I’ve been watching the Magento e-commerce project for about the last month and a half - since Ben sent me a link to it. It’s an open-source e-commerce package, that primarily aims to pickup and improve where OSCommerce, Joomla + VirtueMart, and ZenCart have left off - streamlining a CMS (Content Management Sytem) and E-commerce shopping cart. This also means built-in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Google Checkout integration, varied customer groups, and much more…. straight out of the box. The problem appears to be that there are a lot of people on the Magento forums who are running into problems, and don’t have a clue on how to get it running under their Dreamhost hosting account. Unfortunately it also looks like the previous article(s) for Magento+Dreamhost installs have disappeared, or are outdated. And that’s where this article comes in…
If you just so happen to be one of those whining idiots, or clueless n00bs, then you’re in luck! I’ll take you through a step-by-step process of installing Magento on your Dreamhost account. But please be forewarned: This requires some “advanced” techniques, so if you don’t know what Putty/SSH or a command-line are, then STFU and GTFO, n00b. Just kidding. Hopefully I can explain those things too, and increase your knowledge. In fact, it may even get you laid! But probably not.
- Step 1 - Dreamhost: Create domain
Obviously we need a domain to work with here. I’ll be using ‘magento.webinade.com’ as my test domain. Be sure to set it up to use PHP5, that’s a Magento Requirement.
- Step 2 - Dreamhost: Give User Shell Access
We need to have shell access in order to connect to the command line and configure magento. In the Dreamhost Control Panel, go to Users > Manage Users and then click Edit next to the user you chose for your domain. It should take you to a screen like this, where you can set the Account Type to Shell Account.
- Step 3 - Dreamhost: Create MySQL Database
We need a MySQL database setup for Magento prior to the install. Magento stores data and configuration settings in MySQL. In Dreamhost go to Goodies > Manage MySQL. Then scroll to the bottom to set up a new database. If this is your first database, you’ll also want to set up a hostname - typically something like mysql.yourdomain.com will work.
- Step 4 - SSH in to Server
And now the fun begins. Let’s start by SSH’ing into Dreamhost. If you don’t know how to do this, go download Putty if you’re on a Windows machine. Open it up. Type in the domain you’re hosting magento on (magento.webinade.com in my case), make sure the Port is set for 22, and connection type is SSH. You will then be prompted for a username and password. Type them in (don’t be alarmed if you don’t see anything when typing your password). If you are successful, putty will return something along the lines of ‘[server_name]$’ like in the picture below. You’re now logged into the command line of your Dreamhost linux server.
- Step 5 - Download Magento from Linux Command Line
Now that we’re logged in, we need to download Magento. To do so, type the following command:
wget http://www.magentocommerce.com/downloads/assets/0.8.16100/magento-0.8.16100.zipThat should download the 0.8.16100 beta version of Magento to your home directory, and should look like this:
- Step 6 - Unzip Magento & Move it to the Live Domain
Run the following command to unzip Magento. You’ll get several hundred lines, telling you which files it is extracting where. It should extract everything into a folder called magento.
