CubeCart v4 Installation Manual

CubeCart v4 Installation Manual

v1.1 - 22 June 2009

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CubeCart v4 Installation Manual

Index
1. Requirements 2. Before you start 3. Uploading the files 4. Running the compatibility test script 5. Running the installation script 3 4 6 8 9

Note: An installation service is available to purchase from our website http://www.cubecart.com if you are not comfortable performing this process.

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CubeCart v4 Installation Manual

1. Requirements
To be able to install CubeCart you need to either have a web hosting account or a computer for testing/development with a web server, MySQL and PHP configured and working correctly. Setting up a local testing environment can be tricky and the settings may not match the final production environment. For this reason it may be easier to setup your store on the final production URL to start with. Either of these must have the following software installed with the minimum versions. PHP 5.1.0 MySQL 4.1 Please make sure PHP has GD and cURL working or contact your hosting company to see if is already the case. If not some of the core functionality of CubeCart will not work. CubeCart should work on any of the following server operating systems:
Linux Unix Windows

We recommend a Linux/Unix flavour of some kind which our developers prefer to use. If you do not have a hosting account our sales staff can advise of a suitable host taking your locality into consideration. Alternatively a list of recommended companies can be found here: http://www.cubecart.com/compatible-hosting

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CubeCart v4 Installation Manual

2. Before you start

You will need an FTP client and FTP access to your server files a MySQL database set up and a software license key which is required during the installation process. a) FTP Client An FTP Client is a software tool which can be used to remotely access your server via the FTP protocol. If you do not already own one there are a great deal to choose from. Below are some of the most popular: Recommended Open Source FTP Clients FileZilla (Windows / Mac OSX) http://filezilla.sourceforge.net GFTP (Linux/Unix e.g. Ubuntu) http://www.gftp.org Commercial FTP Clients Transmit (Mac OSX) http://www.panic.com/transmit SmartFTP (Windows) http://www.smartftp.com To connect to your website you will need the following information. FTP Address: e.g. ftp.example.com FTP Username: e.g. ftp@example.com FTP Password: ??? These can normally be found from your web hosting control panel or created from within it. For support please contact your hosting company. It is impossible for our staff to know this information and every web hosting company may vary somewhat. b) MySQL Database CubeCart requires a MySQL Database to save critical information such as customer information, products and categories. If your hosting account doesn't have one or you are unable to add one you may have to upgrade your hosting account. You should be able to create a MySQL database from your web hosting control panel or view the credentials of any existing ones. In some cases it is required that you need to create a MySQL user which is later assigned to the database which you which to use for your CubeCart store. Please consult your web hosting user guide or support documentation as to how to go about this. Their support staff should also be able to advise accordingly. Once that is complete you should know the following information: MySQL Hostname: e.g. localhost, IP Address or Domain Name MySQL Database Name: e.g. cubecart_db MySQL Database Username: e.g. cubecart_user MySQL Password: ???

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CubeCart v4 Installation Manual c) Software License Key Whether you install the no cost trial version or full version a software license key is required which can be obtained following the URL below: https://cp.cubecart.com After you have completed the order process instructions should be emailed which explain where you can download the CubeCart 4.x.x software package. Download the appropriate archive format to your local computer and you are now ready to start the install process.

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3. Uploading the files

Before you can upload the files to your web server you need to unpack the CubeCart software package. Next you need to decide where you want to install your store. We will assume the website domain is example.com and that we want to install CubeCart so that the website address is available at http://www.example.com/store . Open your FTP Client and connect to your hosting account using the FTP address, username and password discussed in part 2. Important: Please make sure that your FTP client has it's preferences set so that it uploads its files in binary format. ASCII uploads will cause corrupt files and your store will not work. Once connection is complete you should be presented with the remote files and folders that already exist on the server. Please navigate to the publicly accessible folder if applicable. This is often names something like public_html, htdocs, web or docs. Please consult your web hosting company if you are unsure. If you wish to upload CubeCart to a folder on the website domain such as our example it will be possible to create a folder in the public folder using the FTP client. Once this has been done please navigate to it. You can now upload every file from the CubeCart software package into the remote folder. This can take some time to complete. s Screen shot below shows completed upload on Windows XP using FileZilla:

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4. Running the compatibility test script

Once all the file have uploaded you can use the bundled compatibility testing script to make sure your hosting environment has the required software and configuration. The script is called compat-test.php and should be found in the root of your store. e.g. http://www.example.com/store/compat-test.php Please execute this using your Internet browser of choice. Below is a screen shot of typical output from this page:

You are now ready to proceed with the installation.

