Setting up Drupal through webhost
Set up database
Drupal works through the use of a database, so before you can set up your site you must have a database for your site to function. Most web hosts have some sort of “control panel” in which they have databases for you to set up. If that is the case, you do not need to set up a MySQL and PhpMyAdmin account yourself and instead you can do it directly through the host. Both hosts that I used provided database setups like that. Note that your local MySQL and PhpMyAdmin accounts have nothing to do with the databases on your host’s server. If you already have MySQL and PhpMyAdmin set up on your local computer, you will need to set up a separate account with your host. Each host is different in this regard, so you must check with your hosts for instructions on how to set up your database. You must have a database set up before proceeding.
Download ftp software
Now that you downloaded and extracted Drupal, as well as set up your database, you need to transfer the Drupal files over to your host. Some hosts have programs set up to do this, but I suggest that you download ftp (file transfer protocol) software yourself. The software is free and easy to set up. I chose to use a program named FileZilla and you can find the instructions on how to install it in the “FileZilla Instructions” section.
Transfer the files
At this point, you should have a domain name and a webhost, downloaded Drupal and an ftp program, and set up a database. Now you are ready to transfer the files, also known as uploading the files. The following instructions are how to transfer files using FileZilla, but it should be a very similar process with any other ftp programs. Follow these instructions carefully. It is a pretty easy process and not a total disaster if you don’t do it correctly, but believe me you want to get it right the first time.
Open FileZilla if you have not done so already. Now you need to connect to your host. If you have not entered your host information yet, see the Plug in host information section of FileZilla Instructions. Go to the File menu and select “Site Manager…” In the menu that appears, click “Connect.” If all goes well, in the large text area beneath the Host, Username, Password, and Port fields, the final line of words should say something like “Status: Directory listing successful.”
If you don’t see something like that, it most likely means that some of the information you entered was incorrect. If you confirm that you entered the correct information, try changing the Port number to 22, 21, or leaving it blank. If that still doesn’t work, you can ask your webhost to provide you with the IP address of your webhost. If your host asks you to provide the IP address of your personal computer, you can find it by going to http://whatsmyip.org/.
In the middle section of the screen you will notice that it is split into two sections. The left side of the screen displays the contents of your local computer and the right side displays the contents of your host server account. Each side is also split into a top and bottom section. Both sections display the same contents in different ways and are set up very similarly to the way your computer displays files. In the bottom section, you will notice the top folder is labeled “..” Clicking on this folder will bring you up a level.
There are a couple of ways you can transfer/upload files. You can click the server folder in which you want to transfer the files and right click on the folder/file from your computer and select Upload, or you can simply drag the folder from the left side over to the folder you choose on the right side. Either way is fine.
Now you are ready to transfer your Drupal files. In the host server section on the right side, select the folder at the highest level. You will probably want to ask your host which folder they use for files that the public can view. This is normally a folder named “public_html” or “www,” or in my case both of the folders are exactly the same. In your local computer section on the left side, find your drupal folder (in my case it is in the C:\htdocs\ folder) but DO NOT TRANSFER/UPLOAD IT. If you transfer the entire drupal folder, your site will end up having “/drupal” at the end of it, and instead of entering buildyourownstory.com, people would need to enter buildyourownstory.com/drupal. What you need to do is transfer all of the folders and files separately. First, click the little plus sign next to the drupal folder to open its contents. Then, click on the first folder within the drupal folder (probably titled “includes”) and transfer/upload it to the appropriate folder from your host server mentioned above. When you do this, the tabs at the bottom will indicate how many files you are transferring and the section above will show the files being transferred. Then, do the same with every other folder within the drupal folder. Now, make sure you also transfer the files within the drupal folder. This is an easy step to skip if you aren’t careful (as I was the first time I tried). To do that, in the top section click on the drupal folder you just opened. It doesn’t matter if it has the plus sign or the minus sign next to it. Just make sure that drupal is highlighted. Then, in the bottom section, scroll down to the end of the list of folders and then click on the first individual file you see (probably .htaccess). We can actually transfer all of the files together, which you can do by holding down the Shift key, scroll down to the very bottom, then click the last file, which will highlight all of the files. Then transfer all of the files just as you did before. Make doubly sure that you transfer the .htaccess file because it is a necessary file.
The next step is to go to the Drupal installation page.
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