unzip magento-0.8.16100.zipRun this command to move the contents of the magento folder into your live site:
mv magento/* magento.webinade.com/Obviously replace magento.webinade.com with the folder your domain is in. You will not receive output from the above two mv commands, unless there is an error. It will simply return you to the command line. The commands and output should look similar to this:
mv magento/.htaccess magento.webinade.com/.htaccess
- Step 7 - Magento Install
Now that we’ve got the files extracted, and hopefully in the right folder, let’s load up the website. It should show a page like this:
To continue, agree to the license. The next page is localization information - defaults are good for most, but feel free to change these. The third page is for downloading updates to Magento. This is important, and this is where some problems often arise. You can ignore the first two section, SVN Installation & Package Management Through The Web. The third part of that page is what’s important. Open up putty again and type the following command, changing the name of the folder of course to match yours:
cd magento.webinade.com/
./pear mage-setup
That should produce some output similar to this:
Good! Now, the next line:
./pear install mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers mage-core/Lib_ZF mage-core/Lib_VarienThis should produce similar output:
Unfortunately, we can’t run the third line just quite yet. We need to change the PHP variable in the ./pear file. Right now it just makes a call to “php” on the system - which by default on Dreamhost is PHP4. Let’s modify the file with Midnight Commander - a file manager similar to that of the old Windows 95/98 or XTree Gold. We need to change it to reference PHP5. Run this:
mcYou’ll then need to navigate (with your arrow keys!) down to the pear file, and hit F4 to edit it. Scroll down to line 62 (again, with the arrow keys!). Line’s 61-63 will look like this:
else
PHP=php
fiChange them to this:
else
PHP=/usr/local/php5/bin/php
fiHit F2 to save, agree. Then hit F10 to quit. All of the above should look like this:
Now we can run the third command:
./pear install mage-core/Mage_All mage-core/Interface_Install_DefaultIt should look like this now:
Unfortunately, that may update/overwrite the ./pear file we just modified. You’ll know if it does, when you try to run the next command:
./pear install mage-core/Interface_Frontend_Default mage-core/Interface_Adminhtml_DefaultAnd you get an error saying “Permission Denied” or “No valid packages found.”
-
Step 8 - Rinse & Repeat (Fix Permissions on ./pear and Update Again)
If you get one of the above two errors (which you should), you’ll need to do two things. First, you need to change the file permissions on the ./pear file, like so:
chmod 755 ./pearSecond, you need to modify ./pear again to fix the PHP version it is referencing (like above). Run this:
mcYou’ll then need to navigate down to the pear file, and hit F4 to edit it. Scroll down to line 62 (again, with the arrow keys!). Line’s 61-63 will look like this:
else
PHP=php
fiChange them to this:
else
PHP=/usr/local/php5/bin/php
fiIt’s not so bad. Just really annoying. I’m hoping the Magento guys will update the scripts in newer versions to run a check on the ./pear file, and hopefully carry over any modifications done to it. Or maybe make some of these configurations more “user friendly” or st00pid n00bs.
Now that that is done, we can run the last command and continue:
./pear install mage-core/Interface_Frontend_Default mage-core/Interface_Adminhtml_DefaultVictory! Hopefully it looks like this for you:
- Step 9 - Finish Magento Install
Now that is all done, we can continue on with the Magento install. Click the “Continue After Manual Download” button in your browser (You’ve still got your browser open, right?). Some of you may or may not receive an error here. I didn’t on my first install of Magento, but I did on my webinade test install. If you do, it may say and look like this:
Path "/home/.donald/magento/magento.webinade.com/app/etc" must be writable
Path "/home/.donald/magento/magento.webinade.com/var" must be writable
Path "/home/.donald/magento/magento.webinade.com/media" must be writable
Image:
Don’t worry! These are easy fixes. Run these commands at the command-line (in Putty):
chmod 777 ./app/etc/
chmod 777 ./var
chmod 777 ./mediaNow click the “Continue” button in the browser and the errors should be gone. You’re now presented with a Configuration page, with all kinds of great MySQL settings and textboxes. Fill them in to match whatever you created you MySQL database with earlier. You’ll also want to check the box that says “Use Web Server (Apache) Rewrites” - this is good for SEO. You can check the Box for SSL URLs, but only if you have an SSL certificate installed and configured for your Dreamhost account. My page looks like this:
Click Continue, and the next page will present you with form fields to setup your Administrator account as well as create an Encryption Key. Follow the instructions, fill in the boxes, and click Continue.
- Step 10 - All Done!
You’re now done setting up Magento. Sit back, relax, crack open a cold beer (or bottle of wine), and let the gorgeous chicks flock to you. Maybe not?I suggest you login to the backend and start playing around. There is a lot of configuration that needs to happen before your store will go live, including customizing your own store design. There is a lot of great documentation available on Magento’s site, as well as a well populated forum, with several knowledgeable developers and supporters.
