TikiWiki FTP installation guide

If you are trying to install tikiwiki to your shared webhosting account and you have only FTP access (no telnet, SSH), read on:

Steps Overview:

0. Before you start: Choose one of the Tiki Friendly Hosts and save yourself headaches!
1. Download the latest tikiwiki and extract the contents on your local computer.
2. Create a folder anywhere under your web root. For example: tiki
3. Upload all the extracted files to that folder.
4. CHMOD the following such that PHP can write to them:

0. Before you start

First, some specs. This is a configuation that has been specifically used with this guide.

• Your computer (This should not matter, but)
  • Windows XP Professional
  • Mozilla Firefox browser
  • http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla/ FTP program - you need an FTP program. If you are not familiar with FTP use FileZilla.

• Your Web Host (This does matter)
  • Tiki Friendly Hosts
  • Apache 1.3.31 (Unix)
  • PHP 4 or better.
  • MySQL 4 or better
  • Cpanel 9.4.1-stable

Using a Fantastico Installer.

If you are totally unfamiliar with web development, FTP or server administration, you may want to choose a host that offers Fantastico installers for Tikiwiki. The upside of using Fantastico is that it is initially easier.

The downside is that it can't be used later for automatic upgrades (which are necessary from time to time for security reasons) without a high risk of losing data, images, wiping out any custom development you may have done with your theme. There are Tikiwiki Experts who are affordable and helpful to set up your site. That being said, we do have a guide for a Fantastico Install.

To install Tikiwiki by yourself, read on.

1. Downloading Tiki

• Visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/tikiwiki/ and click on Files
• Download the latest version of Tikiwiki.
  • Choose the zip file! Tars and Gzs are for Linux geeks. Although WinRAR seems to unzip them fine, you are probably just a dumb Windows user, so get me a zip file!
• Extract the file locally. Yes, you can upload the zip file and that would be faster, but then you will probably waste more time trying to get the folders you unzipped into the right directory. When you unzip locally, you will find a folder called 'tikiwiki-1.9.7'. Inside that you'll find all the folders and files necessary to run TikiWiki... but don't get too excited, there's a lot to do yet. Just remember where you unzipped it.

2. Create the database

Databases. You either don't understand them, in which case just accept the fact that they are magic that is required for CMS. Or you maybe understand them, but don't know why you can't just browse it with M$ Access. Either way, you need one. This is probably your scariest step so we will walk you through.

2.1 Log in to your website's control panel.

This documentation is specifically for CPanel. If your host is using something else, you may need to get their help with this step.

2.2 Goto the MySQL Control Screen.

• About three rows down is the MySQL Databases Icon. Go there.
• Create the DB:In "MySQL Account Maintenance" You will see a list of your current databases (maybe none).
• There is a form field which says"New Database". Type "wiki" or something like that. Be careful - if you plan to have more than one wiki set up with this host you will need to have it written down which part of your site connects to what database. Click "Create". Because there are multiple accounts on each server, whatever your sign-on for Cpanel is, that is prepended to the front of whatever you enter. It ends up like "yourdomain_wiki"
• You should get an message "Added the database (wiki)". For now this is simply an empty shell. Tikiwiki will configure it later. On my Cpanel you can now click "Go Back".
• Create a User for the DB: The next section down in "MySQL Account Maintenance" is about "Users:". Just like you need to login to the wiki, the wiki needs to log into the database, so you are creating a user for that.
• In the "UserName:" field, type a user name. For maximun sanity, give the username the same handle as the database. Call your user "wiki" and thats one less thing to remember. With the prepend again, it ends up as "yourdomain_wiki"
• In the "Password:" field type a password. Don't use a suckky password - hackers are trolling for dummies like that. Use a STRONG password.
• Write both the password and and full username (including the domain) down. Maybe email it to yourself so you don't lose it. Now click the "Add User" button.
• Again the confirmation message will appear "Added (username) with the password (password)". Make sure you have it written down right. Again, click "Go Back".
• Give the new User permission to use the DB: In the top section "Databases:" There is a "User" field that might already be populated with the username you selected, and a "db" field that might also be populated with the database you created. Now goto the section called "Add Users To Your Databases:"
  • There is a drop-down combo field, so you just need to match A to B. Choose the appropriate user and database you've just created. Underneath that is a bunch of "Privileges:" check-boxes, but the first one should say "ALL" and it should already be checked. If this is all as I've stated, you just have to click the "Add User to Db" button, and you'll get the "Added the user (cpanel signon)_(user name) to the database (cpanel signon)_(database name)" message. Done!
• Done!. Hopefully that all went smoothly, and you are done with the database process.

The above could be confusing, and Cpanel may be slightly different, or maybe you don't have a MySQL and only have phpMyAdmin. If so, good luck. The bottom line is you need a database, you need a user, and that user needs to have ALL privileges to that database. I used phpMyAdmin in a different installation, and there was no "ALL" option, so I had to make sure to check every privilege I could possibly check.

