Getting Up and Running…

Well…Congratulations…you’ve somehow found the least informative site on the internet.  Hopefully that can change over the life of this thing, and maybe we’ll get to learn something together.

So in this first post, I guess I’ll just describe how I’ve gotten up and running with Wordpress.

I had the blessing of coming across Slicehost in the last couple of months.  Slicehost is a Virtual Private Server hosting company.  You pick a server configuration with a certain amount of (RAM/Storage/Bandwidth/Linux Distribution) for as little as $20 per month.  They have a very usable management interface that allows you to setup most of what you need pertaining to DNS etc.  Another beautiful feature is their web-based shell which allows you to work on your box from anywhere (even those pesky places that clamp down on the SSH port).  The entirety of this setup can be done from the web shell.

So I’ve configured my slice for a clean install of Ubuntu 8.10.  Wordpress works on the LAMP stack so its pretty easy to install all that stuff on Ubuntu.  I do all this as root on the web shell, so there’s no sudo’s.  You’ve already got the L in LAMP with Ubuntu, so let’s go on to A.

Apache

Type the following into your terminal

apt-get install apache2

It may ask you There’s really nothing to do after this but test it.  Go to http://[your slicehost ip]/ in your favorite web browser.  If you see “It Works!” then you’re good.  Let’s move on to M.

MySQL

Here we go with that terminal again…

apt-get install mysql-server

This will install mysql-server 5.0.  During the install you will be asked for a root password (come up with something secure).  Write this down, we’ll need it for later.  Let’s move onto the P.

PHP

Back to the old terminal…

apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5

This installs PHP.  To get PHP to work with apache you need to restart it like so.

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

To make sure PHP is working use your favorite text editor to open up /var/www/test.php and enter the following text

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save test.php and close it.  Now go to http://[your slicehost ip]/test.php and you should see a page with a bunch of diagnostic information.  If so then you’re good to go.  Delete test.php for good measure (you don’t need any looky-loos seeing all your stuff).  Congratulations, you have a LAMP stack.

What’s Next

So you’ve got a LAMP stack now, what’s next?  We’re going to install a program that will enable you to administer your MySQL databases from the web called phpMyAdmin.

At the trusty terminal…

apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql phpmyadmin

It should ask you what web server you want to auto configure, choose apache2.

Back in the browser, go to http://[your slicehost ip]/phpmyadmin.  You will be presented with a login box.  Login as root with the MySQL password you wrote down before.  You should see something similar to the screen shot below.  It looks scary but it is really easy, I promise.

WordPress

From here on out we’re going to follow the handy-dandy WordPress 5 minute Install Guide (A little out of order).

Database

First we need to create a MySQL user and database for WordPress to use.  This is super easy.  Click the Privileges link near the bottom of the list and you’ll be brought to this screen.

Click the “Add a new User” link and you’ll be brought to this screen.

In the “User name” field type wordpress.  In the Host drop down box choose “Local”.  In the password field type a password for the wordpress user  (try and make it something different from the root password you used before).  Re-type it in the “Re-type” field.  Under the “Database for User” section, choose “Create database with same name and grant all privileges”.  Click go and you should have a brandy-new database to use with WordPress.

Download

To download the latest copy of wordpress from the terminal do the following.

cd /var/www/
wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
tar -xvf latest.tar.gz
mv wordpress blog
chown -R www-data blog

That last line is to make apache the owner of the WordPress directory.  This makes it possible to upload pictures, install plugins and other good stuff.

Configure

We need to make some changes to the default configuration file for WordPress, so that it will talk to our database correctly.  Do the following:

cd blog
mv wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php

Fire up that text editor and open wp-config.php

You’ll need to insert your database parameters in the following lines.

define(’DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere’);
define(’DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere’);
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere’);

to

define(’DB_NAME’, ‘wordpress’);
define(’DB_USER’, ‘wordpress’);
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘the password you chose’);

Save and close.

The Finale

You’re so close you can taste it, right!?

The final step is to go to http://[your slicehost ip]/blog/wp-admin/install.php.  Enter your data (Blog Name and e-mail Address) and click that big Install button.

An admin account and password will be generated for you.  (WRITE DOWN THAT ADMIN PASSWORD SO YOU CAN LOGIN).  It’s a random string of characters, so you may want to change it to something more memorable later.

Congratulations

You’ve got your very own wordpress blog to write your very own “Getting Up and Running…” post.

Enjoy.