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Xepher.net => Technical Support => Topic started by: Turnsky on December 11, 2007, 06:56:31 AM

Title: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: Turnsky on December 11, 2007, 06:56:31 AM
Well, new account and all, figured i'd go in head first, and start with the content management system, so i went for wordpress and comicpress, and i was wondering about initial setup in layman's terms, since my PHP skills are somewhat minimal, and i'm eager to get some semblance of a working site up and running, at least from the content side of things, i can worry about "prettying up" things later.
so i was curious about setting it up in order to get it up and running with Xepher, as well as tips for initial setup would be cool, too. =]
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: griever on December 11, 2007, 09:17:34 AM
You have to set up Wordpress and ComicPress yourself via an SCP program.  View this topic (http://xepher.net/forum/index.php?topic=625.0) for help regarding SCP, if you have Windows.  Log into your Xepher.net account page and run "Fix File Permissions".  Go make yourself a sandwich.  If you still can't access the install.php page as Wordpress dictates, go make yourself a cup of coffee/tea.  Try again.  The installation package Wordpress has is painless.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: fesworks on December 11, 2007, 09:19:15 AM
Well, I set up a WordPress + PodPress for my webcomic netcast. I can't say anything for ComicPress, but WordPress is fairly straight forward. It only gets real murky if you don't know... whatever the heck coding they use for blogs... And this is when you want to customize the design of the site.

I based my main format off of an existing style/layout you can download. It had BASICALLY everything I wanted (columns, and positions of things I wanted), and then I butchered it to hell to get it more closer to what I wanted... which took a LOT of trial and error to figure out what line of code did what and where, and so on.

So, maybe not really help, but that is basically what I did.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: Xepher on December 11, 2007, 08:56:47 PM
Ignore what Griever said about "Fix File Permissions" as that was something necessary on the old server, but not this new one (it's not even an available option now.)

I haven't personally installed wordpress, but as it's very similar to most other PHP install methods, I'd say you're pretty safe just following their directions. Specific database settings for here are explained on http://xepher.net/help.php if you're using MySQL. The only other thing to watch out for is if the instructions tell you anything about file permissions (aka "chmod 777 file.php" or something) In which case things here might differ slightly from most other web sites. You should NEVER (for security reasons) chmod 777 anything, as that sets it so anyone can edit (or even delete) a file/folder. Generally speaking, if they give you numerical file permissions, you should be able to change the last two numbers to 0s and be safe. Ex: If it says "chmod 777 /uploads/avatars/" you should change that 777 to 700. In fact, a more general rule is that all files should be 600 and all directories 700, and since those should (some upload programs can override that) be the default for any new file you've uploaded, you really shouldn't have to mess with chmod/permissions at all. You can adjust permissions via the file properties (right click) in WinSCP. 700 = User has read/write/execute and both group and world/other have no permissions (everything for them unchecked) 600 = User read/write and everything else unchecked.


Note to self: Put this file permissions info into the help page.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: griever on December 12, 2007, 06:28:57 AM
Quote from: Xepher on December 11, 2007, 08:56:47 PM
Ignore what Griever said about "Fix File Permissions" as that was something necessary on the old server, but not this new one (it's not even an available option now.)
Oops...shows how much I don't pay attention.  x.x  I do most everything via Cyberduck anyway.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: fesworks on December 13, 2007, 09:05:06 AM
Oh, I should add that when I put in Wordpress, I did not seem to have any php file permission issues....

Except that it will not send out password e-mails out to people that register for the site... I end up having to do that manually....
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: griever on December 13, 2007, 10:04:34 AM
I think that's from Xepher's email ban, not a misfunction of Wordpress.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: fesworks on December 13, 2007, 11:53:13 AM
gotcha. Well, so far the manual effort is working just fine.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: Xepher on December 13, 2007, 02:43:25 PM
As noted in the announcement section, scripts can only send email if they're setup to use authenticated SMTP... most forums (and I imagine wordpress) should have a way to configure that. The reason was too much bounce-back spam was being generated by spam bots hitting on a lot of people's forums, and a lot of it by people that don't even use email here, so the rejections were going to my mailbox (as their's doesn't exist.) This forces people to have email enabled (so they can see rejects and bot spam problems) and theoretically know what they're doing if they DO setup auth smtp in their scripts. For a low-traffic site, manual account activation is probably best/safest, but it's up to you if you want to enable direct email.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: Turnsky on December 19, 2007, 11:22:56 AM
http://foxfire.xepher.net/

getting there, while not making with the pretty just yet, i'm gonna spend my weekend picking some poor sap's brains to do so =D
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: Xepher on December 19, 2007, 02:24:28 PM
Still, looks pretty good so far. I'm gonna have to go back and start reading through your archive when I get the time.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: Turnsky on December 20, 2007, 08:42:46 AM
Quote from: Xepher on December 19, 2007, 02:24:28 PM
Still, looks pretty good so far. I'm gonna have to go back and start reading through your archive when I get the time.