3. Upload the Tikiwiki Files

• Choose your folder: Log into your site with your FTP client. If you don't know how to do this, see Using FTP. If tikiwiki is all there is to your website, you will need to upload everything to your "Public_HTML" folder (also known as your "www" folder.) This way people who type in yourdomain.com will hit the homepage for tikiwiki. If the wiki is an auxillary part of your site, create a folder inside public_html like "wiki". You can put tikiwiki into pretty much any subfolder you like, or run several installs under one domain, whatever, as long as the folder(s) are somewhere within the public_html folder.
• Upload your files: Using Filezilla, this is a browse to your local (unzipped) files on the left side, shift-click to select the whole whack of them at once, and drag them over to the right side (your server). Be careful when you drag not to accidentally drop them into the wrong folder - If the destination folder has other folders in it, release the mouse button with the cursor hovering over a file and you can't screw up.
• Have a snack: You have 20 odd minutes to kill while the files are uploading. 1.9.7 is about 30 megs to upload.

4. Checking the permissions on the files and folders.

Here we have the most likely cause for a snag in your install. If you're as new to websites as I am, this will be new. Hopefully, though, in most situations you won't need to worry about permissions unless you've already messed with them. If you read CMS install documents, they refer to this as "CHMOD"ing a folder/file. CHMOD. There's another *nix term for you. If you had the ability to "CHMOD", you probably wouldn't be here on this page. You could run setup.sh from the command line.

Since "CHMOD" doesn't mean much to you, open your Cpanel again.

• Goto the File Manager.
• Click your "public_html" folder, then goto your newly created tiki folder. Inside you should see all your Tiki folders and files you just uploaded

One in particular is important to you. Look deep into that huge list of files for

tiki-install.php

If it exists, and it set to at least 644. This might work out fine. GOTO STEP 5 (you may have to come back here)

• Click on the name of the file "tiki-install.php" such that Cpanel shows you the options to "Delete this file", "Rename this file", "Change permissions", etc. Choose "Change permissions".
• Up pops a display where there are 3 modes and 3 categories. The 3 modes are Read, Write, and Execute. The 3 categories are User, Group, and World. There is a fourth line with permission numbers, which are actually sums for each column, like "6-4-4". There is also a "Change" button.
• Change the permissions on this file to 755. Then click the "Change" button. You'll get a confirmation message.

All of the other files, except maybe the error log, should be left as 644 (no changes please).

The permissions on the folders may (or may not) matter too. If so, the settings on all the folders should be . . .

Tikiwiki Main Directory Permissions
Create any of those folders if they are missing in your installation, for whatever reason.

note: some hosts (like Siteground) do not allow 777 permission settings. If that is the case, if you set anything to 777, your install will not work.

• If you followed the instructions, and the install still failed, contact your web host and they will fix the permissions setting if they know their job and want your business.
• if you get an obvious error "Tiki Installer cannot proceed: The directory '/styles' is not writeable." (You'll see I added this above now.) If you get a similar message, just do what is says and change the permission of the offending folder to "7-7-7".

5 The Tikiwiki Installer

What? Installing? What have I been doing this whole time then? You've been just setting things up, getting everything in it's place, ready for the big moment. Now you've got the files uploaded, and the database is created and ready to go. Might as well close out of your Cpanel, close out of ftp program--if this is going to be successful, you're just going to need your browser from here on out. Open up your browser, and head to the following address: www.(yourwebsitename).com(net,etc)/(tikifoldername, ie tiki)/tiki-install.php

• Eg: www.tikisite.com/tiki/tiki-install.php

IF everything is in place (steps 1-3), and IF you've set up all your permissions properly (step 4), instead of an error page telling you which permission you forgot, you'll get a page with the heading Tiki installer v1.9.7 (CVS). Under that it says "reload" — ignore that. Under that, it has the message "Tiki cannot find a database connection" which seems like an error, but it's not, if you're this far, Hallelujia.

• In the "Host:" row, it should say "localhost" (or "localhost.localdomain"). Leave that alone.
• Enter your database type. In the "Database type:" it should say "MySQL" by default. Leave that alone.
• Enter your database user name. The wholething, including including the "yourdom_" that Cpanel added.
• Enter your database name. The wholething, including including the "yourdom_" that Cpanel added.
• Click the "Submit Query" button

• If this went right, you'll be on a similar looking screen with the message, "Welcome to the installation script!"
• The first choice is "Create database with profile" and another drop-down combo box. The default choice is "Basicenabled profile for easy use" and that works. Click the button next to it called "create". (Don't worry about the rest of the page).
  • The new page has a top window and a bottom window. For me at least, the top window is "Print operations executed successfully" and has a bunch of code in it. The bottom window says "Print operations failed" and hopefully it is empty. If it isn't - don't panic. Copy and paste all the text from both windows, save each as a separate text file for some geek to look at if you have trouble later.
• If you scroll down, you see a hyperlink for "Click here to disable the install script and proceed into tiki". Click it. If for some reason the install fails, you can always upload the file again.

• Now you should see a HomePage and something that looks very much like Tikiwiki.
• Login as "admin" "admin" for the first time. Change your password (make it strong!) and write it down, and write it down somewhere else.

Now you may Be Bold. Do a little dance, make a little love whatever. Of course the pain has just begun Now that it works you have to figure out what to do with it.

Next Steps:

Configuration