phpCOIN Tutorial and Installation How To

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

phpCOIN 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 phpCOIN at http://johnsmith.com/phpcoin/.

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 phpCOIN to use to store the information it needs.

   Create a database called 'phpcoin' with a user named 'phpcoin'. 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_phpcoin' and the username is the same 'johnsmit_phpcoin'.

2. Download the latest version of phpCOIN from the phpCOIN website. For this example, we'll download the 'basic' version of the software. Unzip the contents of the zip file to your desktop using http://winzip.com.

   You should now have all the files and folders necessary to install and run phpCOIN. Create a folder on your desktop named 'phpcoin' and place all the files and folders into it.

   Now there are 2 files you need to edit before you can upload the 'phpcoin' folder to your webspace. First, open up the 'atroot.php' file in your text editing program. You need to change the path to where you're going to install phpCOIN. For this example, we'll change the following information:

   • $_PACKAGE_DIR = 'phpcoin/';

   Your screen should look like this:

   

   Save and close the 'atroot.php' file. Open the 'database/db_config.php' file in your test editing program. You need to enter the information for the database you created in step #1. For this example, we'll enter the following information:

   • $_DBCFG['dbuname'] = "johnsmit_phpcoin";
   • $_DBCFG['dbpass'] = "mypassword";
   • $_DBCFG['dbname'] = "johnsmit_phpcoin";

   Your screen should look like this:

   

   Save and close the phpCOIN 'db_config.php' file.
3. Upload the 'phpcoin' folder to your web hosting account. You can do this using an FTP program. If you don't know how to do this, check out the FTP tutorials on our tutorials page. You also need to upload the 'atroot.php' file to the ROOT of your webspace. Place it in the folder above the 'phpcoin' folder.
4. You can now access the setup page. For this example, we'll point to 'http://www.johnsmith.com/phpcoin/setup/setup.php'. You should now be on the main page of the phpCOIN install. Enter your database password in the field. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Install' button to continue. Your database will be filled with tables and the tables will be populated. If you receive any errors, make sure you entered the correct information for your database in the 'db_config.php' file. Your installation is now complete. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Admin' button to continue. You should now be on the login page for the admin control panel. Enter 'webmaster' for the username and your database password. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Log in' button to continue. You should now be on the main page of the admin control panel. From here you can manage your phpCOIN system how you see fit. The phpCOIN tutorial is now complete. Your screen should look like this:

   

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

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