thanks   :D
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: fraunie on February 25, 2008, 08:25:41 AM
This might be me just hitting my dumb point as my sleep deprivation hits, but after you upload the wordpress onto your directory, it says you're suppose to run the installation script, by accessing wp-admin/install.php. This is where I lack a certain understanding by what they mean. It's probably super-simple, but feel super dumb not being able to figure it out. Help?
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: griever on February 25, 2008, 09:47:51 AM
http://yoururlhere.com/wp-admin/install.php, unless you have wordpress in a separate directory in which case it would be yoururlhere.com/yourdirectory/wp-admin/install.php.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: fraunie on February 25, 2008, 06:56:19 PM
yeah, that's where I got stuck. It gives me a 404 error right now. I might have to take a few steps backward and see if I messed up something in the upload process...
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: fraunie on February 25, 2008, 07:08:30 PM
okay, sleep helped me now and I figured out that me keeping it in the "wordpress" folder makes a difference, which is a major "duh" all around. Anyway, thanks!
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: Xepher on February 25, 2008, 08:30:14 PM
http://fraunie.xepher.net/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php is the URL you want... it looks like you already got it though.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: fraunie on February 25, 2008, 10:11:47 PM
Frack, I don't know what I did now. I wanted to change the name from "wordpress" to "blog" then it just won't let me edit anything now, even when I try to change it back to "wordpress". Everytime I try to log in, it tells me the cookies are disabled or block, but I didn't touch that stuff. Is this a host related issue or should I try to bother the wordpress forums?
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: griever on February 25, 2008, 10:44:53 PM
I think you have to go into your database, find the table that keeps track of your options, and make sure the folder name matches up to what you changed it.  If you log into your database, find your table that's something like wp_options, and it'll be the 1st or 2nd row that will have your URL in it...click on the pencil/edit button and make sure it matches the new URL.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: fraunie on February 25, 2008, 10:56:10 PM
I found one of "blog_id", so I think it's correct...but it doesn't seem to change the situation.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: griever on February 25, 2008, 11:32:19 PM
Not blog_id....in your database, click on wp_options, then browse, then look for siteurl (should be the 1st row).  Click edit and see if it matches your url/newfolder name?  (this will display in the option_value column)
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: fraunie on February 26, 2008, 01:29:01 AM
AHHHH, it worked! I'm not touching that stuff anymore! Thanks!
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: jekkal on January 12, 2009, 04:36:11 AM
Um... I'm completely blanking on how to install Wordpress myself. I know there's already a directory available, but I'm not sure if the wordpress folder goes in the public_html folder or not, and either way I'm having trouble actually accessing the database that's already sitting there. I'm using WinSCP, but it won't let me just "open" the database.

Help?
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: Xepher on January 12, 2009, 05:19:56 AM
The database isn't just a file or anything... the file you're seeing may be the backup of it, but that's all. Databases are complex things with multiple tables and... well, a lot of stuff. Try the database interface linked from https://xepher.net/user-services/ to mess with 'em. If you're trying a new install of wordpress and already had an old one, you may need to delete the old tables first. And yes, anything html should should be viewable by the public goes in public_html. Most of the time wordpress is put in public_html itself (if your whole site is wordpress) or in a sub-folder like "blog" or such.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: griever on January 12, 2009, 05:20:44 AM
http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress#Famous_5-Minute_Install

Skip Step 2 because Xepher's already done that.

Also, after uploading all the files, make sure the .php files are set to 700.  Your program may or may not do that automatically.

If you want to see your database, log in via Xepher.net > User Services > Database after Step 6.
Title: Re: Setting Up wordpress/comicpress
Post by: Xepher on January 12, 2009, 05:25:30 AM
Griever: Handy link there. Thanks! However, chmod 700 isn't needed since the move to the Arclight server a couple years ago (when the new newsbox system came online.)