The Web Hosting Blog of Host Color

In the previous article on this column, I introduced you to the MODx CMS and it’s benefits.  In this tutorial, we are going to walk through the process of installing the MODx CMS on your Host Color web hosting account. I am going to assume that you already have your hosting account set up and that you have access to your cPanel (See cPanel Video Tutorial), you have a domain name (or subdomain) that you want to develop a site on using MODx, and that you have an FTP program set up for transferring files from your computer to your Host Color account.

I am going to install MODx on a subdomain of my main domain name (usercraze.com), which will be http://modxdemo.usercraze.com, so the files will reside in the modxdemo folder on my hosting account.  The steps you will need to follow to install MODx on your Host Color account are:

1. Download and unzip MODx onto your local computer.
2. In your FTP client, log into your Host Color account, and navigate to the folder you wish to install MODx in
3. Transfer the MODx files to your hosting account
4. Create a database and user for your MODx website
5. Install MODx

So let’s get started!

Step 1: Download MODx onto Your Computer

This is a pretty straightforward step.  All you need to do is go to the MODx website, click on “download” and get the latest release.  At the date of this posting, the current generally available (GA) version of MODx is Evolution 1.0.2.

The download will be an archive which you can unzip using your favorite unarchiving utility (Winzip, Winrar, 7-Zip, etc.).

Step 2: Log into FTP and Navigate to your Destination Folder

How you execute this step depends very much on what FTP client you prefer to use. There are many clients out there that you can use, including CuteFTP, WinSCP, etc.  If you use Firefox as your browser, you can download and install the FireFTP plugin which is what I use most times.

Step 3: Transfer the Files

Now you need to transfer the MODx files that you downloaded from your computer to your destination folder on your Host Color account using your FTP client.  A faster way to do this if you know how to is to actually transfer the downloaded zipped file and then unzip it on your Host Color account.  Either way, the end result in your destination folder should look like this:

Step 4: Create a database and user for your MODx website

MODx needs a database to store its files and data.  To create the database and user, go to your cPanel and scroll down to the Databases panel.  Click on MySQL Databases.

This should open up the MySQL databases page where you can now create the database where MODx will save its data.  To do this, enter the name of the database you want to create and click Create Database.

You will then be directed to a page that shows your database has been successfully created.  You will notice that cpanel adds a prefix to your database name, you will need to remember the full name when you continue to the next step, so keep it in mind.

Now that we have our database, we need to create and add a user to this database.  The user needs to have all privileges in this database for the install to be successful.  So go back to your MySQL page by clicking on the Go Back link, and then scroll down to the User section.  Create a new user.  If you already have a user that you want to assign to you new database you can skip this step.

The next thing to do here is to assign the user to the database as shown below:

Finally, give the user all privileges by checking the ALL PRIVILEGES box and then click on Make Changes.

Now our database and user are ready to go, and it’s time to install MODx!

Step 5: Install MODx

Now that we’ve uploaded our MODx files to the Host Color hosting account folder, and we’ve created a database and user, we’re ready to proceed to the final step in this tutorial, and that’s to install MODx.

In your browser, navigate to the url of your website that you’re creating. In my case, I am navigating to http://modxdemo.usercraze.com.  Here you will enter whatever your url is.  This should open up a page that asks you if you want to install MODx.

Click on the link to start the Install. The first screen you see will ask you to select your language, after which you will be brought to the install page.  Since we’re doing a new install, just select New Installation (default choice) and click Next.

In the next step, the MODx install will try to connect to your Host Color account. For the database login name and password you will need to enter your cPanel credentials and then click on the Test database server connection and view collations to test the connection.

If you’ve entered the correct credentials you should get a success message and a new set of boxes to fill in your database name. Remember to enter the full name of the database including the prefix.  Change the connection method to SET NAMES, and then click the Create or test selection of your database link.

If the connection is successful, you will get a message that the database selection was successful and a new set of boxes to enter your preferred default manager settings.  Enter them and click Next.

The next screen will ask you to select what components you want to install.  You can select to install the Sample website so that you can see how different components of MODx work.  However, if you’re building a production site I would recommend that you not install this sample site. I do advice however that you install the MODx sample website on your local computer to see how different snippets and elements of MODx work. It’s a great learning tool, but for our purposes we will not install it, so we leave that box unchecked. Next after that is some components that come bundled with the default MODx package. I usually elect to install all of them so that I don’t have to go back and download them in the future. So we leave the sample website box unchecked and all the chunks, modules, plugins, and snippets checked and click Install.

The MODx installer performs a pre-install validation to ensure that your server is correctly configured to install MODx.   On HostColor everything checks out just fine and you should get green checkmarks against all the settings, and all you have to do now is check the box to agree to the License Terms and then click Install.

You should now get a success screen that tells you everything’s been installed OK. The MODx installer will then ask to Remove the install files from your server. Make sure that box is checked and then click Close to finish the installation process.

The installation process is now complete and you should be taken to your manager login page where you can log in using the username and password you created during the install.

And if you navigate to your site url (in my case http://modxdemo.usercraze.com), you should now see your new MODx website.

In the next post on we are going to go over the MODx manager and how to configure your MODx website, so stay tuned to Mary’s Corner for more.  As always, if you have any questions don’t hesitate to head on over to the Host Color Forums and ask away.

About Mary:
I am a part time web developer and full time web enthusiast who is very committed to open source technologies and promoting their potential for use across the web. Some of the technologies that I am involved in are MODx CMS and Drupal.  I am also a fan of Wordpress, SMF, phpBB, and any and all open source endeavors. I enjoy learning new things and teaching people what I know in ways that are simple (I hope) to understand.  You can find me on the Host Color Forums (username is mary), at my blog (The Coding Pad) or follow me on twitter (@einsteinsboi).