Screencast: How To Install Magento Commerce 1.4 using the “full release” bundle

This screencast continues the “Installing Magento” series and builds on my previous post/screencasts, 4 ways to create a MySQL Database and User for Magento.  Installing Magento Commerce is fairly straight forward.  I’ve created a step-by-step video tutorial that should guide you through the process.  The video tutorial is detailed so I had to split it over 3 parts.  I’ve also documented the procedure below.

Installing Magento 1.4 using the full release package – Part 1

Installing Magento 1.4 using the full release package – Part 2

Installing Magento 1.4 using the full release package – Part 3

Overview

If you have verified your web server meet the system requirements, you are ready to install Magento by following these steps:

1. Download Magento
2. Uploading/Copying Magento to the web server
3. Setting correct ownership and file permissions
4. Installing Magento
5. Configuring Magento
6. Creating the Admin Account

Downloading Magento

To get started visit: http://www.magentocommerce.com/download.  You’ll be greeted with a registration page.  If you are not already a member then I encourage you to register.  Registration is completely free but gives you access to the forums which is a great resource if you a re a store owner or Magento developer.  If you don’t want to register click the No, thanks. Just take me to the download page link at the bottom.  You’ll now be taken to the download page where you’ll see the following five options:

Downloader: The downloader is a small utility that installs the full release by downloading the necessary files directly from the Magento and PEAR servers.  The downloader utility will always download the latest stable release.

Full release: This file is a full release of Magento.  It contains all necessary files needed to install and run Magento.  The full release is considered an alternative to the downloader file.  No additional files are needed if you choose to use this option.

Sample Data: This file is optional and is only required if you want to install sample data to your initial installation of Magento.  This will allow you to have the same set of products that you see in the online Magento Demo Store.  Sample data is not included with either the downloader or full release.

Database Repair Toolkit: This little utility checks the database integrity schema to ensure everything is okay.  It is highly recommended that you keep regular backups of your database.

Magento and Zend Server: This large download contains both Magento Commerce and the Zend Server.

For each download option, Magento offers three different files.  Each file is offered in either zip, tar.gz, or tar.bz2 formats and the contents are exactly the same so choose which ever format you are most comfortable with.

This screencast uses the “full release” bundle, but if you choose the “downloader” the process will be almost the same with the exception  being that you will have to wait for the downloader utility to download the files to your web server before you can commence installing.

Uploading/Copying Magento to the web server

Whether you chose the ‘downloader utility’ or the ‘full release’ the next step is to upload or copy the files to your web server.  This step is dependent on your web server and hosting package so refer to their help pages if you are unsure how to upload files.  You will need to upload and unzip the file in your home/web server directory.  This will create a “magento” directory.  You can choose to go with the default but obfuscating the directory (renaming it) adds an additional layer of security to your ecommerce site.  The example I use in the screencast is “scw_magento” but you could just as easily use “zI36_magento” or “magento_L38h” for example.  Don’t worry about horrible URLs as you can use mod_rewrite to make the URLs pretty and more useful to both search engines and visitors.

Setting Correct File Permissions

For the installation process to work properly, Magento requires certain permissions be given to the top-level directory (where you uploaded the Magento files) and all Magento directories underneath it.

Note: Each web server and hosting provider is different and may not require changes to be made.  If in doubt the Magento Installation Wizard will check the permissions are correct and prompt you if they are not.

Ensure that the directories app/etc , var , and media are writable by the web server.  Change the permissions to 744 using either your FTP client, ssh connection, or a web based file browser.  Both CPanel and Plesk have BUI file managers.  For security purposes you should never set any file or directory to 777 and try to avoid 77* as these allow anyone to read and write to those directories.

Installing Magento

Using your web browser, navigate to where you have uploaded the Magento files.  If everything has been uploaded and extracted correctly, you should see the Magento Installation Wizard.  If Magento is displaying any errors, they must be resolved before you continue the installation process.

If you are using the ‘full release’, as we are here, you will have skipped the ‘download’ phase of the wizard and you’ll be presented with the licence page.  You must read and agree to the license before hitting the ‘Continue’ button.

Next is the Localization step.  Here you choose the stores default location, time zone, and currency.  While Magento does allow the set up of multiple eCommerce stores this installation process will only cover the one Magento store.  This information is for the set up of the default store an can be changed later if needed.

Configuring Magento

The next step is entering the Database configuration information.

This page is broken up into several different sections.

Database Connections

Hostname: This is the hostname where MySQL is running.  Unless you have MySQL and Apache running on two different servers, use “localhost”

Database name: Enter the name of the MySQL Database that will be used for Magento Commerce

User Name: Enter the MySQL Username you created to access the Magento database.

User Password: Enter the MySQL Username Password

Table Prefix: If you have multiple applications using the same database then you can prefix the tables so you know which table belongs to which application.  It is not a good idea to have multiple applications all using the database.  Not only does it make database administration much harder but it’s a security risk and can lead to performance problems.  It is highly recommended that you have a database dedicated to Magento Commerce.  If you do allow Magento to have a dedicated database, leave this field blank.

