pMachine Installation
Important:
Use the following instruction only if you have never installed pMachine before.
If you are updating from another version of pMachine, please use the update instructions.
Step 1
- Delete the directory called updates located inside the pm directory. You do not need it.
Step 2
Set up your configuration file.
Find config.php, located in the pm directory. Open this file with a text editor such as Notepad on Windows, or TextEdit (not set to "Rich Text" mode) on Macintosh. Do not use a word processing program like Microsoft Word. The top four variables need to be set with information for your particular server. If you do not know what the values of these variables should be, contact your system administrator or hosting provider. Most installation problems occur as a result of an error at this stage.
Step 3 (optional)
Rename the directory called pm.
This is an optional step, which will increase the security of pMachine by keeping your scripts more hidden. Choose a single word that is not easily guessed.
Step 4
Update the four "include" files (only if you performed Step 3)
If you did not perform step 3, skip this step.
If you changed the name of your pm directory in Step 3 you must open four files and change the name there as well.
Look for a file called pm_inc.php, located in the following places:
- The main root directory,
- The calendar directory
- The members directory
- The search directory
- The mailinglists directory (pM Pro only)
- The forum directory (pM Pro only)
Open these files and look for this line of code:
$script_directory_name = "pm";
Change the word "pm" with the new name you gave the pm directory.
Note: You do not rename the actual file itself; only edit the variables inside the file.
Step 5
Upload pMachine to your web server.
Use an FTP program (like Fetch or CuteFTP) to upload all pMachine files and directories to your web server. When you upload, be sure that you upload all of the files in ASCII (i.e. "text") format. The only files that need to be uploaded in "Binary" format are the images.
Step 6
Image directory permissions:
Find the images directory. Located inside it you will see a directory called uploads. Set its permissions to "777" — doing this will allow you to upload images using pMachine.
If you do not know how to set permissions, please visit the Knowledge-Blog at pMachine.com.
Step 7
RSS Page Permissions:
In the main "root" directory you'll find a file called index.xml. This is your RSS syndication page. Set permissions on the file to "666".
Note: Upon extracting the Zip archive, some Windows computers will make any file with an .xml extension disappear. If you do not see index.xml you'll need to create it. Using a text editor like NotePad or TextEdit (not set to "Rich Text" mode), create a file called index.xml. Upload this file to the same directory that contains your site pages and set its permissions to "666".
Step 8
Run the pMachine installation script.
Inside the pm directory (which you may have renamed), you'll find a file called install.php. Load that page with your web browser. Doing so will run a script which will configure your database and set up the default site. Be sure that you're accessing the file through your webserver and not just loading the file into your web browser locally. Access the file as you would a regular webpage, using an address similar to http://www.yourdomain.com/pm/install.php.
Once you've successfully installed pMachine you must remove the installation script (install.php) from your server for security reasons.