Magento One Click Install Guide

April 21, 2009 at 4:06 pm, Category: Web Development, Web Hosting, by Luke

Magento One Click Install Guide!

We love Magento. It’s powerful and it’s free and you can use it to take over the world (this may be a lie). However it’s a steep learning curve, and the first stumbling block is often installing it in your web space. So we’ve kindly provided an installer that’s available in your control panel that will install the latest stable version* of Magento for you.

There are a number of Magento One Click Install options out there, but after testing these we decided to start from scratch and build a custom script for our customers. We’re reaching a point where we’re going to be replacing the installer with a different system altogether, but until then our little installer isn’t going anywhere.

And even though it’s easy to use, we also thought we’d provide you with a guide to using it!

I want to install Magento!

Once you’re at the point where you want to install Magento, you will need to make sure that you already have your domain name setup with hosting in your plesk control panel. Once you have selected the domain you want to install Magento on, you should see your domain home page.

Notice the two buttons at the bottom of the page. One is the Magento Install button, and the other is used to clear the cache (more on this later). The first thing we need for the Magento installation is to create a database and user for the software to store its data in. You can do this from the same menu.

Select Databases -> Add New Database -> Enter a database name and click o.k. -> Add New Database User. Once at the Add New Database User screen, create a username and password for your database and take note of it; then click the OK button. Go back to the domain screen by clicking the domain name at the very top of the page. Now we are ready to start- click Magento Installation button to proceed.

This next screen is where we input all the information about our Magento Installation. If you are not sure what a certain field is used for, hover over the tool tips at the end of each line for further information.

Once you have filled out the form, click Begin Magento Installation. If there were no errors with your setup, you should see a small animation telling you the installation is in progress (this can take some time).

If the installation was successful you should see a green Install Information box with all your details of the Magento installation included. It will also email a copy of the information to the admin email address you specified, so make sure it’s a working email address!

So there you have it – the One Click Magento Installation from NuBlue.

My Install Doesn’t Work!

There are three common causes for a failed install:

1 – PHP Safe Mode

PHP Safe Mode is a redundant feature within PHP that causes many errors with PHP based applications if it’s enabled.  You need to make sure that PHP support is enabled, and that the PHP Safe Mode box is not ticked.  In your control panel you can check this by going to your domain name, then going to Web Hosting Settings, and checking under Services.

2 – PHP Support

And on a similar note – if you go to the Magento URL and your browser asks you to download a .php file – you need to log in to the panel, and turn PHP support on (Web Hosting Settings, Services).

3 – The URL is wrong

If your Magento store is using a URL that isn’t live on the server it’s going to fail when you browse to the site.  For instance, our VPS clients sometimes install Magento to webspace for the VPS hostname (i.e. vzABCD.nu-vps.com).  If you install Magento with the www prefix – then it won’t work, because the A record for www.yourVPShostname doesn’t exist.  In this case you’ll want to follow this link to change the URL.

But wait there’s more!

We have also provided a Clear Magento Cache button. This clears all the Magento cache files from the installation – this is sometimes required when making changes to the store. For example, design changes will sometimes require a clear of the cache before displaying. We’ve also found that the clear cache facility doesn’t clear anything from the Downloader (a.k.a. Magento Connect) area, so the button just helps keep your store nice and clear.

To use the Clear Cache button, simply click the button. If you have installed Magento in a subdirectory, tick the box and enter the details before clicking the Clear Magento Cache button, and you’re good to go.

*‘Latest stable version’ is a subjective term with Magento.  We don’t guarantee that the Installer will provide the latest version, and we certainly won’t update the Installer to provide the latest version as soon as it is released.  We wait until there have been no hot-fixes for a few weeks and we wait for feedback from the community and out clients.  If we’re happy that there is a newer version that is stable then we’ll update the Installer.  If you want to use older or newer versions, the manual install process isn’t all that difficult, or we can do it for you.

 

NuBlue are a Magento specialist. If you have a Magento design and development project or a Magento Hosting Requirement please get in touch and we will be happy to discuss your requirements.