Beginning Joomla! Web Site Development

Four main options are available for installing a local web server on your home or office computer:

• XAMPP is a distribution of the Apache web server that contains MySQL, PHP, and Perl. XAMPP can be installed on Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, or Solaris, and it is free. You can download the installation package at http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html and easily install on your Windows PC. XAMPP is not intended for use on a "live" site and should be used only for testing purposes. For this section, you will be installing XAMPP on Windows Vista.

• WAMP is another distribution of the Apache web server that contains MySQL and PHP. WAMP is available only for Windows PCs, so it is not as versatile as XAMPP. This is a popular choice for setting up an Apache server as a test environment, but should also not be used for a "live" site. You can download WAMP for free at http://www.wampserver.com/en/.

• MAMP is the Mac OSX-compatible distribution of Apache with MySQL and PHP. You can download MAMP at http://www.mamp.info.

• JSAS is an acronym that stands for "Joomla! Stand Alone Server," and it is a complete Apache web server distribution with MySQL and PHP. It also comes with Joomla! pre-installed. However, it is not freely available, and according to its own changelog found at http://www.jsasonline.com/jsas-changelog.html it is not regularly updated. You can find JSAS at http://www.jsasonline.com/.

Downloading XAMPP

Installing XAMPP

Running and Configuring XAMPP

Installing Joomla! on Your Local Server

Unpack and Upload

Setting Up the Database

Running the Joomla! Installer

2. The next step in Figure B-11 is the Pre-installation Check. In this step, Joomla! automatically checks your server’s settings to determine if it meets the minimum requirements and if it has the recommended settings for optimal performance. If any of the requirements listed on the top half of the page say "No," your server does not have the minimum requirements to install Joomla!.

Figure B-11

The minimum requirements listed in the Pre-installation Check are:

• PHP Version >= 4.3.10: Most web hosts meet this requirement. If your web host does not meet this requirement, you need to consider switching hosts.

• Zlib Compression Support: Joomla! uses Zlib compression for installing extensions. If your server does not have Zlib Compression support, you cannot use the extension installer.

• XML Support: Joomla! uses XML for extension installation, and for managing extension parameters.

• MySQL Support: Joomla! uses the MySQL database engine to store and retrieve data.

• MB Language is Default: MB stands for multibyte. Multibyte language support allows for supporting languages that use so many characters that they cannot be contained in a single byte like English can.

• MB String Overload Off: MB String Overload is a PHP setting that enables programmers to use standard string functions for handling multibyte strings. Joomla! requires this setting to be off.

• configuration.php Writable: You can actually go through the installation process if configuration.php is not writable, but it makes installation easier if it is writable.

The bottom half of the screen contains a list of recommended settings. Joomla! will still operate if these settings do not meet its recommendations, but adhering to the recommended settings will ensure that the server is configured optimally for running Joomla!. You should work with your hosting provider to make sure these settings match. In a local testing environment, it is not as important that these settings match. The recommended settings are:

• Safe Mode Off: Safe mode is a setting that limits PHP so that it can only perform actions on files and folders with the same owner as the one PHP uses. This should be turned off so that Joomla! can perform actions on any file or folder with the proper permission settings.

• Display Errors Off: For a live site, you want the PHP display errors setting turned off because if there is a PHP error, you want to be able to control the display of that error. For testing, it actually makes sense to have Display Errors On so that you can debug potential issues in your site.

• File Uploads On: If your server prevents file uploads via HTTP, you cannot use the powerful extension installer built into Joomla!. Other ways exist to install extensions, but the installer makes it so much easier.

• Magic Quotes Runtime Off: Magic Quotes is a setting in PHP that automatically adds slashes to strings to escape quote characters for the purpose of saving the string to a database. The problem with this setting is that it can potentially add slashes to strings where you do not want slashes. Joomla! has built-in libraries for handling strings for saving them to the database, so Magic Quotes is not necessary.

• Register Globals Off: Having Register Globals on leaves your site open to security vulnerabilities. You can read more about Register Globals at http://us.php.net/register_globals/. Joomla! has libraries that emulate the Register Globals setting, so it is not necessary.

• Output Buffering Off: Output buffering can enhance performance, but the directive should be set to off and output buffering should be explicitly enabled in the program code.

