Installation - Web Services

After checking to make sure that the Apache and MySQL servers are running in the background, you can try accessing the installation wizard by pointing your Web browser to the URL http://www.mysite.com/theblog/bblog/install.php (remember to update this URL if you have opted to install the application at a different location).

Here's what you will see:

This is the first screen of the "bBlog Installer" wizard, where we are required to agree to the GPL License - a common feature with Open Source software packages these days. Below, you have to specify if you are installing a fresh version of bBlog or upgrading from a previous version - choose the "Fresh Install" option and click on the "Next" button.

The next screen will let you know if the file permissions for the required files and folders - set earlier -  are correct or not. If all goes well, and it should, click on the "Continue" button to move to the next screen. If not, the "Installer" will flag an error message and will recommend a possible course of action.
 
Next, we have the "Database and Blog Settings" screen that allows us to specify the important parameters, which will determine the functioning of our blog.

First, we have the general configuration settings:

• Blog name: The name of our blog.
• Blog Description: A short description of our blog.
• Username: the username required to access the bBlog admin module.
• Password: the password required  to access the bBlog admin module.
• Email Address: the email address where bBlog should send e-mail notifications.

Next, we have to specify the MySQL settings:

• MySQL Username:  the MySQL username. Here we set this parameter to "bbloguser" - the username of the MySQL user, created earlier
  
  
• MySQL Password:  the MySQL password for the "bbloguser" MySQL user, provided earlier.
  
  
• MySQL Database Name: the name of the database. We set the value of this parameter to "bBlog."
  
  
• MySQL Host: the name of the server where the MySQL database is located. The default value of "localhost" is sufficient for most requirements.
  
  
• Table prefix: the prefix for each database table created by the installer for the bBlog application. We recommend that you use the default value i.e. "bB_".

Finally, we have a couple of server settings that need to be set:

• URL to the blog:  this is the URL used to access your blog. This should be set to "http://www.mysite.com/theblog/", if it isn’t already.
  
  
• Path to bBlog:  this stores the full UNIX path to the bBlog application. This should be "/www/htdocs/theblog/bblog/" in case of our installation.

Click on the "Next" button to stores these settings. So far, so good.

The next few screens will inform you that the required database tables,  plugins (tools required to ensure the smooth functioning of bBlog), configuration files have been created, installed and loaded correctly. The final screen lists certain steps that must be implemented in order to secure your bBlog installation from hackers: first, you have to delete "install.php" and the entire "install" folder and second, you have to ensure that the "config.php" file is not writeable by the Web server. The following UNIX commands should do what you need.

$ cd /www/htdocs/theblog/bBlog/
$ rm -fr install/
$ rm install.php
$ chmod 755 config.php

Congratulations - now, we have successfully installed bBlog on the Web server!

However, if you do encounter any problems during the installation process, do not hesitate to look at the Installation guide - http://www.bblog.com/wiki/index.php/Installation - for possible workarounds.