Installing WordPress Manually: The Ultimate Guide

INSTALLING WORDPRESS MANUALLY:THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

Step-by-Step Instruction with Pictures

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NOTE

Before you try anything in this book, you are strongly advised to create full backups of your website

or blog! Bad things happen to lazy people.

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Installing WordPress Manually:The Ultimate Guide

Whilst it is true that you can install WordPress quickly and easily using an automatic installer scriptsuch as Fantastico, doing so will actually make your site far more vulnerable to getting hacked. Thisis because such script:

• may not install the latest WordPress version which is already a problem because you reallyshould only be using the latest stable release of WordPress to minimize security problems

• dumps remnants of installation on your server which can be exploited by those withnefarious intention

• doesn’t install WordPress securely: (i) it names your database using an easy to guessnaming pattern i.e. wrdp1, wrdp2, wrdp3 etc which will put your site in a serious jeopardy,(ii) it adds wp_ prefix to your database tables which is also a common knowledge, makingit a lot easier for people to hack your site

You don’t want your site to carry such security risks, do you? Especially if your site is a businesswebsite. You cannot afford to get lazy and use this installation method, you have too much at stakehere.'

So, never ever use automatic installation method to install WordPress or any other scripts for thatmatter. Always, always, always install your scripts manually. It requires a little bit of works andtakes longer time to do but it’s one of those things every good webmaster must do.

In this article I’m gonna show you how to install WordPress manually. Perhaps contrary to whatyou might believe, it’s actually not that difficult. You might feel a bit scared and intimidated in thebeginning but after doing it a couple of times it’ll be like a walk in the park for you!

So, are you ready? Great! Let’s rock ‘n roll…

Creating Database and User for WordPress

Since WordPress needs a container to store data, the first thing you have to do before you go on

installing WordPress is to create a database and user for WordPress.

Let’s create a database first. Here’s how to do it using CPanel.

1. Login to your CPanel account

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2. Scroll down a bit until you find “MySQL Databases” under the “Databases” section. Once youfind it, click it to bring up the MySQL Database screen

3. Name your database. You can name it whatever you like but don’t use one that’s easy to predict.Some web host will add your account username as the prefix to your database

4. Once you name your database, click the “Create Database” button to create the database

5. Next, click the “Go Back” button in the screen that follows to return to the MySQL Databasesscreen. Don’t forget to copy the database name you see on the screen. This is important: don’tinclude the dot at the end of the database name! That’s not part of the database name.

OK, now that we have created the database, next let’s create a database user.

1. From your MySQL Databases screen scroll down until you find the “Add New User” section likeshown below

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2. You can name the user whatever you want but make sure you choose one that’s also hard toguess.

3. Next create a password for the user. You can use the “Password Generator” tool to help you comeup with some strong passwords.

4. Click the “Advanced Options” link to show the Password Generator options menu. Changepassword length to 18 (maximum value). Leave the other settings as is.

5. Copy the generated password in a text editor.

6. Tick the “I have copied this password in a safe place” checkbox

7. Click the “Use Password” button to insert the generated password

8. Next, click the “Create User” button to finalize this step

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9. Copy the database user name and password you see on the screen. Again, please be careful not toinclude the dot at the end of the password. That’s not part of the password!

Now that we have created a database and a user, next thing we need to do is to connect the userto the database we just created. If there’s no connection between the two then the user will haveno access to the database.

1. To connect the database and the user simply select the database and user you created earlier formthe User and Database dropdown menu and then click the “Add” button.

2. Next tick the “All Privileges” checkbox and then click the “Make Changes” button

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Download WordPress

If you haven’t done so, next download the latest stable release of WordPress from wordpress.org.

You can save the file wherever you want but it’s better to save it in a location that’s easy for you tofind. Perhaps save it in a special folder that’s named after your website e.g. mywebsite.com.

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Modify wp-config-sample.php

Next, unzip the WordPress file you downloaded earlier. Look for wp-config-sample.php file inside

the unzipped wordpress folder. Name that file to wp-config.php (remove the “-sample”).

Open the wp-config.php file using a simple text editor such as Notepad, Notepad++, TextMate orTextWrangler. Don’t open the file using word processor software such as Microsoft Word as it’sgoing to add some additional formatting not suitable for a web-based application.

Copy and paste the database name, user and password you created in the previous step into the‘database_name_here’, ‘username_here’ and ‘password_here’ respectively as shown in the imagebelow.

As of the MySQL hostname, in most cases you just leave it as is (‘localhost’). This is the mostcommon value for most web hosts. But this is not always you case. So, you might want to check outsome possible possible DB_HOST values from WordPress or ask your web host to be sure.

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For additional security, let’s add keys and salts. To do this first generate a random salt by visitingWordPress Secret Key Generator page. Highlight and copy everything you see on the screen to yourclipboard.

Next highlight the keys you see in wp-config.php file as shown in the image below.

Click “Paste” to paste the keys you copied earlier from the salt generator page.

Next, change the table prefix from ‘wp_’ to something else like ‘amore_’ for instance. Again, theidea here is to make it harder to guess.

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Once you’re done, highlight all the files and zip them.

Upload WordPress to Your Server

Now, let’s upload the zipped wordpress file to our server.

1. Login to your CPanel account

2. Click “File Manager”

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3. Select the domain in which you want to upload/install WordPress. Unless you have sub domainsunder your main domain, there should be one domain you see in the drop down menu

4. Click the “Upload” menu to upload the file

5. Browse to the location in which you saved your WordPress file. Leave the other settings as is.Wait until the upload process is completed, be patient.

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6. Once the file is uploaded, extract it by clicking the “Extract” menu as shown in the image below

7. Once you extract the file, visit http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin/install.php (replaceyourdomain.com with your real domain name)

8. Complete the form accordingly. For the username, never use admin for security reasons. Choosename that’s hard to guess. Do the same thing with password. Don’t use one that can be easilyguessed by people. Use very strong passwords. If your site is new, you might want to uncheck the“Allow search engines to index this site” checkbox.

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9. If you’re ready, click the “Install WordPress” button

10. Once WordPress is installed, don’t forget to delete the install.php file found in the wp-adminfolder. This is to prevent people from messing around with your site

Congratulation! Now you know how to install WordPress manually. It’s not too bad, is it? I told youThere are far too many people out there not wanting to invest their time to learn this very

important WordPress skill. But you’re not one of them. You’re among the elite few. You should beproud of yourself, I am. Trust me; you’d thank yourself for taking the time to learn how to do this.

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Note: if the image link doesn't work, click here

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