The purpose of this document is to provide instructions for the manual extraction and installation of the WordPress publishing and blogging platform.

1.1: What Is WordPress?

WordPress is a state of the art platform allowing one to create a blog or website. WordPress is a content management system, or CMS, allowing a user to have a community like atmosphere to interact with others.

WordPress is made by WordPress.Org.

And runs on all operating systems that can run a web server, PHP, and MySQL; Linux, Mac, and Windows. WordPress is most famous for its 5 minute installation process which will be shown here in this knowledgebase article, allowing a user to get WordPress up and running in no time without much hassle.

1.2: WordPress Manual Installation Instructions

WordPress  can be installed in a number of ways; such as using script installers like Installatron, Fantastico, Softaculous, or installing manually.

Trusting script installers is not always wise, as sometimes the script installers may not have the newer versions of WordPress right away, they may have outdated versions of the software, or in rare cases, the script installer may not even be available on the host provider you’re with. Installing manually gives you the flexibility to be able to customize WordPress to your liking, in addition to upgrading properly without any script installer intervention.

Below are the steps for doing a WordPress installation. Before you do any install of wordpress first, though, you must first download, extract, and create a database for WordPress. All of these instructions, for Firestar-Hosting.com customers at least, will be given below. For all other hosting providers, check with the provider you’re with for documentation on how to accomplish these tasks.

WordPress Setup Tasks

1. Download wordpress from wordpress.org. If you will be installing manually, using the zip copy of WordPress would be preferred.

2. Once you have downloaded WordPress, if it is not already in public_html, move it into public_html via FTP. Or if you are in Secure Shell (SSH) you can do: mv space filename.zip space public_html and hit enter.

3. Once WordPress is moved it can be extracted. To do this, you can extract it from shell, or from your computer and upload the folders and files. If extracting from shell you would type: unzip filename.zip. This will create a wordpress folder and extract all necessary files and folders to the WordPress directory under public_html.

4. You can either choose to leave all of the files and folders in the WordPress directory or else move them. If you choose to leave them in their current directory, the next step would be to create a database and begin the famous 5 minute installation process.

However, if you choose to have all the files and folders moved into public_html, as an example, you can acheve this from shell, from within the main WordPress directory  by doing: mv * ~username/public_html and hitting enter. The asterisk or *, tells shell to move everything; files, folders, sub-directories, etc. If you will be moving files and folders via FTP, you must extract the zipped copy of WordPress on your computer, find public_html on your FTP, then copy and paste all WordPress stuff to public_html..

5. Whatever method you choose; whether keeping WordPress in it’s own directory or moving the files and folders, once everything is extracted you are now able to begin the WordPress manual install.

Create a Database

You must now create a database to store WordPress data. Unfortunately, allot of hosting control panels do not always make it easy to create databases. The instructions below are for Firestar-Hosting.com and the cPanel hosting control panel. For other hosting control panel instructions, consult that hosting control panel’s documentation or contact your web host for assistance.

cPanel Instructions For Creating a Database

1. Visit your control panel URL and login to cPanel. Your control panel URL might look something like, as an example: domain.com/cpanel.

2. Once logged in, navigate to the Databases section of cPanel.

3. Navigate to the MySqL® Database wizard screen.

4. Follow the on-screen instructions in the wizard to create a database name, database username, database password, and to assign a user to your chosen database name.

5. Write down the database name, username, and password, as you will need this information for the WordPress installation.

On To Manually Installing WordPress

1. From within your web browser visit your domain, for example: domain.com/wordpress, or domain.com.

2. An error page with the title: WordPress Error, will come up, with the following text: There doesn’t seem to be a wp-config.php file. I need this before we can get started. Click on the link that says Create a configuration file to continue onword to the next step.

3. A new page that has the title of: WordPress › Setup Configuration File, will appear. You should see the below text: Welcome to WordPress. Before getting started, we need some information on the database. You will need to know the following items before proceeding.

1.Database name

2.Database username

3.Database password

4.Database host

5.Table prefix (if you want to run more than one WordPress in a single database)

If for any reason this automatic file creation doesn’t work, don’t worry. All this does is fill in the database information to a configuration file. You may also simply open wp-config-sample.php in a text editor, fill in your information, and save it as wp-config.php.

In all likelihood, these items were supplied to you by your Web Host. If you do not have this information, then you will need to contact them before you can continue.

4. If you have all of the information WordPress requires as stated above, click on the link that says: Let’s Go! To continue onword to the next step.

5. The same page from above with the title: WordPress › Setup Configuration File, will once again appear. This time, however, you should see the text: Below you should enter your database connection details. If you’re not sure about these, contact your host.

6. There will be a form asking you for the following information: Database name; this will be the name of the database, database username; on the form this will be just username and this is the name of the user for the WordPress database, password; this will be the wordpress database password, database host; this will be the host name of the database server and can be left to the value in the edit box, table prefix; this can also be left as the default value that’s already in the edit box.

Note: On cPanel servers the database name an database usernames are separated by username underline (_) database name/username. For instance, bob_wordpress.

7. Once you fill in the information click on the submit button to continue.

8. Once you submit the above page data, the same WordPress › Setup Configuration File page will appear. New text should now appear and say:

All right sparky! You’ve made it through this part of the installation. WordPress can now communicate with your database.

9. Click on the link that says: Run The Install to continue on to the next step.

10. A new page with the title: WordPress › Installation will appear.

11. The form on this page will ask you for the following information:

Site title; This will be the title of your WordPress, username; Your wordpress username, Password twice; Your wordpress password, Your email address; An email address for your wordpress account; a checkbox that says, Allow my site to appear in search engines like Google and Technorati.

12. Fill in all the information, and if you want your site to appear in search engines like Google and Technorati then check the checkbox.

13. Click on the button that says Install WordPress, to finish installation.

14. The same titled WordPress › Installation page will appear.

15. New text should now say: Success! WordPress has been installed. Were you expecting more steps? Sorry to disappoint.

Username

Your chosen WordPress username.

Password

Either a randomly generated password, or it will not display a password if you put one in yourself. WordPress will email you the site information and username, but may not email you a password unless it generated one.

16. Click on the Login link to login to your new manually installed WordPress, and you’re done with installation!

1.3: WordPress Troubleshooting

Here are some common errors you may run into during a WordPress manual installation.

1. Sorry, but I can’t write the wp-config.php file.

Fix: This error is do to permissions problems. To resolve the error, set permissions to allow full write access to either the web server or general full write access.

Those on web hosting providers other than Firestar-Hosting.com, should contact the provider to resolve the permission errors. Those with Firestar-Hosting.com, contact support and we will help resolve these permissions errors

2. Access denyed for user username@localhost using password, yes, no.

Fix: If this error says yes, this means the password was typed wrong or is not the right password for that WordPress username. If no, you might not have proper permissions to access the WordPress database with the specified username.

Any other errors that might occur, you can consult the wordpress forums or WordPress documentation for further assistance.