easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy drupal 6 installation on debian linux

installing drupal is pretty easy, but it's even easier if you have a step by step guide. i've written one that will produce a basic working configuration with drupal6 on debian lenny with php5, mysql5 and apache2.

all commands that follow assume that you are the root user.

let's get started!

install the dependencies

there aren't many options given when installing those packages. you may set a root password for mysql if you like (or not - it doesn't matter). next, restart apache to make it aware of the php installation.

verify your base apache install

if you've configured DNS with your hosting provider properly, when you go to your browser and type in http://www.example.com you should see the message "It Works!". if you don't, stop here and find somebody to help you with DNS and apache before continuing with these instructions.

download and extract drupal

start with the drupal homepage, and find the Download Drupal 6.x link. In the code below, you'll need to replace the 6.X with the version you are actually downloading.

here these instructions differ slightly from those provided with your drupal install. the packaged instructions suggest putting all the drupal directories directly inside /var/www. i prefer to contain them within a /drupal directory. if you are running several sub-domains on this apache server, this is a preferable set-up.

below, we move all the drupal stuff to =/var/www/drupal= and set various permissions appropriately

set-up mysql

in this example, we create a database called drupaldb, a user called drupal with password lemon

first, create the drupaldb database.

next, create the drupal mysql user and set the permissions and password appropriately. note - the drupal user is a mysql user - not a linux shell user.

finally, tell drupal what you did

find the line that starts with $db_url and change it to

fire up drupal

go to your browser and type http://www.example.com/drupal/index.php. you will be redirected to http://www.example.com/drupal/install.php?profile=default. (note: if you are NOT automatically redirected to install.php, and instead get a page full of SQL errors, just proceed manually to install.php). follow the instructions to set up your super-user account.

enable clean urls in apache (optional)

add the following to /etc/apache2/sites-available/default just above the closing </VirtualHost> tag.

make sure that mod-rewrite is enabled, and then restart apache.

now go the URL http://www.example.com/drupal/?q=admin/settings/clean-urls, take the test (hopefully you'll pass) and, when you do, turn on clean urls.

set up an apache virtual host (optional)

it's nice to setup an apache virtual host for your drupal site. this allows you to create custom logging, remove the /drupal/ from your urls and nicely encapsulate the directives for drupal. here's how you can do it.

create a file in /etc/apache2/sites-available called www.example.com that looks something like this:

now, check the file called default in this same directory. make sure the top two lines say the following

finally, enable your new virtual host and restart apache one more time.

go to your browser and visit http://www.example.com. if you still see the apache default page ("It Works!") instead of your drupal home page, just delete the default index.html file

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