How to Install Concrete5 Legacy Manually
Goal: To install Concrete5 Manually on my cPanel web hosting account
Prerequisites: This guide shows you how to add files and databases using cPanel. If you are not on a hosting account where cPanel is available to you, you may have other alternatives such as FTP for file transfers and other database creation utilities. If you don't already have a web host, check out our hosting offers at our web hosting page to get started.
Concrete5 is a great user friendly content management system. Installing Concrete5 can be a bit intimidating if you don't have any experience installing websites and the hope is that by following this step by step guide, even someone who is completely unfamiliar with what a database is, or how to unzip a file, you will be able to get Concrete5 installed and off to working on your latest site. So let's get started...
Just one more quick note. Throughout this guide you see me using "c5help" in many areas. This variable simply happens to be the sub-domain I am installing to. You do not need to have any part of this when you set up your site.
Step One: Setting Up a Database
Concrete5 uses a MySQL database in order to store the dynamic content on your website. This means that you are going to need a MySQL database, a MySQL username, and a MySQL password. Here's how you will set those up if you are using a host that offers cPanel. Note: Your screen may look slightly different based on the cPanel theme you are using, the examples below were all taken from the x3 theme.
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Log in to your cPanel account. Usually this can be done by going to www.example.com/cpanel (where example.com is your domain name).
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Find the "Databases" group and click on "MySQL Databases"
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Next create a short and meaningful database name. Usually, I try to make my database names resemble my website names in some way. This way it is easy to identify which database belongs to which site later on if I decide to add another to my account. Do this by entering the database name and clicking "Create Database".
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Next, you will want to create a MySQL user. I strongly recommend using the password generator and here is my reasoning: 1) The password generator will ensure you have a very strong password and 2) The password generator will help ensure that you are not re-using a password you used before. This second part is important since this password will be stored in clear text in your Concrete5 configuration file. This means that any developer or anyone with FTP access to your site has access to this username and password, and it would be horrible for them to have a password that you used elsewhere. Also, you only ever have to type this password when you install Concrete5 in a later step so there's no sense in making this password something memorable. Click "Create User" once you are finished with this section.
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Finally, we want to assign the MySQL user we just created to our MySQL database we just created. This is a pretty straightforward process of picking them from the select lists and clicking "Add".
Then we click the "All Privileges" checkbox and finally the "Make Changes" button.
Step Two: Preparing Concrete5 Files for Installation
This next section is all about setting up the necessary files and file security for Concrete5 to work. These files will work in tandem with the database once installed to give you the powerful CMS of Concrete5.
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The first step to this is to download a zip of the latest version of Concrete5. You can obtain a copy of this from https://www.concrete5.org/developers/downloads/. Then look for the heading of "Latest Stable Version" and click the download link.
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Once you have that downloaded go back to your cPanel home page and find the "File Manager". We will be using this to upload the zip file we just downloaded from Concrete5's website.
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At the Directory Selection prompt pick the "Document Root for:" and your website name there. Also, make sure that you have the "Show Hidden Files (dotfiles)." checkbox selected.
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Next, pick the "Upload" button from the upper left hand corner of the file manager.
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A new window will open, select the "Choose File" button and pick your Concrete5 zip file you downloaded from their website. (Odds are this is probably in your downloads folder).
Once you have picked the file to be uploaded it will start uploading immediately and you will see an uploading indicator at the bottom of your browser window. Wait until this has finished to move on.
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Once the status is finished (and it doesn't appear like the page is doing any more loading) you can close this browser window and go back to the file manager.
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Next, we need to extract the files using the file manager. Select the zip file, then click the "Extract" button in the upper right corner.
Choose to extract these files to the root of your website (this should be the default location if you picked the document root as instructed in the previous step). Once it's extracted it will give you some results screens and other stuff you can ignore.
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At this point you should now have an unzipped set of files. (You should have a folder named similar to your zip file, if so you can at this point delete the zip file).