• Session Auto Start Off: The session auto start directive enables PHP scripts to work with sessions without requiring the script to explicitly start the session. The problem with session auto start is that if it is enabled in PHP, objects in the session classes must be loaded before the session starts. This can cause issues if the objects are not loaded, so Joomla! starts sessions explicitly to maintain control over the session starting process.

Installing Joomla! in a Shared Hosting Environment

What to Look for in a Web Host

One of the first things people often look for when seeking a web hosting provider is price. Price is important because it affects the bottom line, but I’ve always believed in the old adage that "you get what you pay for." Some really good hosting providers out there offer high-quality shared hosting for a low price, but you need to know what to look for and the right questions to ask when you are looking for a web host. Besides meeting the basic minimum requirements for Joomla! as discussed earlier in this chapter, research the following four qualities in addition to price:

Figure B-17

• Bandwidth: Bandwidth is a measure of the amount of data that can be passed to and from your hosting account per month. If you anticipate a lot of traffic to your site, or if you plan on streaming media such as videos or audio directly from your server, you need to make this number as high as possible. If you are building a site to share information with the Little League baseball team you are coaching, bandwidth is probably not a huge concern. You can find affordable hosting that offers at least 1 terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) of bandwidth.

• Storage: A single installation of Joomla! requires less than 10 megabytes, and most hosts offer more than 100 megabytes of storage. The question of how much storage you need really comes down to the type of site you are building. If you plan on hosting a large number of pictures, videos, or audio files, you will need a lot of storage. If you’re that Little League coach, you probably won’t need a lot of storage space. Get as much storage as you think you need, and make sure your hosting provider can easily upgrade your storage without significantly disrupting your site.

• Reliability: Uptime is the most commonly used measure of reliability. Uptime is the measure of the percentage of time that your site can be accessed. Look for a host with a service level agreement (SLA) that offers refunds for downtime, so that you can feel assured that your site will be up at least 99% of the time.

• Support: Most web hosts promise great reliability, but the reality is that things happen. Servers go down. Networks go down. A couple of years ago, a car accident caused a power line to go down in Dallas bringing down the data center of a top-tier web host for several hours. This outage affected several high-profile sites, which undoubtedly spend thousands of dollars a month for hosting. You never know what could happen, so you want to know that your host will be there to solve unforeseen issues. Try and find out if your hosting provider offers 24/7 telephone or e-mail support, and look for existing customers to see if they have been satisfied with the support they have received.

Setting Up Your Database with cPanel

Try It Out Setting Up Your Database with cPanel

cPanel enables you to control almost every aspect of your account. To use it to set up a database on your site, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your cPanel account and scroll down and click the "MySQL Databases" link as shown in Figure B-18. Different hosts use different themes or skins for their cPanel implementation, so the appearance might be different from what is shown in Figure B-18, and the link might be in a different location.

2. The next page is the MySQL Account Maintenance page, as shown in Figure B-19. Notice that this server already has a database installed named example_blog. This hosting service allows unlimited MySQL databases, so the Joomla! database will be a separate database. You could just use a pre-existing database to install Joomla!, and it will not interfere with the data that is already there. The best practice is to put each installation of Joomla! on its own database unless you have a reason not to.

3. To create the database, you simply need to give it a name. Enter the name of your database into the New Database box, and click Create Database. Because the sample site for this book is a wedding site, the name used here is "weddingsite." Because the server is in a shared hosting environment, other sites are using the same MySQL database server, so cPanel automatically prefixes the database name with a name unique to your hosting account. In this case, the resulting name will be example_weddingsite. Remember this name because you will need it for the Joomla! installer.

4. The next step is to create a user for the database. Go back to the MySQL Account Maintenance page and scroll down to Current Users. Enter a username and a password for the database user, and click Create User. For the sample site, the database user will be wedding, and the password will be 12345, but you should try to come up with a better password than this. As with the database name, the username will be given a prefix to keep it from using the same username as someone else on the server. In this case, the username becomes example_wedding, and the password remains 12345. Remember this information because you will need it for the Joomla! installer.

