How to install Drupal?

Submitted by Sunil_ebizon
on Tue, 10/20/2009 - 05:43

The choice of Drupal as a Content Management System (CMS) and building your dynamic websites is indeed a smart choice as Drupal provides an excellent open source platform with a great degree of customization in the hands of the end-user.

 

Drupal – Basic Requirements

Drupal runs without a trouble on Unix, Linux, Windows NT/2000 and can also run on Macintosh X Servers.  It is highly recommended that before you begin the installation of Drupal, you need to cater to the following requirements:

  • PHP 5.2 or Higher
  • Apache 1.3 or Higher
  • MySQL 5.0 or Higher

 

Installing Drupal

Three basic steps summarize the Drupal installation process:

  1. Downloading Drupal installation files
  2. Setting up of the MySQL Database
  3. Executing the Drupal installation program

Downloading - Drupal installation files

As a first step go to the website http://drupal.org and download the latest installation files for Drupal which are available for download in tar and gzip format. Extract these files on to your system using popular utilities like http://www.7-zip.org/ which are easily available on the internet. Now all you need to do is upload all these files in the Drupal directory on to your web server.

Setting Up - MySQL Database

Through your web hosting control panel creates a database for your installation using MySQL. Also create a database user assigning ‘all’ privileges to it.

Execution - Drupal installation program

Edit the ‘Settings.php’ file, search for the line that reads

$db_url = 'mysql://username:password@localhost/databasename';

and key in your actual database username and password for your database.

Now just follow the instructions as appearing on your screen and the user-friendly installation process would guide you through the rest of the installation process.