How to install WordPress

Setting up WordPress is very easy. Just follow these steps.

Summary of installing WordPress

1. Download current WordPress release
2. Create database and user
3. Modify wp-config.php
4. Upload it to your hoster
5. Finish the installation

Download WordPress

WordPress can be found at https://wordpress.org.

Click the blue button “Download WordPress“, which can be found on the right. Currently WordPress 4.8. has 1600 files, but this may change in future. Unpack the files in a local directory.

Create database

Depending on your website hoster you should create a database for WordPress. The MySQL database needs a user who was admin permissions.

In our case this is:
Database name: db2703-wptest
Database user: db2703-wptest

The database user don’t need to be the same name. The Password of the database user needs to be a secure one: maximum number of characters, numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters and a special character. A good choice might be: “atatxah6paexae@R”. But do not use this password, create your own.

http://passwordsgenerator.net/ is a password generator, which can help you on this task. You might ask: how can I remember this passwor? My answer: you shouldn’t remember the password. Save it in a password safe. KeePassX is my personal favorite here. It’s secure and free and available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

The database user needs the maximum permissions. With some hosters you must explicitly configure these, and with others this settings are already done automatically.

Modify wp-config.php

Copy the wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php and change the following settings for DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD and DB_HOST.

In most cases “localhost” for DB_HOST  is correct. I have installed many WordPress instances on different hosters and never used an other one.

...
// ** MySQL settings - You can get this info from your web host ** //
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
 define('DB_NAME', 'db2703-wptest');

/** MySQL database username */
 define('DB_USER', 'db2703-wptest');

/** MySQL database password */
 define('DB_PASSWORD', 'atatxah6paexae@R');

/** MySQL hostname */
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
...

Go to https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/ and copy the authentication keys and salts, e.g.

define('AUTH_KEY', ' ^#XuItpn#9Z6C^^NnUeq4{r(M<c<ReQZEbSzUXcX)(gbMaD[}x>U?; C#OPk7DE');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', '1`=n?o+dODh8Z)%w L3&/TUHw 1J/%q|@S-E9O7Fw/l1Q_&?!gnV`$~3!p93^KcE');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY', 'y}#+FYkK{DxvZ%[V*e,}+7D |,_a;CM89Z%)7CwZ!F XeE-uHnnx/vO}&>hb$(f|');
define('NONCE_KEY', '50E7FQ}NH6VH7+r:Q@-:I$ROI09W(?1JY[(C(H:1$d<g%;-|4w:uZ<3DMCOZ(aZj');
define('AUTH_SALT', '?`=l1o)MoN}E?)(sKMt_*XR|nf<wh_Is(P|vKg/r|!![6D=vtKkRDF)JIr%M{:3I');
define('SECURE_AUTH_SALT', 'okhDkV]HMG!K.jxJd1Uq^RU`=,[&bL>%8 NlXZU`|*E-d>a|)t+zn 7rbI=X]f!]');
define('LOGGED_IN_SALT', 'WJNO.#b6_:e@FVd0Re8}ZA ^;h0FIYm&s#}`=Z $-ld-^9i;bmA+R`^-nh3Ut)Eg');
define('NONCE_SALT', ' ByrE|A)5f3FP3^d-qh{y8SCC3#45Fwj%llE?nS}#*G+V~h?PbMRTu[-*|||J7g;');

Set the prefix of all tables in the database.

$table_prefix = 'wptest-';

In oder to save space and speed up performance, you can define a number of revisions, which should be saved in the database. Without the definitions not limits are specified.

define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 5);

If this is done, you have set up your configuration file.

Upload wordpress files to your hoster

You can FTP (use secure FTP!, FTPs) to your hoster and upload the files in a directory. Please be aware, on some hoster you have to use www or public_html. With others you can use e.g. wp-test and change the domain link to this directory. If the FTP client, like filezilla says that all files transferred successfully, this is done.

Here the FTP client states, that 1495 files was transfered, zero failed.

Some hoster limit concurrent connections to their servers. Some allow eight or four. You can check the FTP-client, if there are only some errors decease the amount of concurrent connections.

Finish the installation

Go to http://mydomain.com/ you should see some options which can be changed.

Choose your language.

Chose the password of the admin.

Congrats! Your first installation of WordPress is done. The next thing is to secure your installation (which is done in our next blog), choose a theme and start blogging. Happy blogging.