Drupal

Drupal 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.

Installing Drupal on Your Bravenet Account

First, make sure that you are prepared:

1. Download the latest version of Drupal (See http://drupal.org for download links).
2. Unzip the Drupal file. It should unzip into a drupal 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 Drupal 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 Drupal is an addition to an existing site, you may want to choose Use a subdomain for your site. For example, test.example.com.
   4. If Drupal is the focus of your site, you may want to choose Use an existing domain or Register a domain instead - Drupal will then be on example.com

Next, set up a database for use with Drupal:

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 Drupal. 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.

On your computer, enter the drupal folder we created.

1. Enter the sites/default folder.
2. Copy the default.settings.php file, and call it settings.php. This file must exist for the installer to work in the next step.

Now, upload Drupal to your Bravenet website:

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

Next step is to configure Drupal to work with your site:

1. In your web browser, visit the website that you just uploaded the software to. For example, http://test.example.com/ or http://example.com/
2. You should see the installation page of Drupal. If not, double-check the address you typed in, and use your FTP program to double-check where you put the software.
3. The installation wizard will guide you through the install
4. When you are setting up the database, use the following options:
   1. Database name: Enter the name you chose for your database, including the numbers after it. For example, drupal_123456
   2. Database Username: Enter the username you chose. For example, dpl_user
   3. Database Password: Enter the password you chose for your database.
   4. Database Host (Found under Advanced Options): This is another name for the database server. Enter the database server you wrote down earlier, for example sql1.bravehost.com
5. and finish off the wizard.
6. You should now be able to login with the administrator user you created. Congratulations! Drupal is installed!

Next, you should configure Drupal to your tastes. Instructions are available online at http://drupal.org/documentation

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