Please Note: Magento is in BETA! This means that you will more than likely run into problems, small or big. I don’t suggest running a live site on Magento until it reaches a stable release - hopefully by the end of March. Be sure to follow the forums.
And please don’t go whining on the forums, and posting ridiculous threads like “It’s broken! OMGz!!!!!!11!1” or “Magento doesn’t work! MY LIFE IS OVER! KILL ME NOW!” It doesn’t solve the problem. Others can’t help you, and you look like an idiot. Have some respect for the developers and supporters, and post knowledgeable threads, detailing what specifically doesn’t work. And please, please, please search the forums before posting. Odds are, someone else has had the same problem.
Feel free to post any questions or comments below. I’m always open to discussion and support. I’ll be playing with Magento over the next week, and hopefully will have a positive, thorough review.
Great stuff! Your insights will certainly help countless others.
How many hairs did you pull out before figuring all these things out?
Heheh. Actually I didn’t lose too many hairs. I just noticed that a lot of other people had, so I decided to go through the process myself. I ran into some problems (above) that I didn’t actually see posted anywhere on the forums, so it may have been me or my Dreamhost server configuration.
This whole process actually only took me maybe a half hour tops… that includes several hit-head-against-wall breaks. =) I could see it taking others several hours or days though, if they don’t know how to troubleshoot the errors that I got - like the PHP5 thing.
Thanks for the guide dude. I’m setting it up right now on my DH account.
Thank you so much for this. You saved me hours of hand-banging and Google searches.
I tried months ago and Dreamhost was not helpful. So I decided to put the whole install project/ testing aside and I revisited the whole idea today and found your page.
I am now up and running.
Another thing that I’d like to note:
On the Magento Install page, where you choose where to get your updates, you can select “Get Updates From Web” BETA or ALPHA. The only thing is, the script/page will time out, and you will need to leave it run for 5 minutes or so, and then come back. Refresh the page. Then click the button again, and it should tell you that the updates were downloaded successfully. Again, it will timeout, so normally you would think it didn’t work. Also, if you prefer to update on your own from the command-line (like I do) you’ll want to follow my steps instead.
Good to know. I guess I was lucky: it didn’t time-out in my case.
Hey man, cheers for the guide. Just set it up, works mint. Good work.
Problem with you open source people is that you are congenitally incapable of expressing yourselves in a straightforward manner or putting yourselves in the shoes of someone who isn’t a programmer. You seem to have a certain contempt for anyone who isn’t a programmer attempting to come onto your ground. I put this down to inadequacy and an underdeveloped sense of ‘other’. I have a certain knowledge of medieval literature, having studied it, but I’m hardly likely to sneer when you may be unable to point to the Aristotelian sructure of Gawain and the Green Knight. Nor would I claim that as a novice you could ‘download a complete knowledge f the works of Chaucer and just plug it in’ and sneer at you if you tried to do so and ran into problems.
This is what the magento site says about magento:
“You have heard about the unbelievable open-source features Magento offers right out the box.”
Well, judging by the forums it doesn’t work out of the box and a lot of the solutions offered are aimed at people who can try this, that and the other programming intervention to , maybe, solve it. I asked my hosting provider if i could ruin my account by telneting into it and running commands from the command line. He said yes. So that was the end of that so.
When I downloaded joomla it told me to stick the file in the ht docs. of the xampp. I did that and it worked. When I did the same with magento it didn’t work and the solutions profereed on the forums consisted of all sorts of messing with code in this file, that file and the other file. For all I know this could ruin xampp and my joomla implementation if not more. Magento went into the recycle bin.
So you you can stick your sneering up your hole. Open source is severly limited by this kind of fiddling, time wasting nonsense. How can you expect to get the world on board when your code requires progammers to work and you are incapable to explaining things in a normal manner?
@Pranil Singh
Very glad to hear that! Good luck. New version came out this week, so I’ll need to update this guide soon.