Web Access Options

Base URL: This field should have been automatically pre-populated with the URL where you installed Magento.  If you enable mod_rewrite within Apache and you enable ReWrite Rules in Magento (see below) then you can make pretty URLs.

Admin Path: This is the path to the Magento Administration area.  Note that this is a relative path so you do not need to enter the full path/url here.  The default value is “admin” meaning that your Admin URL will be http://www.yourdomain.com/magento_installation_directory/admin.  For security reasons it’s best to change this URL and obfuscate it.  The example I used in the screencast was “scwadmin” but you can choose something more relevant.

Skip Base URL Check: If the ‘Base URL’ field above was not automatically populated then something went wrong during the initial tests and you may need to tick this box to allow the installation to progress.  If however the ‘Base URL’ field above is correct then leave this check box unticked (default).

Web Server (Apache) Rewrites: When you verified your server requirements you should have seen that mod_rewrite was enabled.  If this is true then you enabling this feature will allow you to use pretty URL’s within the front end store.  For Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) this will need to be enabled.

Use Secure URLs (SSL): If you have installed an SSL Certificate for your domain then enabling this feature will allow secure logins to your admin area and customer pages.  Purchasing an SSL for your site is an essential requirement for any eCommerce site, even if you choose to redirect your customers to a 3rd party payment gateway, such as PayPal or Authorize.net for example.  If you don’t secure your admin and customer areas then the site could be compromised and data either stolen or defaced/destroyed.  Read more about choosing and buying SSL’s for Magento Commerce.

Session Storage Options

Magento offers two options here “Filesystem” and “Database”.  Each visitor to your site is given a session ID that allows Magento to track the user through their visit.  You can choose to store the session data either on the filesystem or in the database.  The Filesystem option is fine for most cases and if you have either a dedicate or VPS hosting package changing the session directory (after installation) to a memory based tmpfs filesystem can dramatically improve performance.  If you have thousands of customers or you have a MySQL Cluster then you’ll need to specify the database.  The database option gives higher security but may require you to tune MySQL if it causes a performance problem for the database.

Once you hit ‘Continue’ the installation wizard will create and populate all the database tables within the MySQL database and will create the necessary configuration files for Magento.  Depending on the speed of your web server this can take several minutes so don’t do anything until you either see an error or you see the next screen.

Create the Admin Account

Once Magento has finished installing you’ll need to create your Magento Admin account. This screen is split in to three sections:

Personal Information

You will need to enter the First Name, Last Name, and EMail address of your Magento Administrator.  This needs to be a real person or group and the email address must be valid.

Login Information

You will need to choose a username and password for your Magento Administrator.  However tempting try not to choose “admin”, “magadm”, “administrator” as these are easily guessed.  Use an obfuscated username such as “m4g4dm”. You’ll be using this account a lot so don’t make it overly complicated.

When choosing passwords the longer and more random the better.  However there is a fine line here.  If it’s too complicated that you have to write it down or keep it in a non-secured text file then this deafetes the purpose, however too short and it’s easy to either guess or brute force attack.  Try to use something between 8-16 characters and numbers that you can commit to memory.

Encryption Key

The encryption key is used to encrypt sensitive data within the Magento Database.  If this is the first time you are installing Magento then leave this field blank and a key will be generated for you.  If you are re-installing Magento or migrating a database from one Magento installation to another then you’ll need to enter the key here.  If you enter the wrong key then Magento won’t be able to access the data.

Hit the “Continue” button to continue to the next step.

You’re All Set!

CONGRATULATIONS!!! You’ve successfully installed and configured Magento.  If you allowed Magento to generate the encryption key automatically this will be displayed on the page.  Make a copy but keep it in a very safe place.

You’re now presented with two buttons to take you to either the “Frontend” or “Backend”.  Click the buttons and you should find yourself at either the front end of your new Magento store, or the backend/backoffice admin area.

Change The Demo look and feel

Understand that every Magneto store that is installed, regardless of whether you install sample data, is initially set up as a demo store. There are several areas that need to be customized before you begin selling products.  Login to the backend/admin area and start configuring Magento to suit your needs.

I’ll be walking you through how to configure each part of the Magento Store in future screencasts so stay tuned.

Installation Issues

If you encounter any issues while installing Magento Commerce login to Magento’s Website and search the forums to see if anyone has encountered the same problem and fixed it.  If you can’t find what you’re looking for, start a new thread in the Installation Problems area of the forum.

If you find that you can browse the Admin Area but get “404: Page Not Found” Errors when navigating the front end, make sure your webserver allows you to override the default apache settings by using .htaccess files.  Look at your Apache httpd.conf (or vhosts.conf) and make sure you have “AllowOverride All” set (Default could be “AllowOverride None”).

Related posts:

1. [Screencast] Installing Magento #01 – Verifying System Requirements
2. [Screencast] Installing Magento #02 – 4 ways to create a MySQL Database and User for Magento
3. How To Clone a Magento Commerce Site for Offline Development
4. How To Fix: Magento-Connect Downloader Manager lists no packages
5. Magento Commerce: Fixing “Exception printing is disabled by default for security reasons”