Figure B-18

5. Now that your database and user are created, you need to give the user account all access to the database. Go back to the MySQL Account Maintenance page and scroll down to Add Users To Your Databases. Select example_wedding from the User drop-down list, and select example _weddingsite from the Database drop-down list. Make sure All is checked under Privileges and click Add User to Database. You now have a database named example_weddingsite and a user account named example_wedding with the password 12345 and are ready to unpack and upload your Joomla! files to the server.

Figure B-19

Unpack and Upload

Running the Joomla! Installer

Moving Your Joomla! Installation from One Server to Another

Why not create a fresh installation?

Try It Out Moving Your Joomla! Installation from One Server to Another

Moving your Joomla! installation comes down to six steps:

1. Check server settings: Compare the server settings of your current host to the settings on the new host to make sure that your new server is compatible with Joomla! and the extensions you have already installed.

2. Back up everything: This includes all Joomla! files, third-party component files, and any other files that you have added to your site such as images, videos, and so on. Create a folder on your local system, and download all files to that folder using your FTP client application.

3. Export your database: The third thing you need to do is export your Joomla! database. The best thing to do is to export it into an SQL file, which makes importing it easier in a later step. The SQL file will contain all of the necessary SQL commands for creating your database tables and filling them with your data. Be sure you export the entire database.

Using phpMyAdmin on both servers makes this step easier, because it offers the ability export your entire database to an SQL file. It also makes importing your files easier in step 5.

4. Modify configuration.php: Every Joomla! installation has a configuration file in its root directory called configuration.php. This file stores basic configuration information that Joomla! uses throughout the system. Most of the parameters in the file will stay the same, but some will change due to the different settings on the two servers:

• $host: This value is the database host. In most cases, this will be "localhost," but if you are using a different server for your database, you will need to change this.

• $user: This is the database user. Change this if it is different from the user on your other server.

• $password: This is the database user’s password.

• $db: This is the database name.

• $ftp_host: In most cases, the FTP host will be "127.0.0.1", but if you are using a different setting you will change it here.

• $ftp_port: In most cases, the FTP port will be "21," but if your server uses a different port you will change it here.

• $ftp_user: This is your FTP username.

• $ftp_pass: This is your FTP password.

• $ftp_root: This is the root path to which your FTP user has access.

• $tmp_path: This is the absolute path to the tmp directory on your server. It will probably look something like "/path/to/joomla/installation/tmp."

• $log_path: This is the absolute path to the logs directory on your server. It will probably look something like "/path/to/joomla/installation/logs."

• $offset: This is the time zone offset for your server. For example, if your company is in one time zone, but your server is in a time zone two hours ahead, you will need to see this to "-2."

• $live_site: This parameter is optional. You can probably leave it blank, but if you use it, this is the URL of your site. It will probably look something like " http://www.example.com" or "http://www.example.com/joomla.."

• $sendmail: This is the path to the sendmail program on your server. If you are not using sendmail, you can ignore this.

• $smtpuser: This is the username for your SMTP server. If you are not using your SMTP server for sending e-mails from your site, you can ignore this.

• $smtppass: This is the password for your SMTP server. If you are not using your SMTP server for sending e-mails from your site, you can ignore this.

• $smtphost: This is the host name or IP address for your SMTP server. If you are not using your SMTP server for sending e-mails from your site, you can ignore this.

5. Upload all of your files to the other server: Using an FTP client application (like FileZilla), upload all of your files to the location on your new server where you want to install Joomla!.

6. Import your database to the new MySQL database: Using phpMyAdmin (or console commands if you are an advanced database administrator) and the SQL file you generated in step 2, import your old database into your new database.

7. Test your new installation: Your move should now be complete, but please don’t take my word for it. Test your site to make sure that everything is in its proper place and working the way you expect it to. For example, if you did not use relative URLs for your links on your old server, they may not work properly on your new server.

Setting Up a Local Web Server on Your Home or Office Computer

Local Web Servers

Downloading XAMPP

Installing XAMPP

Running and Configuring XAMPP

Installing Joomla! on Your Local Server

Unpack and Upload

Setting Up the Database

Running the Joomla! Installer

Installing Joomla! in a Shared Hosting Environment

What to Look for in a Web Host

Setting Up Your Database with cPanel

Unpack and Upload

Running the Joomla! Installer

Moving Your Joomla! Installation from One Server to Another

Why not create a fresh installation?

Summary

Exercises