@Liam
Hmm… if my car breaks down, I take it to a mechanic. I don’t know enough about cars to troubleshoot problems with them - unless it’s the simple flat tire or out of gas scenario. If you don’t know enough about programming (PHP, Magento, Web servers) then I suggest you take it to a mechanic - a web developer.
Any contempt that I displayed in my post, was probably sarcasm, possibly cynicism.
Magento can work “out of the box”; the problem is that some of the settings and configurations in PHP and Apache that it relies on are not default at Dreamhost. Dreamhost has taken security measures, and runs their PHP and Apache under different, more complex, configurations.
This post is for Dreamhost users, so if you’re having problems on a different host, you might try posting on the forums. Have you done so already? Trolling a blog post isn’t exactly seeking help. A constructive suggestion or question might provide a better result. Where exactly are you having trouble?
I am a web designer, among other things. I make money from putting together websites. I have used open source perl for simple implementations in the past such as forms processing, simple surveys, text file databases and the like. I am technically knowledgeable to a certain degree. I am precisely the sort of person running precisely the sort of business that open source should be appealing to. I have the skills necessary to reach a certain level and if programming is required to reach a further level then open source is not fulfilling its brief and is leaving behind 90% of the people it could and should be getting on board.
Outside of configuration difficulties the single greatest problem facing open source is the lack of documentation written in a clear, common-sensical manner. It occurs to me that open source projects should not be run simply by programmers - such people are frequently unable to see the wood for the trees and cannot or will not explain themselves. Open source, to reach its potential, must get on board non-programmers to evaluate projects from an outside perspective and write about them from a non-programmers point of view and in a clear, step-by-step manner. This would increase the accessibility of open source hugely.
For example I have actually implemented magento to the point where the admin backend is working and seems to offer much potential. It seems to be an exciting program. However try as I might I cannot get it to show in the frontend. Either there is some misconfiguration somewhere or it simply requires something to be turned on in the backend to see the frontend in my browser.
When someone else asked for some clear documentation on the forums they were told that some might appear in May. It would only take 15 minutes to write a one and a half page outline of a simple overview; an hour’s works could yield 3-4 pages of simple and helpful prose for the new user. But no, we are told we have to wait until May for some better documentation. This is the response of a programmer - someone who can’t see the wood for the trees and who thinks giving some pointers is the same sort of job as debugging a few thousand line of code and re-installing.
I have posted on the forums about my inability to see the frontend. A few lines response would be helpful. Even someone telling me what url to use to access the frontend would be helpful rather than me having to fiddle about and guess. I don’t have time for this. I’d like to use the program but the support is complex, cluttered and non-straightforward - just like a programmers mind I suspect.
Hmm. Well that really sucks. It sounds like you’ve given up, and I don’t blame you. The problem with poor documentation in open-source is that open-source is written and often used primarily by other programmers. Programmers definitely aren’t copy-writers, and I would agree that programmers think differently. I know I do, but I try, when I can, to blue that line.
It sounds like you’ve given up on Magento. But I’m still curious about the problem that you’ve having. If you’d like, shoot me an email, and I’d love to take a look at, and possibly troubleshoot your setup - if you’re willing. Email: nick (at) webinade (dot) com
Well,the bar has been raised for “howto install magento on (host)” with this one for 1and1: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/3462/
Now if you would update this tutorial, and include how to make it work on dreamhost with shared SSL, you’d really rock !
Nick,
Do you have the new file structure for steps 7 & 8? I can’t seem to find them and it wont work with what you have.
Thanks,
-Sherrie-
Been very busy with work lately, but I’m planning on sitting down this weekend and playing with the new version 1.0 - then I’ll post an updated Dreamhost guide. I’ll also play with the SSL. I have a client that I plan on migrating to Magento now that it’s “stable” so this will be good to figure out.
hi,
ok, i’m on dreamhost, i got to step 2 of the pear install, and this is the message I get back (any help appreciated)!
