Joomla

Joomla is an extremely popular open source CMS (Content Management System). It is written in PHP, and uses MySQL for storing the article and comment data. It is quite simple to install, but can be fairly complicated to configure.

To install it on your Bravenet account, you need to have a Professional hosting package.

Note that we don't provide support for third party products - these directions are purely self-directed installs.

Automatically Installing Joomla on Your Bravenet Account

Joomla can be installed automatically to your account via the Software Manager. It will create a database, and preconfigure it to work with our services.

Manually Installing Joomla on Your Bravenet Account

First, make sure that you are prepared:

1. Download the latest version of Joomla (See http://joomla.org for download links).
2. Unzip the Joomla file. It should unzip into a Joomla directory.
3. Make sure you have an SFTP account set up with Bravenet.
4. Optional: If you would like to register a domain for your site, you would do this now.
5. Build a website to put your install of Joomla on:
   1. Log into your Bravenet account and click the FTP Hosting tab.
   2. click on the Websites tab, and then select the Build a new website option.
   3. If your Joomla site is an addition to an existing site (for example, if you are going to use it as a blogging platform), you may want to choose Use a subdomain for your site. For example, blog.example.com.
   4. If the Joomla site is the focus of your website, you may want to choose Use an existing domain or Register a domain instead - your Joomla site will then be on example.com

Next, set up a database for use with Joomla:

1. Log into your Bravenet account and click on the FTP Hosting tab and then the databases tab.
2. Select New MySQL Database
3. Enter a relevant name, and chose a unique username and password.
4. Click Create Database. If you get any errors, resolve them, and try again.
5. Write down the username, the password, the server (for example sql##.bravehost.com), and the database name (don't forget the number at the end of the database name!). You will need all this information when installing Joomla. If you forget this information, you can access the Databases tab of your account at any time. You do need to memorize your password though - it will not be displayed anywhere.

Now, upload Joomla to your Bravenet website:

1. Log into your SFTP account.
2. Navigate in your FTP program to the website you just created.
3. Upload the contents of your Joomla directory from your computer to your selected directory. Note that you don't want to upload the actual Joomla directory - just everything inside it.

Next step is to configure Joomla to work with your database:

1. In your web browser, visit the website that you just uploaded the software to. For example, http://blog.example.com/ or http://example.com/
2. You should see the installation page of Joomla, prompting you to choose an installation language. If not, double-check the address you typed in, and use your FTP program to double-check where you put the software.
3. Select a language and click the Next button when ready to go on.
4. The next page checks your PHP settings. You can just hit Next again to go on to the next screen.
5. You will be presented with the license agreement. Hit Next once you've read and agreed to the terms of use.
6. The next page asks about database settings. Use the following options:
   1. Database Type: Leave it as the default - MySQLi
   2. Host Name: This is another name for the database server. Replace the default 'localhost' entry with the database server you wrote down earlier, for example sql1.bravehost.com
   3. Username: Enter the username you chose. For example, joomla_user
   4. Password: Enter the password you chose for your database
   5. Database Name: Enter the name you chose for your database, including the numbers after it. For example, joomla_123456
   6. Table Prefix: Leave this as default unless you have reason to change it.
   7. Old Database Process: If you already have a Joomla database installed, the default is to back up that database. If you wish to delete it, switch this to 'Remove', but note that you will lose all the data.
7. When done entering database information, chose Next
8. You will be prompted about configuring the FTP layer. This is not needed on our hosting services, so skip it by hitting Next.
9. Next, you will be asked to choose a site name and create an administrator user. This user will have FULL access to your Joomla site, and will be used to do any managment tasks you need - so chose a secure password!
10. At this page, you can also choose to install some sample data. This could be useful if you're still learning how to use Joomla.
11. When done, click the Next button and the script will finish the installation.
12. You will be asked to remove the installation directory before using your site. Click the Remove Installation Folder button to do this.
13. You should now be able to login with the administrator user you created, or view your site frontend. Congratulations! JUoomla is installed!

In the future, you can access your Joomla administrator control panel at http://yoursite.com/administrator/.

Next, you should configure your Joomla site to your tastes. Instructions for that can be found in the Joomla manual, available online at http://docs.joomla.org/

As a reminder, we don't provide Joomla-specific support, but if you do run into technical problems during the install, you can open a support ticket with us.