OS Commerce install made simple

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2009-04-24 11:44:10 - Graham Ellis
Downloading and installing a new open source product can be daunting, and yesterday afternoon and this morning we set up WordPress and OSCommerce onto our own test server, and onto delegate's laptops. I'm following this introduction with a brief procedure summary for the setup of OSCommerce ... the instructions are clear enough for experienced web server admins / programmers at the start of the 100 page plus .pdf manual, but it's great to have a summary note as a reminder for the delegates on the course.

Here is what you do ...

1. Download from OSCommerce site (zip file)

2. Decompress it (winzip for 'doze types or jar for 'nix and 'nux)

3. Upload to web server, using FTP (manual says ASCII mode for text
file). 'nix to 'nix - recompress via tar and uncompress

--- At this point --- you have a directory I called "shop" which includes all the stuff in the distribution WITHIN the web site document area.

4. If necessary, create a database user / database / password for use
of oscommerce - through phpmyadmin or directly through mysql:

grant all on shop.* to gerald@"%" identified by "gorilla";

create database shop;

5. If your site has mod_rewrite instructions, you may need to add a
.htaccess file saying "RewriteEngine Off"

6. Visit http://sitename/shop/catalog/install and correct any errors of the "must be writeable" type that you get. e.g.
chmod a+w jhfgjhdfghjd/configure.php

7. On next screen, give database information:
localhost gerald gorilla shop

--- At this point --- the system will create all the tables (empty) that it will need

8. Give Store Details
TransWilts Railwayana
Melksham Railway Development Group
graham@wellho.net
grahame
spingo_63

--- At this point --- you have an empty shop and you need to put some product in there to sell, and set up tax rates, stocking and shipping policies, and much more!

9. Click onto admin tool and log in ... and you have whole loads of menus to add products and set up how your shop works.

You learn a lot from the first setup ... it's probably a good idea to do it on a test server, to put up only a handful of products to test and learn what you're doing, and to expect to rerun the procedure "knowing what I know now" ....

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OS Commerce install made simple