[cheeky]$ ./pear install mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers mage-core/Lib_ZF mage-core/Lib_Varien
Attempting to discover channel “mage-core”…
unknown channel “mage-core” in “mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers”
invalid package name/package file “mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers”
Cannot initialize ‘mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers’, invalid or missing package file
Attempting to discover channel “mage-core”…
unknown channel “mage-core” in “mage-core/Lib_ZF”
invalid package name/package file “mage-core/Lib_ZF”
Cannot initialize ‘mage-core/Lib_ZF’, invalid or missing package file
Attempting to discover channel “mage-core”…
unknown channel “mage-core” in “mage-core/Lib_Varien”
invalid package name/package file “mage-core/Lib_Varien”
Cannot initialize ‘mage-core/Lib_Varien’, invalid or missing package file
Package “mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers” is not valid
Package “mage-core/Lib_ZF” is not valid
Package “mage-core/Lib_Varien” is not valid
install failed
The error you’re getting means it doesn’t see any of those PEAR channels.
If you’re using the new version - 1.0 - I think you can skip the manual updates/installation and just use the web-based installation. Web-based installation was timing out for me on my Dreamhost server, but did eventually work. Try that with the new version. I still haven’t had time to play with the new 1.0 yet.
I went through the web install OK, but it seems to only work if it is in the root directory
Wow. That Liam prick is the sort who needs to get out of this business ASAP. What a sense of entitlement! Advice for ya n00bie…when you give back to open source then you might have a right to gripe, whine, complain, trow a fit if something isn’t easy for you. Try flipping burgers or get a job at one of those medieval restaurants.Stupid prick.
rico,
Liam actually has a point & name calling doesn’t help anybody out. Programs without documentation are just programs rather than being tools. Its the documentation that makes a program really useful - boring, not sexy, no kudos, hard work - but an essential part of the toolkit.
I’ve been developing Java/Php/Ruby enterprise apps for over 10 years & if I struggle without good documentation how will non-programmers cope?
Liam is correct, every open source project needs somebody to write the documentation - Joomla has several people who seem to specialise in documentation. That’s one reason why Joomla is so popular. We could all learn a lesson from this example. IBM, Oracle, etc employ teams of documentation authors - open source can’t do that but it does need to factor this in.
I agree with FreshWeb. The problem with open source software is clear and concise documentation for non-techie like Liam.
I have been in the business of open source software and this is the one major stumbling block that users from MS Windows don’t like.
Maybe, we can challenge Liam to do some documentation for Magento to prove his point,i.e, if he likes it.
I think it is time for open source community that if there is a good and viable project for open source development, they have to factor the documentation aspect.
Hi, thanks for this article but I got an error halfway:
[dillinger]$ ./pear install mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers mage-core/Lib_ZF mage-core/Lib_Varien
Attempting to discover channel “mage-core”…
unknown channel “mage-core” in “mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers”
invalid package name/package file “mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers”
Cannot initialize ‘mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers’, invalid or missing package file
Attempting to discover channel “mage-core”…
unknown channel “mage-core” in “mage-core/Lib_ZF”
invalid package name/package file “mage-core/Lib_ZF”
Cannot initialize ‘mage-core/Lib_ZF’, invalid or missing package file
Attempting to discover channel “mage-core”…
unknown channel “mage-core” in “mage-core/Lib_Varien”
invalid package name/package file “mage-core/Lib_Varien”
Cannot initialize ‘mage-core/Lib_Varien’, invalid or missing package file
Package “mage-core/Mage_Pear_Helpers” is not valid
Package “mage-core/Lib_ZF” is not valid
Package “mage-core/Lib_Varien” is not valid
install failed
Any ideas?
@ Daniel-San:
Check out my comment #16 above. I still haven’t had time to play with the post-1.0 versions of Magento. Hopefully in the coming weeks.
I am using version 1.1.6, I tried twice to install on Dreamhost but kept getting errors. The key point in your guide to carry over to 1.1.6 is just to change the php path in the pear file. I used the Full Release install and just changed
#MAGE_PEAR_PHP_BIN=”php”
to
#MAGE_PEAR_PHP_BIN=”/usr/local/php5/bin/php”
Funny thing is this line is commented out? But my installation didn’t work until I changed this. I didn’t change PHP=php. But if what I did doesn’t work try only changing PHP=. I can access the frontend and the backend. Now it’s time to put this store to the test.
