To successfully install and use glFusion you must have a fully operational web server, a database, and the server side scripting language PHP. glFusion is developed and tested primarily on the Apache web server version 2.x, but it should run on any modern web server. glFusion has been successfully installed and is running on other web servers such as Zeus, Lighttpd, and Microsoft IIS.
glFusion only supports PHP v5.2.x and above.
glFusion supports MySQL database engine using both the MySQL interface and the MySQLi interface.
Minimum Requirements
Software | Requirement | Minimum Recommended | Web Site |
---|---|---|---|
PHP | 5.2.0 | 5.2.17 | http://www.php.net |
MySQL | 4.1.3.x | 5.2.x | http://www.mysql.org |
Apache | 1.3.x | 2.2 series | http://www.apache.org |
Your server or hosting environment must have the following items available for you to install and run glFusion.
glFusion is designed where some of the files should reside outside of the web root, meaning they should not be directly accessible from the Internet. For most users this does not pose a problem, but some hosting services do not allow users to store files outside of the main web accessible directory. For these users, you can still install glFusion, but you will want to follow the directions in the installing glFusion in the web root section.
Make sure you know where your web root is on your server. This is different than your website's URL address. You may need to contact your hosting provider for assistance. It is important that you know this information prior to performing the installation.
Before we install glFusion, you will need to know a few key pieces of information. Write down the following information. If you are unsure what to put for each of the items below, please contact your system administrator or you hosting provider.
These installation instructions assume that you will be running your glFusion site as the main site on your domain. If your installation will be a sub-domain or a set of sub-pages of an existing site, you will need to adjust some of the paths.
glFusion requires a MySQL database. Depending on your hosting solution, you may need to create a new database for glFusion and also a database user account. Some hosting providers setup a single database for your account that should be used. If you already have a database created that you wish to use, you can skip this section.
Depending on your hosting solution, you may be able to create a new empty database using online tools provided by your hosting provider. You can also use a tool like phpMyAdmin to create the database.
Once you have created the database, record the name of the new database above in the Pre-Installation Tasks section.
It is always a good security practice to create a unique user account for each database. Create a new database user and add the following permissions to the user for the database you created in the previous step:
Record the new userid and password in the worksheet in the Pre-Installation Tasks section.
If you do not have shell access to your server and can only use an FTP client to access your server, follow these instructions.
To install glFusion you will need to un-archive the distribution on your local computer. The glFusion distribution archive will automatically create all the proper directories when it is un-archived.
To un-archive a .gz file, you can use recent versions of WinRAR or 7-Zip. If you are running Mac OSX, please ensure you have the latest version of StuffIt installed as previous versions have had difficulty properly un-archiving .gz files. For Linux/Unix users, use the standard tar
command to extract the distribution.
tar -zxvf glfusion-1.4.1.tar.gz
(for Unix systems) If your hosting provider does not allow you to place files outside of your root web directory, you should follow these additional steps to ensure a secure installation of glFusion.
glFusion requires that your web server have the ability to write to certain files and directories. The following list is the directories that you need to ensure the permissions are properly set.
Setting the permissions will vary from server to server, and depend on how you access your server. If you have shell access, changing permissions is as simple as running the following command from inside the path/to/glFusion directory:
chmod -R 777 logs
chmod –R 777 data
chmod –R 777 backups
… do this for all the directories listed above…
If you use FTP to upload files to your server, you can use your FTP program to change the permissions. Below is an example of using FileZilla as the FTP program to set permissions:
You will need to repeat these steps for all the directories listed above.
If you need assistance getting the permission settings correct, check with your hosting provider’s technical support or post a support message at the glFusion.org website.
It is important that you validate the directory and file permissions before proceeding to the final installation step.
Now that you have all the files loaded onto your server, you are ready to begin the online installation. Let’s review the steps you have already completed:
Open your browser and navigate to the glFusion installation wizard at /admin/install/index.php. The path to this file will depend on where you chose to put the glFusion files on your web server. The default location is:
http://Your_glFusion_Site/admin/install/index.php
The glFusion installation wizard was designed to automate the install process. Simply follow the installation steps.
You will be asked for the location of the private directory, this is the directory where the db-config.php or db-config.php.dist file resides. Type in the full path to this directory and press Next. You will then need to enter your site specific information such as database server, database name, etc.
Once you have completed the installation be sure to delete the admin/install directory. Also, pay attention to the success message to learn how to log in as the administrator and change the default password.
You can log into glFusion using the default administrator's account.
Username: admin
Password: password
The latest upgrade instructions, along with specific changes and enhancements of each version are available at the glFusion Wiki under Upgrading glFusion.
Before you begin the upgrade process, make a good backup of your source files and your database. The upgrade process is generally very safe, however, there is always the possibility that something could go wrong and part of any good upgrade plan is a good back out plan.
glFusion brings some major architectural changes that break away from how upgrades were handled in the past. The main change is that the config.php file is no longer used by glFusion. Instead, most of the configuration options are now maintained with an online configuration editor and the configuration files are automatically updated during the upgrade process. There are a few configuration options that are still maintained in the db-config.php (database settings) and siteconfig.php (site specific options such as Character Set), but you should not have to edit these files directly.
The upgrade process does not migrate your existing configuration options from the old config.php file. You will need to enter the Online Configuration section after the upgrade and set the options to meet your specific needs.
To ensure a smooth upgrade process and to prevent any problems after the upgrade, you will need to validate the following items:
Take extreme care to back up any files from your current installation that have any custom code in them, especially lib-custom.php (where all custom code should reside). Be sure to back up any modified themes and images from your current installation.
Follow the instructions above in the FTP section on how to upload the glFusion distribution.
Once you have successfully upgraded your site, there are a few things you will want to double check.
glFusion comes with the following plugins pre-installed,
If any of these plugins were already installed on your site, they were automatically updated during the upgrade process.
If some of these plugins were not previously installed prior to the upgrade, they were not installed during the upgrade. The files are on your system and are ready to be installed, but you will need to go into the Plugin Editor to manually install them.