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How to install WordPress in 10


minutes or less!

Rezdwan Hamid

www.rezdwanhamid.com
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To
view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter
to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San
Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

For more information on how you can copy, distribute and transmit
this ebook, please visit my License page.

Published August 2008


Dedications

To my lovely wife, who is very understanding and supportive of me


no matter how busy I am in the pursuit of my dreams. My undying
thanks to her.

To my beautiful daughter, whose smile every morning is brighter


than any sunrise. I thank her for giving me the inspiration to be
successful in everything I do.
Table Of Contents
Preface........................................................................................................................................1
Conventions............................................................................................................................1
Erratas....................................................................................................................................2
Questions................................................................................................................................2
Feedbacks..............................................................................................................................2
Contact....................................................................................................................................2
Introduction.................................................................................................................................3
Assumptions................................................................................................................................4
Part 1: Create MySQL database and user..................................................................................5
Step 1: Log in to cPanel..........................................................................................................6
Step 2: Create MySQL database............................................................................................8
Step 3: Create MySQL user..................................................................................................11
Step 4: Add user to database...............................................................................................13
Part 2: Download and prepare WordPress...............................................................................17
Step 1: Download WordPress...............................................................................................18
Step 2: Prepare WordPress..................................................................................................20
Part 3: Upload and install WordPress.......................................................................................24
Step 1: Upload WordPress...................................................................................................25
Step 2: Install WordPress.....................................................................................................34
Recommendations....................................................................................................................36
Preface

Preface
I have written this ebook as a guide to those who are new to installing WordPress. If you have
never run your own site and/or install softwares on a server, because you find it to be a
daunting task, then this ebook is for you.

As much as possible, I try to stay away from using too much technical terms. Instead, I prefer
to use simple terms that anyone can understand. The step-by-step approach along with
screenshots should make installing WordPress a breeze even for a complete beginner.

Conventions

In this ebook, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kind of
information. Listed below are some examples of those styles and an explanation of their
meaning.

Cautions – Any warnings that you need to be aware of will look


like this paragraph.

Notes – Any useful information that you may want to know will
look like this paragraph.

Tips – Any useful tips and tricks that you may be able to apply
will look like this paragraph.

In addition to the examples above, two different typefaces will be used to describe outputs
from the screen and inputs that you will have to type in. For outputs from the screen, the text
will be in bold. For inputs that you will need to enter, the text will be in italic.

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Preface

Erratas

Although I have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of the contents, mistakes do
happen. If you spot any mistakes in this ebook, please report them to me by sending me an
email. By doing so, you will not only help me improve my ebook but also help other readers.

Questions

This ebook was not meant to be a comprehensive guide for installing WordPress. If you have
any questions regarding the installation process, feel free to send me an email and I will try to
assist you in the best possible way that I can.

Feedbacks

I am constantly improving my ebooks for the benefit of the readers. Your invaluable feedbacks
is one of the ways I can improve my ebooks. Let me know what you like or dislike about my
ebooks by sending me an email.

Contact

To contact me regarding any of the abovementioned issues, please visit my site at


www.rezdwanhamid.com and click on the Contact link that is available at the top of the page
or within the sidebar of the page.

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Introduction

Introduction
WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday
writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has
grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on hundreds of thousands
of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

Everything you see here, from the documentation to the code itself, was created by and for
the community. WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of
people all over the world working on it. (More than most commercial platforms.) It also means
you are free to use it for anything from your cat’s home page to a Fortune 5 web site without
paying anyone a license fee.

WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing
system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL. It is the official successor of
b2/cafelog. WordPress is fresh software, but its roots and development go back to 2001. It is
a mature and stable product. We hope by focusing on user experience and web standards we
can create a tool different from anything else out there.

2005 was a very exciting year for WordPress, as it saw the release of our 1.5 version
(introduced themes) which was downloaded over 900,000 times, the start of hosted service
WordPress.com to expand WP's reach, the founding of Automattic by several core members
of the WP team, and finally the release of version 2.0.

Excerpt taken from About WordPress page.

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Assumptions

Assumptions
It is impossible to cover all the different hardware, software and server configurations that
everyone may have. Therefore, a few assumptions has been made and it should cover the
most common ones.

I am assuming that

● you are using Microsoft Windows 95 or higher as you computer's operating system.

● your web hosting account is running on Linux.

● your web hosting account is using cPanel.

● you do not want to install WordPress using Fantastico for more flexibility.

● you do not want to install WordPress in the root folder but in a subdirectory (for eg.
http://ww.domain.com/blog/).

● your web hosting account meets all the requirements that is needed by WordPress
(such as PHP, MySQL and etc).

Except for the last item, the assumptions above is not meant to serve as requirements that
must be met. Other setups will still be able to install WordPress and the methods may differ
slightly. Most of the time, whatever that is written is this ebook applies to other setups too.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

Part 1: Create MySQL database and user


1. Log in to cPanel

2. Create MySQL database

3. Create MySQL user

4. Add user to database

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

Step 1: Log in to cPanel

Open your web browser and go to your cPanel page. The URL is usually something like
www.domain.com/cpanel/ where www.domain.com is replaced with your actual URL.

You will get an Authentication Required dialog box as shown above. Fill in your User Name
and Password that is given to you by your web hosting company. Once you have filled in both
fields, click on the OK button.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

After you have successfully log in to cPanel, you will see a page similar to the one shown
above. This is your cPanel page.

