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CMS Made Simple installation

You will find instructions detailing how to install CMS Made Simple here. If you're unfamiliar with CMS Made Simple, you may want to start with the CMS Made Simple information page to learn a bit more about what it is and what it can offer you. If you're looking for instructions on installing a free CMS Made Simple template, check out the CMS Made Simple template installation page.

Getting started.

If you're interested in setting up a website with CMSMS, the very first things you'll need to do are:

1. Register a domain name (www.domainname.com)
2. Sign up for a hosting account that meets the minimum requirements of CMS Made Simple (as version 1.5.3 you need PHP 4.3+, MySQL 3.23+ -- for a complete list of what you need visit the official website)
3. Get an FTP program (FileZilla is a good free one)

 

Step 1. Download CMS Made Simple

Now it's time to download CMSMS and get it on your server. To download it, visit the official website. Download and unzip CMS Made Simple into a folder on your hard drive.

Step 2. Upload CMS Made Simple (and config.php) to server

Once you've downloaded and unzipped CMSMS, it's time to upload it to your web server. You'll need your FTP login information and the ftp address of your website (typically ftp.yourdomainname.com). If you don't know this information, log in to your hosting account, access the support section of the website, and look for FTP information. You can also check your hosting account admin panel to see if there is a place where you can manage FTP users (there usually is). If all else fails, contact your host and ask for your server's FTP details.

Open your FTP program, connect to your FTP server, and upload the contents of the root CMS Made Simple folder into the directory you want the website to exist (the root folder is typically public_html).

Once you've uploaded CMS Made Simple, you need to create a config file and upload it to the server as well (this is where it will store all of the passwords and settings of your CMS system). To do this, open notepad/Dreamweaver/etc, then save a blank file as config.php (remember to save it as 'All Files' type if you're using notepad or it'll end up config.php.txt).

Connect to your FTP server again and upload the config file to the same directory you uploaded CMS Made Simple to.

Step 3. Set file permissions

Using your FTP program (or by logging in to the file manager through your hosting control panel) you need to set some of the file permissions (CHMOD) for everything to work properly.

Change the following to 777: tmp tmp/templates_c tmp/cache uploads uploads/images modules

Change the following to 666: config.php

Step 4. Create your database.

Creating a database ... sounds pretty complicated, right? Well, it's actually a whole lot easier than it sounds. Just about every hosting account has a link to phpMyAdmin in its admin panel (just log in to your hosting account and look for a link to databases, mysql, phpMyAdmin, or something along those lines) -- this is where you control your mysql databases. Some hosts even provide a little database program that allows you to create new databases and users without even having to go into phpMyAdmin.

If your host only has phpMyAdmin, go ahead and log in to phpMyAdmin. Click the SQL link to run the commands to create the database. Type in the following (replacing the database name, username and password with those of your choosing) and submit it:

CREATE DATABASE your_database_name;

CREATE USER 'username'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'some_pass'; GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'username'@'localhost';

If this is confusing, you can even perform these operations using phpMyAdmin's Create Database operation (on the main page of phpMyAdmin) without having to type any SQL commands. If you're still having trouble getting the database and user created, check out your hosting provider's technical support section of the website -- if you have a half-decent hosting account it should have information there that can help you.

Hang on to your database name, username and password -- you'll need these in the next step.

Step 5. Run the CMS Made Simple install

So, you've got CMS Made Simple uploaded to your server and you've created your database and user -- now it's time to actually install CMS Made Simple. The good news is, CMS Made Simple has an automated install process that connects to the database and installs all of the database tables and data for you.

To access the CMS Made Simple install, in your web browser, access the install folder in the directory you uploaded CMS Made Simple to. For example, if you uploaded CMS Made Simple to http://www.mydomainname.com/ then you'll need to go to http://www.mydomainname.com/install in your web browser.

Now simply follow the steps in the install process and in a minute or two you'll be up and running with your very own CMS Made Simple website.

Step 6. Delete install folder

Once you've installed CMS Made Simple, you need to delete the install folder from the server immediately -- leaving it there would mean anyone could come along and overwrite your CMS system and render it useless. Log back in to your FTP server using FileZilla or whatever FTP program you use, select the install folder, and delete it.

That's it! You should now have a fully functional CMS Made Simple website. Pretty easy, huh?

Step 7. Enhance your site with a CMS Made Simple template

If you've just finished installing CMS Made Simple, you've probably noticed that the default installation looks a little basic. With CMS Made Simple, though, it's surprisingly easy to give your website a complete make-over with a free CMS Made Simple template. It's as easy as uploading the template and executing an additional installation file.

To browse the free CMS Made Simple templates available on this site, go to the CMSMS templates page. To view the installation instructions for the free CMS Made Simple templates, visit the CMSMS template installation page.

Note: If at any point you have trouble with the CMS Made Simple installation process, you may want to check out the official CMS Made Simple documentation -- there are some settings and options that aren't discussed here -- these should be irrelevant on most servers but may not be on yours.