College Installation

“install WordPress on the free webspace..”

before installing you need to determin whether or not said free web space meets the minimum environment requirements, namely a working and integrated php/mysql installation.

You can do a cpl things to find that out:

1. contact whomever admins the web server and ask them.
2. create a file, name it blah.php. Put the following inside of it:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

3. Upload that file to your web space, and open it in your favorite browser. Youre looking for MySQL, and you want to see that MySQL support was compiled into PHP. If it was you’ll not only see it in the list of compiled bits at the top of the file, you’ll see a whole big header with thye word “MySQL”.

Once youve determined that this free space supports php/mysql then your ready to worry about installing.

it may be different for you but my college just provded space and a shell account. they didnt provided sql databases.

best thing to do is to contact your local nerds, usually the computer science department, and ask them to create a database.

if they are not busy in the star wars chatrooms I am sure they will help out.

sombra, precisely why I provided preliminary instructions .. that was my experience also.

Well, I poked around to see if anybody else has a WordPress blog at my college, and sure enough the Ballroom Dancing folks have got one going on. (https://www.wm.edu/so/brdc/)

This seems to suggest that the php/mysql conditions are adequate for WordPress. Right?

So… umm.. now what? How do I make my own database and sutff?

Thanks so much!

This seems to suggest that the php/mysql conditions are adequate for WordPress. Right?

No it doesnt. Unless you know what box that site is hosted on, and that its the same as the box you are hosted on. I provided you with very simple instructions for verifying that php and mysql are in fact installed and talking. Far simpler than any poking around, I assure you.

Since that isnt your original question though lets skip to the chase:

“…but I can’t seem to figure out some of the basic steps in the installation guide. Basically, how I’m supposed to do this MySQL stuff and create a database?”

Creating a MySQL db can be done via a the shell, or via several remote admin tools, or several web apps, the most popular and widely used being phpmyadmin.

You are going to need to provide more information though before anyone can help you further:

1. Do you have a web backend to this site? An admin area, like plesk or cpanel?

2. SFTP == SSH File Transfer Protocol.

Thats not going to help you much here and is irrelevent to the original question. Do you have shell access, via telnet or ssh?

3. Do you even have mysql access? You cannot just create a database without having access. It doesnt work like that. You need a mysql username and password and the proper permissions.

https://www.wm.edu/it/?id=5415

You obviously have shell access. I reccomend finding out if your shell login and password are the same login and password needed for mysql access.

When you ask that you might want to find out if someone has already created a db for you.

I have contacted the support staff at W&M, and they created a MySQL database for my use. They gave me the username, password, and database name. I went in and changed the “wp-config” file to reflect these changes.

When I attempted to install, I got the following error:

Error establishing a database connection

This either means that the username and password information in your wp-config.php file is incorrect or we can’t contact the database server at localhost. This could mean your host’s database server is down.

I know I’ve got the password, username, and database name correct. Is it possible that it’s not at localhost?

Could be. Double check with your sysadmin staff to see….