bMachine Tutorial and Installation How To

This tutorial describes how to use the bMachine weblog software with your NEXCESS.NET web hosting account. NEXCESS.NET specializes in hosting bMachine blogs and this tutorial is meant to help you quickly setup your site with our web hosting service.

bMachine is open source, meaning that you can use and distribute it as you'd like as long as you don't change it.

For the sake of this tutorial we'll assume that you own the domain 'johnsmith.com' and are setting up bMachine at http://johnsmith.com/bmachine/.

Follow these steps to complete the tutorial:

1. The first thing to do is to run through the SiteWorx MySQL tutorial and create a database for bMachine to use to store the information it needs.

   Create a database called 'bmachine' with a user named 'bmachine'. When you do this SiteWorx will prefix the database and user names with some text resembling your domain name.

   With our example domain of 'johnsmith.com' the database name is 'johnsmit_bmachine' and the username is the same 'johnsmit_bmachine'.
2. Download the latest version of bMachine from the bMachine website and unzip the contents of the zip file to your desktop using http://winzip.com.

   You should now have a folder which contains all the files and folders you need to install and run bMachine. Rename the 'bmachine2' folder to 'bmachine'. You need to edit some files to change their settings. Open the bMachine 'config.php' file. You need to change the following values:

   • $passw="mypassword";
   • $db="mysql";
   • $c_name="John Smith";
   • $c_email="johnsmith@johnsmith.com";
   • $root="/home/johnsmith.com/html/bmachine";
   • $c_url="http://johnsmith.com";
   • $c_urls="http://johnsmith.com/bmachine";

   Your screen should look like this:

   

   Scroll down to the 'MYSQL Configuration' section. In this section, you need to enter the information for the database you created in step #1. For this example, we'll enter the information as follows:

   • $my_host="localhost"; - Stays the same.
   • $my_user="johnsmit_bmachine";
   • $my_pass="mypassword";
   • $my_db="johsmit_bmachine";

   Your screen should look like this:

   

   The rest of the values in the file can be left as the default values, or you can change them according to your preference. For this example, we'll leave the default values. Save and close the 'config.php' file.

3. Upload the 'bmachine' folder to your web hosting account. You should do this using an FTP Program. If you need help with FTPing files, you can check out the FTP tutorials on our tutorials page.

   Once the bMachine files are finished uploading, you need to change the permissions on some files and folders in order for the script to write to them. You can do this using the CHMOD function of your FTP program. If you don't know how to do this, check out the FTP tutorials on our tutorials page. For this example, we'll change the permissions as follows:

   • CHMOD the 'files' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the 'log.txt' file to 777
   • CHMOD the 'backup' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the '/inc/vars' folder to 666
   • CHMOD all the files in the 'inc/vars' folder to 666
4. Now we can access the bMachine installer. In this example, we'll point to 'http://www.johnsmith.com/bmachine/install.php'. You should now be on the database information page. Since you entered our database information in the bMachine 'config.php' file before, you should see the correct information here. Double check it just to make sure you didn't make any mistakes. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Continue' button to continue. If you receive any errors, make sure you entered the correct information in your database settings. You should now see a warning saying that the 'install.php' file could not be deleted. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Using your FTP program, delete the 'install.php' file from your webspace. Click on the 'http://www.johnsmith.com/bmachine/admin.php' link to go to the admin login screen. Enter the admin password you created in the 'config.php' file. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Login' button to continue. You should now be in the bMachine admin area. You can now manage and customize your bMachine blog as you see fit. Your screen should look like this:

   

   If you'd like to view your blog, click on the 'bMachine Home' link in the top left corner of the control panel. The bMachine tutorial is now complete. Your screen should look like this:

   

   For more information on how to use bMachine once it's installed, check out the bMachine Forum.
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