Downloading and Installing Silverstripe on CPANEL

cPanel is one of the most common control panel system around, so we'll run through instructions for this system.

There are basically 3 aspects to installing Silverstripe 

  • Putting the Silverstripe files on your server
  • Setting up a database ready for silverstripe to use
  • Running the silverstripe install

Here, I'm assuming you have your hosting set up with a domain name set up (eg, www.yoursilverstripesite.com). I'm also assuming you are starting on an empty site. If you already have a site, you might want to set up a subdomain (easy enough using the subdomain icon in cPanel), and installing silverstripe into the folder for that subdomain.

 


1. Get the latest copy of Silverstripe

First off, you'll need to download the latest version from http://www.silverstripe.org/stable-download.

I know the link on the right says 'easy' which sounds enticing, but we're going to download the left hand file. (The link on the right installs to your local computer, which in fact takes ages to set up, on my computer it didn't work at all)

2. Log into your cPanel account

Eg: www.yoursilverstripesite.com/cpanel

3. Open the file manager

  • Click the file manager icon, and tick the box next to "Show Hidden Files (dotfiles)."

4. Upload and extract the silverstripe Zip file

  • Click the upload button at the top of the page
  • This will probably open a new window, where you can choose the file, and wait for it to upload
  • When it's uploaded, close the window, and return to the file manager (Note: you might have to click the 'reload' button this page to view the uploaded file)
  • Right click the uploaded zip file, and extract
  • The files will be extracted into a folder. This is ok if you want to install silverstripe into a folder, but you probably want to go into the folder and move all the files back to main folder
  • Close the filemanager 

4. Create the database

A database it's own name, and also an allocated 'user'. The user has a username, password, and various permissions. The wizzard here can help set these things up.

  • Back in the cPanel page, click the MySQL® Database Wizard icon
  • Choose a database name for the database, maybe something like ssdb (note, cPanel might stick on a prefix here)
  • Choose a 'username', and a password
  • On the next page, tick 'ALL PRIVILEGES' to give your database user access to the database
  • Click next step, you are now done with cPanel

5. Install silverstripe

  • Go to your website, eg www.yoursilverstripesite.com
  • Fill in the details on the form, 
  • Install!

6. Log in 

  • After installing, try going to www.yoursilverstripesite.com/admin
  • You should be able to log in using your account details