Installing and Configuring WordPress

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Installing and Configuring WordPress

• Richard Boakes
• rjb_at_boakes.org

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Introduction

• A talk based on experiences
• A view from orbit
• with zoom where necessary
• A necessarily incomplete view
• covering just the bits I use
• avoiding the obvious
• An invitation
• to get involved

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Introduction (You)

• You are
• a) Poised to install this second
• b) Planning on installing soon
• c) Might install one day
• d) Just vaguely interested
• e) Catching up on email

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Agenda

• Key Features
• Reasons to use WP
• Installing WordPress
• Pre-Requisites
• Getting the code
• The Famous 5-minute Install
• Updating WordPress
• Content Backups

• Extending WordPress
• Finding and Using Plugins
• Particularly Useful Plugins
• Creating and Extending Plugins
• Closing thoughts
• Integrating with WordPress
• The Future of WordPress

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Key Features

• An editor
• For weblog articles
• For static pages.
• Runs on many common hardware OS combinations.
• Win32/64, Linux, Solaris
• Adheres to open standards
• e.g. XHTML, RSS, ATOM, CSS, XML-RPC.
• Sound program architecture.
• Easy to maintain.
• Easy to adapt.
• Easy to extend.

• Handles all visitor interaction
• Including comments, trackbacks pingbacks.
• Sanitized and Salted.
• Robust anti-spam solutions.
• Over 3 yrs 300,000 spams.
• None were published.
• Export and Import mechanisms
• Easy to backup and restore.
• Easy to move your data if you dont get on with
  it.

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Installing WordPress
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Pre-Requisites

• Required
• Web Server Apache v2
• with rewrite module enabled
• PHP v4.3
• MySQL v4.0
• Optional
• a subversion client

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Decide where you are working

• Work on the server, over SSH
• Great when hacking about setting up.
• Only mildly scary on a live service
• Take temp copies for safety
• Work on a client
• Great if its a private or local site
• For servers
• Manually upload using sftp, etc.
• Use sync tool

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Locate your httpd.conf

• Windows
• C\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf
• Linux
• /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
• Mac OS X
• /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

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Remember your DocumentRoot

• DocumentRoot is defined in httpd.conf
• common values are
• /home/www/yourserver/htdocs
• /Library/WebServer/Documents
• Youll need it later

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Configure httpd.conf

• Enable PHP (Win)
• LoadModule php5_module
• "C/Program Files/PHP/php5apache2.dll
• Enable PHP (Linux)
• LoadModule php5_module libexec/apache2/libphp5.so
• Enable PHP index pages
• DirectoryIndex index.php index.html

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Configure httpd.conf

• Allow .htaccess override
• ltDirectory /gt
• Options FollowSymLinks
• AllowOverride All
• Order deny,allow
• Deny from all
• lt/Directorygt

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Configure PHP

• On Windows
• The MSI does everything for you
• you need to specify the MySQL extension
• On Mac OS X
• An extra step is sometimes needed
• cp /etc/php.ini.default /etc/php.ini
• sudo chmod w /etc/php.ini
• sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl restart
• On linux
• ??? (lets see what breaks)

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Locate your MySQL

• Windows
• C\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.0\bin\
• Linux (apt-get)
• /usr/bin/
• Mac OS X
• /usr/local/mysql-5.1.32-osx10.5-x86/bin/
• Got root? find it with
• sudo find / name mysql

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Configure MySQL

• Login to mysql
• mysql -u adminusername -p
• Enter password
• Create a database for wordpress to use
• mysqlgt CREATE DATABASE mydbname
• Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

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Configure MySQL

• Create a DB user for WordPress
• mysqlgt GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES
• ON mydbname.
• TO myusername"_at_myhostname
• IDENTIFIED BY mypassword"
• Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
• Force the changes through
• mysqlgt FLUSH PRIVILEGES
• Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
• mysqlgt EXIT

