Geeklog Tutorial and Installation How To

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

Geeklog is open source software and released under the GNU General Public License. This means that you can use and distribute it freely 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 Geeklog at http://johnsmith.com/geeklog/.

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 Geeklog to use to store the information it needs.

   Create a database called 'geeklog' with a user named 'geeklog'. 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_geeklog' and the username is the same 'johnsmit_geeklog'.
2. Download the latest version of Geeklog from the Geeklog website and unzip the contents of the zip file to your desktop using http://winzip.com.

   You should now have a folder, 'geeklog-1.3.9', which contains all the files and folder necessary to install and run Geeklog. Rename the 'public_html' folder to 'geeklog'. Open the file called 'config.php' in your text editor program. Scroll down to the 'Database Settings' section. You will be changing the values for these variables to match the information for the database that you created in step #1. In this example, the values will be changed as follows:

   • $_DB_host = 'localhost'; - Stays the same
   • $_DB_name = 'johnsmit_geeklog';
   • $_DB_user = 'johnsmit_geeklog';
   • $_DB_pass = 'mypassword';

   Your screen should look like this:

   

   Scroll down to the 'Paths' section. You will be changing the values for these variables to match the path settings for your web hosting account. In this example, the values will be changed as follows:

   • $_CONF['path'] = '/home/johnsmith.com/html/geeklog/';
   • $_CONF['path_html'] = '/home/johnsmith.com/html/geeklog/';

   Your screen should look like this:

   

   Scroll down to the 'Site Settings' section. You will be changing the values for these variables to match the site settings for your web hosting account and Geeklog. In this example, the values will be changed as follows:

   • $_CONF['site_url'] = 'http://www.johnsmith.com/geeklog';
   • $_CONF['site_admin_url'] = $_CONF['site_url'] . '/admin'; - Stays the same.
   • $_CONF['site_mail'] = 'johnsmith@johnsmith.com';

   The 'Site Name' and 'Site Slogan' can be changed to your preference. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Save and close the Geeklog 'config.php' file and then move the file into the 'geeklog' folder. Move the 'backups', 'language', 'logs', 'plugins', 'sql' and 'system' folders into the 'geeklog' folder as well. Now you need to go into the 'geeklog' folder and open the 'lib-common.php' file to edit. Scroll down to the line 'require_once( '/path/to/geeklog/config.php' );' and change the path to where your 'config.php' file will be located on your web hosting account. In this example, the value will be changed to 'require_once( '/home/johnsmith.com/html/geeklog/config.php' );'. Your screen will look like this:

   

   Save and close the 'lib-common.php' file.
3. Upload the 'geeklog' 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 Geeklog files and folders have finished uploading, you need to change the permissions on some of the files. You can do this with the CHMOD command in your FTP program. If you need help with this, check out the FTP tutorials on our tutorials page. You need to change the permissions on the following files:

   • CHMOD the 'logs' folder and all the files in the 'logs' folder to 775
   • CHMOD the 'backend' folder and all the files in the 'backend' folder to 775
   • CHOMD the 'images/articles' folder to 775
   • CHMOD the 'images/userphotos' folder to 775
4. Now we're going to access the 'install.php' file to continue installing Geeklog. In this example, we'll point to 'http://www.johnsmith.com/geeklog/admin/install/install.php'. If you receive any errors, check to make sure you entered the correct information in the Geeklog 'config.php' file. You should be at this screen now:

   

   Since this is a new install, make sure 'New Database' is seletced. Enter the path to the 'config.php' file. In this example, we would enter '/home/johnsmith.com/html/geeklog/config.php'. Click the 'Next' button to continue. You should now be at this screen:

   

   Click the 'Next' button to continue. If you receive any errors, make sure you entered the correct database information in the Geeklog 'config.php' file. You should now be at this screen:

   

5. You should now delete the 'admin/install' directory from your web space so that no one else can change your Geeklog installation. Click on the 'Click here to see your new Geeklog site' link to get to the page that tells you how to create your admin account. Your screen should look like this:

   

   This page tells you that you should use 'Admin' for the login and 'password' for the password to your admin account. Use this info to login and start managing your Geeklog. Make sure to change your password once you're logged in. The Geeklog web hosting tutorial is now complete.

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

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