If this is the first time you log in to cPanel, I strongly suggest that
you change your password to something that you can easily
remember. Simply click on the Change Password icon in the
Preferences group. Follow the instructions on the next screen to
change your password.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

Step 2: Create MySQL database

At the cPanel page, scroll down to the Databases group as shown above. Click on the
MySQL Databases icon.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

You are now in the MySQL Databases page as shown above. In the New Database field of
the Create New Database form, type in blog and then click on the Create Database button
beside it.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

You will get the Added the database blog. message as shown above. This means that the
database has been created. Click on the Go Back link to go to the MySQL Databases page.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

Step 3: Create MySQL user

Back at the MySQL Databases page, scroll down until you see the Add New User form as
shown above. For the Username field, type in blog and then create your own passwords for
the Password and Password (Again) fields. After you have filled in all three fields, click on
the Create User button.

You can choose to create your own passwords or you can use
the Generate Password button beside the Password field. Please
make sure you copy down the generated password if you use it.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

You will get the Added user blog with the password <your-password> message as shown
above. Click on the Go Back link to go to the MySQL Databases page.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

Step 4: Add user to database

Scroll down to the Add User To Database form as shown above. Click on the Add button.

If you have other database and/or user, make sure you have
selected the database and user that you have created only for
WordPress.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

You will be shown the Manage User Privileges form. Click on the check box beside the text
that says ALL PRIVILEGES as shown above. The rest of the check box will be clicked
automatically. After that, click on the Make Changes button.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

You will get the User <your-username> was added to the database <your-database>.
message as shown above. Click on the Go Back link to go to the MySQL Database page.

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Part 1: Create MySQL database and user

At the MySQL Databases page, you will now see your new database and new user in one
row of the Current Databases form as shown above.

Do write down the database name, database user and the


database user password as we will be needing it for the second
part of the installation process.

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Part 2: Download and prepare WordPress

Part 2: Download and prepare WordPress


1. Download WordPress

2. Prepare WordPress

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Part 2: Download and prepare WordPress

Step 1: Download WordPress

Open your web browser and go to http://wordpress.org/download/. You will get the Download
WordPress page as shown above. Click on the Download WordPress 2.6.1 button to start
the download process.

At the time of this writing, the latest stable version of WordPress


is version 2.6.1. This may change over time.

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Part 2: Download and prepare WordPress

A dialog box appears as shown above. Click on the Save File radio button and then click the
OK button. Make sure you know where the file is saved on your hard drive.

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Part 2: Download and prepare WordPress

Step 2: Prepare WordPress

Once the download is complete, go to the folder where the file is saved. Extract the file and
find the wordpress folder as shown above.

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Part 2: Download and prepare WordPress

Find the wp-config-sample.php file inside the wordpress folder as shown above. You will
now have to edit this file using a text editor. Open wp-config-sample.php using a text editor.

Try not to use Notepad or WordPad which comes with Microsoft


Windows. Instead, you can download a free copy of Notepad++
from http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/download.php which is
a great text editor.

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Part 2: Download and prepare WordPress

After opening the wp-config-sample.php file using a text editor as shown above, you will see
a few line of codes. You will need to edit line 3-5 and replace the putyourdbnamehere,
usernamehere and yourpasswordhere with the values that were created in the first part of
the installation process.

Once you have finished editing this file, save it as wp-config.php and close your text editor.

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Part 2: Download and prepare WordPress

You will only need the wordpress folder to install WordPress. Before zipping up the
wordpress folder, rename it to blog and then zip it up. You should now have a blog.zip file as
shown above. Do remember where this file is located on your hard drive.

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Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

Part 3: Upload and install WordPress


1. Upload WordPress

2. Install WordPress

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Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

Step 1: Upload WordPress

Open a web browser and go to your cPanel page. Scroll down the page and look for the File
Manager icon under the Files group as shown above. Click on the File Manager icon.

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Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

A File Manager Directory Selection dialog box appears as shown above. Select the Web
Root (public_html/www) radio button and then click on the Go button.

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Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

You should now be at a page called File Manager as shown above. Click on the Upload icon
that is at the top of the page.

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Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

You will now get an Upload files page as shown above. Click on the first Browse... button.

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Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

A File Upload dialog box appears as shown above. Click on the blog.zip file that you have
prepared earlier and then click on the Open button.

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An upload status bar appears as shown above. Once the upload is complete, click on the
Back to /home/<your-username>/public_html link to close this page.
Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

The File Manager will automatically refresh and you should see the blog.zip file as shown
above. Click on the check box beside the blog.zip icon and then click on the Extract icon at
the top of the page.

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Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

An Extract dialog box appears as shown above. Click on the Extract File(s) button to start
extracting the file.

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Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

Close the Extraction Results dialog box that appears by clicking on the Close button. After
the file is extracted you can now see a blog directory as shown above.

You will no longer need the blog.zip file. You can click on the
check box beside it and click on the Delete button at the top of the
page.

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Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

Step 2: Install WordPress

Open your web browser and go to http://www.domain.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php where


www.domain.com is replaced with your actual domain. You will see the Welcome page as
shown above.

Fill in the Blog Title and Your E-mail field with the information that is needed. Click on the
Install WordPress button to continue.

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Part 3: Upload and install WordPress

If everything goes well, you will get the Success! message as shown above.

That's it! Your site is now powered by WordPress.

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Recommendations

Recommendations
By now you must be eager to install osCommerce yourself. Before you even sign up for a
new web hosting account, I suggest that you subscribe to my ezine called Sites! to learn more
about building your own site from the ground up.

Subscribe now and you will receive my free report entitled, 7 Secrets Of Cheap Web Hosting
– What Web Hosting Companies Don't Want You To Know. Whether you are new or have
been with a web hosting company for some time, this report will definitely be an eye-opener.

I hope that this ebook has helped you in one way or another. If you feel like sharing this
information and help others just like you, please visit my License page for more information
on how you can copy, distribute and transmit this ebook.

I have written a few other ebooks in the same category as this one. If you are new to hosting
your own site, you may want to visit my eBooks page and find other ebooks that may be of
interest to you.

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