WordPress Manual Installation

Installing WordPress manually is not as simple as WordPress installation via cPanel & Fantastico, but is not a rocket science, too. The process is a little bit longer since it involves database configuration, uploading of files and changing file permission (CHMOD). If you’re new to any of these, don’t worry. I’ll show you how to do it. just follow the following step-by-step instruction.

 

STEP 1: DOWNLOAD WORDPRESS

First you need to download a copy of WordPress. Go to http://www.WordPress.org (not www.WordPress.com) and download the latest version. (If you wonder what’s the difference between these two, WordPress.com is the hosted version of WordPress where you can run a WordPress blog without installing it on your server, while WordPress.org is the site where you can download WordPress to install on your own site.)

Click Download WordPress.

The download page will be displayed. There are 2 formats for you to download. I recommend you download the zip format.

Click Download WordPress. You’ll see a dialog box prompting you to open or save the file.

Click Save.

In the dialog box that appears, choose a location in your computer to save the file, and click Save. (I normally choose Desktop.)

After a while, you’ll see the downloaded file in your computer.

 

STEP 2: SET UP YOUR WORDPRESS DATABASE

WordPress is a PHP web application that uses MySQL database. Before you can install WordPress you need to set up your database first.

You can prepare a database for WordPress using your web hosting control panel. In this tutorial, I use cPanel version 11. If you’re using cPanel version 10, the process is not much different. However, if you use other control panel, please consult your web host on how to do this.

First, open your cPanel. Look for the Databases section, and click on MySQL Databases icon.

MySQL Databases page will be displayed.

Now, we’ll create a user for the database.

Go to the MySQL Users section, add a username, and a password. If you wish to let the server create a password for you, click Generate Password. Otherwise, insert your own password.

In this example, I use user as the username, and password as the password.

Insert the same password again for verification, and click Create User. The username and password will be created.

 

Click Go Back to return to the MySQL main page.

Next we’ll create a database for WordPress.

Go to the Create New Database section, enter a name for your database, and click Create Database. In this example, I create a database called wordpress.

The database is created.

Click Go Back to return to MySQL page for the final step.

Now we’ll add the user to the database.

Go to the Add User to Database section. Select the username you just created, link it to the database name, and click Add.

Note: cPanel automatically add a prefix to the username and database. This prefix is normally your webhost account username. In this example, my MySQL username I created before is user, and netinfo_ is my webhost username. So my new MySQL username is now netinfo_user. The same goes to the MySQL database, which is now netinfo_wordpress. The password for the username remains the same.

Next, you’ll need to give certain privileges to the user. Just click All Privileges and the rest of the checkboxes will be selected.

Click Make Changes. The process is now complete.

Don’t forget to write down your database username, database name and password because you’ll need them later for WordPress installation.

 

STEP 3: UPLOAD WORDPRESS TO YOUR WEB SERVER

The zip file you’ve just downloaded in step 1 actually contains many files. So the next thing you need to do is to open the zip file and extract the files inside it, and upload them to your web server. Actually there are 2 options for you to do this:

1. Extract the files first, and upload them to your web server.
   I used to do it this way, but the problem is it will take too much time uploading the files. It’s not a problem if you have very fast Internet connection.
    
2. Upload the zip file first, and extract it later on the server using my web hosting control panel.
   This is my preferred way, because it saves time. To do this, you need to make sure that your control panel has the feature of extracting zip file. If you’re using cPanel, you can use this method.

Let’s look at the second option first as it’s the easiest among the two.

First, upload the zip file to your root folder of your web server. You can do this using your FTP software or your web host control panel.

Here’s how to do it using your FTP software. (In this example, I use FileZilla Client.)

If this is the first time you use FileZilla, you need to add your site first to FileZilla’s Site Manager.

Run FileZilla, and click File=>Site Manager.

In the Site manager, click New Site, and name the site. (in my case, it is netinfo.com.)

Next, enter your domain name, or you web server IP address in the Host field, change Logontype to Normal, enter your web host username in the User field, and password in the Password field, and click Connect.

Now you’re connected to your web server.

To begin transferring the file, click on the plus symbol next to the folder with backslash (/) symbol.

You’ll see a list of available folders inside the (/)folder. Click on public_html folder. This is the folder where you’ll upload the zip file. You can also click on www folder. (It is actually a shortcut to the public_html folder.)

Now, locate the zip file in your computer. In this example, it is on the Desktop.

Next, right click the zip file, and select Upload.

FileZilla will start transferring the file. This will take several minutes depending on your Internet connection speed.

Once the upload process is complete, you’ll see the zip file in your public_html folder.

Done.

You can also upload the file using your control panel. Here’s how to do it using cPanel.

In your cPanel, look for File Manager. If you’re using cPanel 11 like me, there are 2 file managers. One is the new version, and the other is old version (Legacy File Manager). In this example I’ll use the old version so those who are still using cPanel 10 can follow.

Click on Legacy File Manager.

A new window will open. Make sure you are in the /public_html/ folder.

Next, click Upload files.

In the Upload files page, click Browse, and locate the zip file in your computer. Next, click Open, and click Upload.

After a while, the file will appear in File Manager.

The upload process is complete.

Now, we need to extract the files inside the zip file.

To do this, you need a web host control panel that allows you to extract file. cPanel allows you to do this using File Manager.

While you’re still in the File Manager, click on the WordPress zip file, and click Extract File Contents.

File manager will start extracting the files.

Once the extract process is complete, a new folder called wordpress is created. You can see the folder by clicking on /public_html/.

 

STEP 4: INSTALLING WORDPRESS

 

- this page is still being published -

[Back to WordPress Installation]