Do you have opinions on deployment and code management with Magento? If so, I got some questions…
Drop me a line if you have a minute…
darrell - I haven’t been able to get 1.1.6 to work on dreamhost but your fix got 1.1.4 working just fine. thanks for posting it.
very interesting. Anything related to digestion is a pretty personal topic. If you’re interested in more info based on mass response to this, check out this skim coat plastering Winchester page
I just installed 1.1.6 oh my Dreamhost VPS without any problems (the second time). I followed the instructions on the website on how to install via SSH. http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/groups/227/installing_magento_via_shell_ssh
What I’m really looking for, though, and how I hit this blog, is advice on how to optimize it, as it does seem slow, as is noted everywhere. I did turn on php caching, but I’m not really sure if it’s doing any good or not.
Amazing article! I wished I had used Dreamhost but now I’m stuck with Host Monster. I have a concern and I was wondering if you could help me out. I have a website up although it’s not operational yet because I’m having a ton of trouble using my merchant account - Cybersource with Magento which I was assured to be compatible. Would you happen to know anything about it? I really appreciate it, I’ve looked for solutions everywhere but to no avail. I’m currently waiting for Magento’s support team to contact me.
Whether anything comes out of this, I want to say thank you for taking the time out to read this comment. THANKS!
You write very well.
this is a pretty good tutorial for dreamhost, another one can be seen here:
http://www.smartcoyote.com/tutorial-installation-magento.html
So after attempting to install the latest version (1.1.8) on Dreamhost. I kept recieving a handful of different errors. This guide is a little outdated. But the guide on Magento’s Wiki - http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/groups/227/installing_magento_via_shell_ssh worked like a charm.
I managed to install Magento 1.1.8 on Dreamhost following this guide today Dec 24 2008.
Make sure you start with a brand new Mysql database for the install.
Thank you for putting this up.
Correction: I just remembered that I didn’t use this guide.
I followed the instructions on Magentocommerce.com Wiki to install Magento via SSH and the command line in the Web Root Directory of my domain:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/groups/227/installing_magento_via_shell_ssh
Root Web Directory
This is the easiest to install, because there’s nothing to change.
wget http://www.magentocommerce.com/downloads/assets/1.1.8/magento-1.1.8.tar.gz
tar -zxvf magento-1.1.8.tar.gz
mv magento/* magento/.htaccess .
chmod o w var var/.htaccess app/etc
chmod -R o w media
./pear mage-setup .
./pear install magento-core/Mage_All_Latest-stable
rm -rf downloader/pearlib/cache/* downloader/pearlib/download/*
rm -rf magento/ magento-1.1.8.tar.gz
It times out when it gets to the Continue Magento Installation.
These instructions are ok also for magento 1.3 ?
Hello Nick,
Im using ur guide to set it up with the latest version…
In your guide, it says that I should go with this link, but it will take me to the older version, right?
wget http://www.magentocommerce.com/downloads/assets/0.8.16100/magento-0.8.16100.zip
So I changed it to:
wget http://www.magentocommerce.com/getmagento/1.3.1/magento-1.3.1.zip
If I download this link to my computer, It works fine, but on putty It doesn’t download… Did you try it with this one? Or am I using the wrong thing?
@Jose
wget http://www.magentocommerce.com/downloads/assets/1.3.1/magento-1.3.1.zip (or .tar.gz)
Kudos mate
Even though I don’t use Dreamhost (have my own server) I found this to be a valuable resource all the same.
IMHO Magento is one of the better GPL products around But what lets it down is the install process. It even left me scratching my head a few times and I’m a web developer. So I can only imagine the sheer frustration and head banging fits some people experience who are not savvy with generalised install procedures.
Thanks again Nick!
Cheers
D