Thursday, November 24, 2011

How to Install Joomla and Joomla Templates with 1and1 Hosting

For a first time customer, 1and1 Internet, an Accredited Registrar based in Germany is one of the worst registrars in the world. It takes for example 48 hours for your order to be confirmed when GoDaddy and other registrars confirm your order in less than 2 minutes. Creating a mySQL database can take upto 24 hours, the same with creating subdomains and so on.

The 1and1 cPanel is not the kind of cPanel you are used with. It's not that intuitive and it will take you hours of exploration to navigate it with ease. 1and1 has one click installs for CMS like Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal etc but you will be limited only to the pre-installed templates. There's no world class customer support like in DreamHost or BlueHost. So if you are a novice, i suggest you give 1and1 a wide berth. But why is 1and1 one of the largest registrars in the world? It has to do with the quality beneath and the amazing offers. The cPanel has over 65 applicatiosn and you are spoiled for choice, you can create hundreds of subdomains ; you can have hundreds of emails and all for free. For me, the eventual quality I got from 1and1 Hosting and which shows the more you use their service surpassed its failures in customer service and in offering users an intuitive easy to manage interface. I will briefly explain how to install Joomla .zip file and Joomla templates with FileZilla on 1and1 Hosting. Remember, you cannot add  your own templates with 1and1's one click installations. So here we go:

1.ON purchasing your hosting services at 1and1.com(which comes with a free domain, during promos) you’ll receive a confirmation email(after 48 hours) with your Customer ID, which is required for you to log into the server cPanel.  As indicated in the email, go to http://admin.1and1.com and fill in the form with the Customer ID from the email you received and the password you indicated during the hosting purchase and registration process.

2.Under "Domains and Webspace", you'l see "Access".  Choose "FTP Account" under Access. Create FTP account and add a strong password. The FTP username is the odd string of characters beginning with letter "u". You will need these details to login to your account wit FileZilla. You can always create a new FTP account by clicking "New User"

3.Finally, locate your Domains. Still under "Domains and Webspace", click "Domains". Your Domains will appear listed if they are hosted with 1and1.

4.Now open FileZilla and select File > Site Manager, click New Site and fill out all the appropriate information.  Use the default FTP Port 21.

5.Next, click Connect and hopefully after a moment you will see all of the files currently stored on your portion of the server.  On the left hand side of the FileZilla interface you’ll notice you have the capability to browse your computer’s directories.  Find the zipped Joomla! file you downloaded and double-click it to send it to the server.  After a few moments the file should appear on the right hand side of the screen.  This signifies the file was successfully uploaded to your server space.

6.  Now, close FileZilla and return to the server control panel.  Next we’ll unpack the zip file.  We sent a zip file because it’s easier to send a single pack of information and unzip it server-side rather than send thousands of files separately.  This way we reduce the risk of skipping files during the upload.  Sometimes it only takes one file out of a thousand to make the whole thing come crashing down.

Under Web Space & Access click WebspaceExplorer.  This will allow us to browse the contents of the server and unzip the zip file.  Sadly, FTP Clients such as FileZilla are incapable of unzipping files.  Create a new directory folder by clicking the New Folder button in the top left corner.  Name it “joomla”and click ok. Find the zipped Joomla! file and right click it.  Select Unzip and select the “joomla” folder from the menu and click ok. The server will now unzip the file server-side.  Hassle free.

7.  Before we can start the Joomla! installation we’ll need to create a database, which can take 1and1 up to 24 hours to create.  Under Web Space & Access click on MySQL Administration and in the center of the page click New Database.  Give it a description that you’ll recognize and is relevant to its purpose. I named it something that reflects the website I’m creating.  Select MySQL 5.0 and give it a password.  A strong one remember!  Click Set Up.

8.  Now we wait.  It says 24 hours, but you can check back sooner and it may be installed.  Mine was up in less than a few hours.  You’ll know it’s been successfully created because all of the fields under the MySQL Administration page will be populated for an entire row.  The following example information is FAKE and is used to help you identify important information to be used during the Joomla! installation process.

    Database Name – db123456789
    User Name – dbo123456789
    Host Name – db1234.random.net

9.  After you’ve found this information you’re ready to go, BUT WAIT!  We need to redirect the main domain to look into the joomla folder.  So when you type in your URL the server will redirect you to the joomla site that is stored in your joomla folder.  On the control panel select Domains under Basic Settings.  Check the box next to your domain and click the Destination drop-down menu and select Edit Destination. Go to the Existing Directory combo box found under the Home Directory area of the page.  Drop it down and select the folder ”/joomla” and click ok.

10.  Wait a few moments and type your URL or domain address in the address bar of your browser and await the installation prompt of Joomla!

11.  Everything is fairly straight forward.

    Language | Select your language.
 
Pre-Installation Check | Verify that 1and1 offers compatible servers.  A few options will be tagged Red; Display Errors and Register Globals.  These will appear in red because 1and1 has a PHP 4.0 / 5.0 installation conflict, but it should not affect your Joomla! installation.

    License | Select I Agree.
    Database | Now refer to the unique names mentioned in Step 8 of this tutorial.
        Select mySQL for the database type
        Host Name: Your unique name (db1234.random.net)
        User Name: (dbo123456789)
        Password: The password you set for the database
        Database Name: (db123456789)
     
Lastly, select Advanced at the bottom of the page and create a different prefix for your tables to use.  A bad example would be abc_ but don’t forget the underscore.  This will help prevent hackers from messing with your data because they will likely know the default jos_ prefix.

    FTP Configuration | Select No and leave the rest blank

Configuration | Create a site name (can be altered later), fill in information for the site’s SuperAdmin account, and finally click Install Sample Data (this will put sample info into the Joomla! site, which will help you understand where information is displayed on the front-end versus the back-end of the site.
Finish | You’re done, but…

12.  Click the link "Delete Installation Folder Now" or something close to that to delete your installation folder. This is a mandatory step. Your site is now ready for configuration.

The next step is installing your desired Joomla template:

Installing Joomla Template on 1and1 Hosting
Navigate to the tmp directory of Joomla via FileZilla and create a new folder. Give the folder a name, for example, template1. Now upload the template to the template1 folder and unpack(Remember that to unzip the template, you to navigate back to the cPanel>WebspaceExplorer  and locate the template1 folder and right click to unzip the template) it, then in the installer make it the path. This will install the Joomla template in less than 10 seconds!



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