Sunday, January 23, 2011

Installing WordPress On A Plesk Server

nstalling WordPress 2.7.1 On Plesk

For most people out there in the blogosphere with their own  self hosted WordPress Blog, they use the Cpanel Server. Installing a WordPress Blog on Cpanel is as easy as pressing the install button and is very simple to do. However, there are quite a few who are using a Plesk Server and if you wanted WordPress installed, it was usually a case of getting a geeky friend to do it for you, especially when you had already messed it up and it needed fixing quickly.
I have produced a video of how to  Install WordPress on Plesk, although I want to write something of a transcript to make the process even easier for you at home. First things first though, so enjoy the video and I’ll see you under it in a few minutes

Plesk Control Panel

  • You need to login to your Plesk Control Panel where your domain has already been set up before hand. From here you will have to choose the Database icon and add new Database.
  • Once you have added a new DB you can assign it a name, or use the one that automatically appears there.
  • Select the add new user icon and once done, assign a name of the DB user.
  • You will now have to assign a Password to the Database User.

Download WordPress

  • Head on over to wordpress.com/download/ and save the latest version to your local hard drive in a new folder.
  • Navigate to where you saved the file, and unpack the Zip file to the same directory.

Editing The WordPress Configuration File

  • Open up wp-config-sample.php in a text editor such as notepad, and you will have to now change and insert the Database values you made earlier. This means Database name, Database User Name, and the Password as well.
  • Save the file as wp-config.php and remember to save the file as ‘all file types’ and not a s a text file.
  •  

    FTP Your WordPress Files To The Server

  • Using Filezilla or similar, connect to your server with your FTP login and in the local view navigate to where you unpacked all the WordPress files.
  • In the remote view, navigate to httpdocs (or possibly public_html) and then move the entire contents of the wordpress folder across to that directory.
  • This will take several minutes, as there is about 500 or so files that need to be uploaded.

installing WordPress

  • Through your web browser like Firefox, type in your URL where you installed WordPress (www.mydomain.com) and if everything worked you will come to a welcome to WordPress page.
  • Enter your Blog’s Title and your email address and click the make blog visible on Google (you do want to be found right) and then press install WordPress.
  • Success. WordPress has been installed and your username and password will appear. These will be emailed to you instantly too.
  • From here, you can log in via the button, and every time after you can do so from www.mydomain.com/wp-admin
So that’s it folks. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and you now have the knowledge to be able to install WordPress on Plesk for yourself instead of finding the nearest geek (no offence to the geeks).