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Go into the unzipped folder by either using the tree view on the left side of the file manager, or by double clicking on the folder. Inside it should appear to be the root of what a Concrete5 website looks like. (See screenshot below). Click the "Select all" checkbox at the top of the file list.
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After you have selected all the files, we now need to move them up to the parent directory so that they are sitting at the root of your site. Do this by clicking the "Move File" option in the upper left hand corner.
Then remove the concrete folder from the path you want to move them to. In my case I changed the path from
/public_html/c5help/concrete5.5.2.1
to be the root of my site:
/public_html/c5help
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Now change back to your site root directory (using the tree on the left or the Up One Level icon) and delete the old concrete5.x.x.x folder (DO NOT REMOVE THE "concrete" FOLDER)
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Next we need to change the permissions of the config folder and the files folder to make them writable. First click on the config folder, then select "Change Permissions" on the top menu bar (make sure only config is selected)
For the config folder ensure the permissions are set to 755 (Shown below)
Next do the same thing for the "files" directory except this time use 777 for permissions. (shown below)
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Next we need to create a .htaccess file for the site. To do this use the "New File" button in the upper left hand corner of the File Manager.
The new file .htaccess file should be placed on the root of your site.
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Now we need to edit the contents of this .htaccess file. Do this by selecting the file, then selecting the "Edit" button near the top of your screen. Note: If you did not check the box to show hidden files when you opened the file manager, you will not see the .htaccess file appear even though it exists. Once you have the editor open please populate it with the contents below and save changes:
DirectoryIndex index.php RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php/$1 [L]
- Now we are done setting up the Concrete5 files. The file manager can be closed.
Step Three: The Install
Now we are finally ready to run the Concrete5 installer.
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Visit the path you installed your concrete5 site to. In this example I have put everything on the root of my subdomain so I will simply use that: http://c5help.exchangecore.com/ but you may have put yours on the root of your domain or possibly even in a sub folder such as www.example.com/concrete/. When you visit you should immediately be presented with a requirements page. If you have any requirements not met, you should contact your web host to find out if they are available to you.
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Click the "Continue to Installation" button.
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You are now on a page asking you for some information. Here's some info about each field for you:
Site Name - you should pick something that is less than 60 characters, since this will be used as part of the title on all of your pages and can have SEO implications.
Administrator Information - This information is for setting up the super admin to the site. The password is something you can make up that should be easy for you to remember, since this is the account you will most likely use for making changes to the site.
Database Information
Server: Usually this will be "localhost" unless your web host is using a remote MySQL server. You will have to contact them if this is the case to get the appropriate MySQL server host name or IP address.
MySQL Username: If you recall, way long ago back under the first section we created a MySQL user. That is what this should be. In my example this is exchange_c5help
MySQL Password: Again, something we created back in the first section. This is the one and only time you really need to know that password you generated or created for the MySQL user. Once this step is done you can clear that notepad file or toss that post-it note.
Database Name: Again, set up back in the first section. It just so happens that I named mine the same as my MySQL user, exchange_c5help.
Sample Content
This part is entirely up to you. If you know what you're doing a blank site should suit you well. Otherwise, per C5's recommendation, I'll also recommend you start with the sample site.
- Click the "Install concrete5" button and wait for the installer to finish. Once it has (hopefully without error) you should be logged in as the admin and you can now start building your website!
Need Additional Help?
In the event that you need additional help with your installation there are several resources available to you.
- First and foremost the Concrete5 community. Create an account on www.concrete5.org and post to the forums with any problems you might run across. This helps alert the developers of problems people are having so that the product can be made better or more user friendly in the future.
- Secondly, contact your web host. Often times the installer may error due to php not being configured with enough memory or perhaps it's not running the right version. These are things that your web host should be able to help you address.
- Thirdly, please feel free to contact ExchangeCore's development team. I list us as the last option because while we know what we're doing, we also come at a price and we hate to see you throw money away when there are other options. If you do need our help, we can be reached by visiting our Development Contact Page.