In order to run Cotonti and use it to its full capability, you should first confirm your server meets the following requirements. If you’re unsure if your webhost supports all this, don’t worry, even shared webhosting packages usually meet these requirements.
Cotonti provides an installation wizard that automatically sets the right configuration values, creates and populates database tables and installs selected modules and plugins. This chapter covers preparing for installation, running the installation script, and the steps that should be done after running the installation wizard has completed. It also explains how (and why) to select certain extensions for installation.
If you haven’t done so already, start by downloading the latest Cotonti release from our website or github. Unpack the file using a tool like 7-zip or Winrar to your local harddrive. Alternatively you can use wget, curl or git to download the files to your harddrive (see below).
Now open up your FTP client (such as Filezilla for Windows or Cyberduck for Mac) and upload the files to your webserver (if you’re not working directly on the server). Make sure the files go into the public web root directory, which is usually named ‘public_html’, ‘htdocs’, ‘public_www’ or something similar. Note that you probably want to upload the contents of the Cotonti directory, not the directory itself.
When the upload is complete, set permissions on the ‘datas’ folder you just uploaded to 777 (chmod). Make sure you do this recursively for all the files and folders within.
If you prefer to work with a command line interface, you can use wget or curl, then unpack using:
7z x cotonti-n.n.n.7z
You may have to install 7zip first (command may be different depending on your system):
sudo apt-get install p7zip
Another option is to get the files directly from our Git repository. In this case you should have Git installed on your server, or on your local machine if you decide not to download it directly to the server. Using the command line, checkout the files like this:
git clone git://github.com/Cotonti/Cotonti.git
Make sure you move the contents of the directory to the public web root after downloading. Don’t forget to set the right permissions on the ‘datas’ directory:
chmod -R 777 datas
In case you used Git to download the latest version, here’s a command to remove all .git subfoler:
rm -rf .git
Next step is to fire up your webbrowser and visit the URL on which your website should now be available. If nothing comes up you should confirm that the files have been uploaded to the correct directory on the server (the public web root). At first visit, you should automatically be redirected to the installation wizard. If not, append install.php to the URL yourself.
The installation wizard is pretty straightforward, and should explain most of the steps required to complete the installation.