Joomla 3.0

| October 20, 2012

Objective: To get a web site up and running using Joomla 3.0 on a Windows IIS server hosted by GoDaddy.

Background: I’ve used GoDaddy as my web host for a number of years, choosing their Windows Deluxe package because I have a number of ASP applications that use Access databases. I have experience doing manual WordPress installations on a couple of domains, one of which resides in the root (this geefamily.net site) and another which resides in a subfolder.

I recently got the opportunity to create a web site for a high school sports team (the El Segundo High School girls basketball team), and as a web designer, this was a great opportunity to take a look at another of the major CMS’, if just to be able to compare the advantages/disadvantages between them on a first-hand basis. Unfortunately, my first choice, Drupal, won’t install on IIS, at least not the way that GoDaddy’s Windows accounts are configured. I happened across Joomla at about the right time, about a month after the 3.0 release became available. What was attractive to me, in deciding whether or not to install the 2.5 versus the 3.0 release, was 3.0’s support of mobile devices. Even though I access the internet exclusively with my laptop, a significant number of my users (players, parents, and coaches) were going to access this new site via their smart phones or tablets.

Procedure:

  • Downloaded release 3.0.1 zip file and unzipped to a separate folder.
  • Started up FileZilla and created the folder where I was going to perform the installation. Then used FileZilla to upload all files & folders to that folder.
  • Launched the Control Panel for my hosting account with GoDaddy (I’m not going to provide any step-by-step details regarding GoDaddy because their interface seems to constantly change; whatever detailed procedure I write will be obsolete in a month).
  • Click on the FTP File Manager under Tools.
  • Put a checkmark next to the folder I created and clicked the Permissions icon at the top.
  • Unchecked Inherit and checked Write and Reset all children to inherit. Then clicked OK
  • Went back to the Control Panel top level and clicked on the Hosted Domains icon under Settings.
  • Clicked on the Manage link in the Subdomains column.
  • Clicked on the Add Subdomain button
  • Added same subdomain name as recently created folder. Waited for a few minutes for the subdomain to complete processing.
  • When I tried to access the subdomain, I got the following error message: Your host needs to use PHP 5.3.1 or higher to run this version of Joomla!
  • Executed geefamily.net/phpinfo.php and found out I was using PHP 5.2.17.
  • Went back to the GoDaddy Control Panel and clicked on Programming Languages under Settings.
  • Selected PHP 5.3.
  • Got following warning: Languages Change Submitted. These changes usually take 7 minutes. However, it may take up to 10 minutes for these changes to take effect. These time frames are estimates and not guaranteed. Waited for 10 minutes.
  • While I was waiting for the new PHP version to take effect, I went and created a new MySql Database for this installation. From the GoDaddy Control Panel, I clicked on MySql under Databases and Added a new database. Note that all database names throughout all GoDaddy installations must be unique. That is, you can’t create a database called Joomla if someone else who is hosted with GoDaddy also has a database called Joomla. What you should do to create a unique name is prepend the name of your website (assuming that it’s fairly unique) to the Database name. After the database was set up, I clicked on Action > Details to find out the Host name. Note that for GoDaddy MySql Databases, the Database name and Username are the same.
  • Reran my phpinfo.php page and saw that my account was upgraded to PHP 5.3.6.
  • Retried the installation and it seems to be working.
  • Filled out the information in the Configuration and Database. Everything looks OK in the Overview tab. Selected Blog English for Sample Data since this is my first Joomla install.
  • Got congratulation message. Clicked button to remove Installation folder.
  • Pink box at the top that says Error with no other text.
  • Clicked on the site button and everything looks good, except that the URL had the domain name repeated: http://eshsgirlsbball.geefamily.net/eshsgirlsbball/ instead of http://eshsgirlsbball.geefamily.net.
  • To try and fix it, I renamed the web.config.txt file to web.config and then went to the Global Configuration page and set Use URL rewriting to Yes (I don’t know why this isn’t turned on by default). This did not seem to help.
  • Went into the IIS Management tool and noticed that the eshsgirlsbball subfolder wasn’t listed. Clicked Create and added eshsgirlsbball as Application Root.
  • Went to System Information > Directory Permissions and noticed that the only file that was unwritable was configuration.php, so I went back to the GoDaddy Control Panel > Tools > FTP File Manager to see if I could change the file permissions on it to Writeable, but I couldn’t. Apparently permissions are only set at the folder level.
  • I then thought that if the folder has Write permissions enabled, then I should be able to directly edit the configuration.php file. Alas, when I try to edit and save the file via the FTP File Manager, I get the error “Cannot save configuration.php”, which leads me to believe that somehow there’s a file permission property that I can’t access.

Overall, the installation was as easy, if not slightly easier, than a WordPress install. With WordPress, you have to manually edit a text file (wp-config.php) with the MySql settings, where in Joomla it’s input into fields as part of the installation procedure.

2 thoughts on “Joomla 3.0

  1. Biplob Singha Shee

    Hi,

    I have hosted in Windows Hosting Accounts in Godaddy web hosting.

    I have tried to install it but after installation error page shows…

    “No configuration file found and no installation code available. Exiting…”

    —- What should I do ?

    Thanks in advance

Comments are closed.