

grant all on <databasename>.* to <db_user_name>@<server> identified by '<password>';

flush privileges;

6. Run the install script by pointing your browser to the base URL of your website (e.g. http://www.example.com/).

7. Work through the on-screen steps to complete the Drupal site installation.

8. When the install script succeeds, you will be directed to the "Welcome" page, and you will be logged in as the administrator.

9. Proceed with the initial configuration steps suggested on the "Welcome" page.

For a good introduction to Drupal and to learn how to harness its power and potential to create a site that meets your needs, access Drupal’s extensive online documentation. Drupal’s active open source community is another valuable source of information.