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Get the code

• either
• download the code from http//wordpress.org/downlo
  ad/
• unpack it to your DocumentRoot
• or
• Navigate to your DocumentRoot, and
• svn co http//svn.automattic.com/
• wordpress/tags/2.7.1 wordpress

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Configure WordPress

• Copy the sample config file
• cp wp-config-sample.php wp-config.php
• Edit your new config file
• define('DB_NAME', mydbname')
• define('DB_USER', myusername')
• define('DB_PASSWORD', mypassword')
• define('DB_HOST', myhostname')
• and make up 4 random auth keys

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The moment of truth

• Visit
• http//yourserver/wordpress/

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Congratulations!

• You up and running (hopefully)
• but
• Vulnerabilities arise
• so update regularly.
• Things go wrong
• so make backups

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Updating WordPress!

• When an update is released
• either
• download the code
• unpack it
• copy it into your existing folder
• or
• Use subversion to switch to the latest stable
  tagged build
• i.e. svn switch http//svn.wordpress.org/the/tagge
  d/version

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Content Backups

• Use mysqldump to backup
• mysqldump.exe
• -uroot ppassword
• --all-databases gtc\backup.sql
• And recover using mysql
• mysql.exe -uroot ppassword ltc\backup.sql
• Or use a plugin

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Extending WordPress
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Admin Screen

• http//yourserver/wordpress/wp-admin

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Pretty Permalinks

• Default URLs are not descriptive
• http//example.com/?p1
• Pretty Permalinks are better
• http//example.com/helloworld
• Open the Settings/Permalinks
• Select Custom Structure
• Enter /postname
• Save changes

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Quick notes on publishing

• Adding content
• Adding tags
• Editing a published article
• Renaming a published article

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Widgets

• Add handy things to your pages
• In the admin interface
• Open Appearance / Widgets
• Add widget plugins for more capabilities
• e.g. Twitter

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Finding and Using Plugins

• How to find
• http//wordpress.org/extend/plugins
• Search Engines
• How to install
• Web
• Automated installation
• Web upload
• Command line
• Manual installation
• SVN installation

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Particularly Useful Plugins

• Anti-spam
• Akismet (installed)
• BadBehaviour
• Anti-slashdot
• WPSuperCache

• Identity
• OpenID

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Creating and Extending Plugins

• Source Control
• Subversion over HTTP
• The Plugin Format
• Descriptive Header
• PHP Code
• Actions (aka Events, Hooks, Callbacks)
• do_action(my_action)
• add_action(action_name, function_name)

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A NeSC Plugin

• lt?php /
• Plugin Name NeSCPlugin
• URI http//nesc.ac.uk/made/up/url
• Description This adds the word NeSC to every
  page on the admin screen
• Author Rich Boakes
• Version 0.1
• /
• function nesc_tagline()
• echo "ltp class'floaty'gt" . wptexturize( "NeSC"
  ) . "lt/pgt"
• function nesc_css()
• echo "ltstyle type'text/css'gt.floaty position
  absolute top 5em right 5em lt/stylegt"
• add_action('admin_head', 'nesc_css')
• add_action('admin_footer', 'nesc_tagline') ?gt

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Integrating with WordPress

• XML-RPC interface
• editing articles,
• publishing,
• moderating comments
• For example
• iphone.wordpress.com

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The Future of WordPress

• 3.6million downloads of v2.7
• GNU Public License v2
• Three releases per year
• features are voted for by the user community
• Further Help
• WordCampUK
• Cardiff, 18-19 July 2009 (a weekend)
• http//uk.wordcamp.org
• Web
• http//wordpress.org
• IRC
• wordpress

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Where to find out more

• WordCampUK
• Cardiff, 18-19 July 2009 (a weekend)
• http//uk.wordcamp.org
• Web
• http//wordpress.org
• IRC
• wordpress
• Or ask me
• rich_at_boakes.org

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