How to install Joomla on your site

27 July, 2010

Today we take a look at how to install one of the web's most popular CMSs (content management system), Joomla.

Joomla is a fairly advanced CMS, but can be used by people with a medium level of technical ability. It's more powerful than Wordpress (which we covered the install of previously) but perhaps not as technically advanced or complex as Drupal.

For this article we're using the latest (at the time) Joomla release, 1.5.20. You can download this from the Joomla site or from here:

Joomla only requires some basic requirements to run:

PHP 5.2+ is recommended (with 4.3.10 as a minimum)
MySQL 4.1.x+ is recommended (3.23 as a minimum)
Apache 2.x+ is recommended (with 1.3 as a minimum)
or on IIS, version 7 is recommended (with 6 as a minimum)

A full list of the technical requirements is available on the Joomla site: http://www.joomla.org/technical-requirements.html.

So if your system is up to running Joomla, let's get to the install!

Your first step is to download the package and extract it all. The extraction might take a little bit of time, as there are over 4,000 files in the package.

Next, create a directory on your webserver, and copy the newly extracted files into it. Like the extraction, this might take a few minutes as there are a lot of files to transfer.

With the Joomla files all uploaded to the correct directory we now need to create database Joomla will use. Joomla will create all the database tables it needs as it installs, but we need to create its database first.

So, go ahead and create a database for Joomla. You can name it whatever you want - for the purposes of this install I choose the unimaginative name: Joomla.

With the database created, it's time to get Joomla to work its magic. Point your web browser to the directory where you copied the Joomla files. For example: http://yourdomain.com/joomla/

Joomla will now recognise that it hasn't been installed before, and so will start its install process. The first screen you will see is the language selection screen. Select your language, the click Next.

The next screen we see is Joomla checking the install environment and making sure everything is ready to go. Joomla won't proceed if any of the requirements are not met, so you'll need to address any issues that arise before you can continue. Click Next if everything is OK.

Have a read of the license, and click Next when you're ready.

Now it's time to tell Joomla about the database we created earlier. Enter the name of the database you created, as well as your user details so Joomla can access the database. Click Next when you've entered the correct details.

Next we see the screen to set up the FTP layer. If you're on a Windows OS you won't need to worry about this step. If not, enter the required information and click Next.

It's time to enter some of the site configuration details now. Enter the name of the site, the email address and password for the administrator account. This password will allow you to log into Joomla once it's created so you can create other users and start adding content, etc.

At this point, it's also a good idea to install the sample data supplied with the Joomla installation so there is some content to form a base and so you can see how things are going to work. Click the Install Sample Data button and wait for the data to be installed.

With the sample data installed, click Next to proceed to the end of the installation process.

Joomla has now finished installing, but there's one more action you must perform before you can start using it. You must navigate to the directory where you copied the Joomla files and delete the installation directory. This is for security so the scripts used to create Joomla aren't on your server and open to potential exploitation. Joomla won't allow you to start using the site until these files are removed.

And that's it. Joomla is now installed on your site. If you navigate to the directory where you installed Joomla you will now see the homepage (http://yourdomain.com/joomla/ for example).

And if you proceed to the administrator section (http://yourdomain.com/joomla/administrator/ for example) you will be asked to log in.

Logging in will bring you to the administrator's homepage:

So there you go, Joomla installed on your site in just a few easy steps. This article doesn't cover how to use your Joomla now that you've got it installed, but we'll cover that in the future.

ferrari_chris

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