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5. Running the installation script

Please navigate to the store homepage e.g. http://www.example.com/store/ . This should now automatically detect that CubeCart hasn't been installed yet and take you to the installation homepage. Screen shot of Installation Homepage:

Please select your language of choice and click Install CubeCart to proceed. You should now be presented with the first step of the installation process. Have a read of the software license agreement and click the check box to confirm this. To continue click the Continue to Step 2 button. Screen shot of Step 1 License Agreement

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The next step requests certain file permissions to be amended on the server before the install procedure can continue if your server is unable to do this automatically. These can be changed using your FTP client. In FileZilla navigate to the file/folder on the remote server in question and right click it and select File attributes.... On other FTP clients this may be called CHMOD which is the Linux/Unix command name to perform this operation. Note: If your operating system is Windows then you should not need to perform this step. File permissions vary depending on how your hosting is configured but normally you can use the following values. Writeable: 0775 or 0777 Read Only: 0755 or 0644 Experimentation may be required using the Try Again link. Screen shot of Step 2 with incorrect file permissions

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In some cases you may be presented with a message about the global.inc.php file. If this is the case you can either copy the global.inc.php-dist file in the includes folder using your FTP client and name it global.inc.php or simply rename global.inc.php-dist to global.inc.php. This may seem like a strange thing to do but the reason for it is so that anu future upgrades don't write over this file making upgrade easier and less likely to go wrong. Once the global.inc.php file is in place and the filer permissions are correct the screen should look like the screen shot below.

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Please now click the Continue to Step 3 button in order to continue the installation process. The next step requires the MySQL credentials as discussed in section 2. Please keep these details to hand. Below is a screen shot of step 3.

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CubeCart v4 Installation Manual Below are brief explanations of some of the fields: Software License Key: This is the software license key discussed in section 2 Database Settings Database Hostname: Database Name: Database Username: Database Password: Confirm Password: Database Prefix: Drop tables if they exist: Locale Settings Store Country:

Discussed in section 2 Discussed in section 2 Discussed in section 2 Discussed in section 2 Discussed in section 2 If you wish to install more that one store on a database which has already been used by CubeCart enter the desired prefix here to prevent clashing table names. If you wish to overwrite and existing installation please check this box.

This auto populates the store with typical locale settings. If you country isn't listed it doesn't matter as this can be all be set manually through the admin control panel.

Store Administrator Profile Username: This can be any memorable user name of your choice. Password: Password to compliment user name. Upper and lower case
recommended with numbers.

Confirm Password: Email Address: Full Name:

Used to make sure it has been entered correctly. Your working email address of choice. Your full name.

Advanced Settings Store URL: Site Root Relative Path: PHP Decoder:

This should be detected automatically. This should be detected automatically. This should be detected automatically on submit. It can be used if you have a different preference.

Once you are happy click the Continue to Step 4 button to populate the database and write configuration files. Step 4 requires that the includes/global.inc.php is made read only if applicable again so that it is not world writable. Some servers are able to do this automatically. This secures the file and makes sure your store is protected. The file permissions can be changed much like step 2. Installations on Windows servers can skip this step. Unix/Linux serves will need to modify the file permissions to be read only. Read Only: 0755 or 0644 Below is a screen shot of step 4 after the file permissions have been set correctly.

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Now you may proceed to step 5 which presents you with a link to the administrators control panel (ACP) and front end of your store. At this stage you must delete the setup folder using the FTP client.

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Your store should now be installed fully and it can be populated with inventory and configured accordingly.

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