What is Drupal?

Drupal is an open source content management platform. Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal supports a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.

For more information: http://www.drupal.org/

Foreword

This page describes how to install Drupal with MySQL. If you use PostgreSQL it should be a bit easier, provided that you read MemberManual/Databases. I won't describe how to create the database, you'll have to learn it from MemberManual/Databases.

In addition this page assumes that:

• You are going to install Drupal under a directory which we'll call $DRUPALROOT (this can be any directory under your home, of course)

• You are going to use the database called $DBNAME (again, this is just a placeholder)

• $USER is your UNIX username.

Installing Drupal

Installing drupal is quite simple. Just download the latest Drupal release, unpack it somewhere, then move all Drupal files to $DRUPALROOT.

$ wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-6.14.tar.gz
$ tar xf drupal-6.14.tar.gz
$ mv drupal-6.14/* $DRUPALROOT

Fixing the MySQL Database

Installation is complicated a bit because on HCoop MySQL tables can be created but not dropped (you have to run mysql-fixperms). Because of this we'll have to:

1. Start the installation process by pointing your web browser to the install.php file.
2. Fill database connection parameters as usual
3. Let the installation wizard die telling you that it cannot drop the "drupal_install_test" table.

4. In a shell run mysql-fixperms.

5. Connect to the database and drop the "drupal_install_test" table:

   • $ echo "drop table drupal_install_test;" | mysql -u $USER -h mysql -D $DBNAME

6. Re-start the installation process and re-insert database connection parameters.
7. The wizard should now complete the process without problems.

DomTool configuration to get CleanURIs

Suggested Drupal modules

• Pathauto: will generate clean, readable URIs and it has lot of configuration options.