How To

Oct 3 2007

Installing Joomla on 1&1

Joomla 1.5 RC2 (Endeleo) was released on September 1. There will probably be one more release candidate before the stable version is released. The current version has made major improvements in the software and fixed many bugs. Users of previous versions should upgrade soon.

I’m not sure why this version of Joomla is a second release candidate. RC2 (Mapya) was released on July 21. The current version should be called RC3 (Endeleo).

The Best Way to Install Joomla

Installing Joomla on 1&1 can be challenging. The typical way of setting it up is to first decompress the files in Windows and then uploading these files to your domain’s root folder by FTP or SSH. This is not a good way to transfer the files unless you don’t mind the 2 hours of time that it will take. Even though there are only 11.2 MB of files, there are 3,393 files in 650 folders. It takes time to create the nested folders and upload files to them. I should note that the Linux hosting package is required to install Joomla on 1&1. The Windows package doesn’t have the required PHP or MySQL.

A better way is to upload the .zip or .gz Joomla file you downloaded (i.e. Joomla-1.5RC.zip, or Joomla-1.5RC.tar.gz) and then upload it to your server. It can be decompressed there which will be a quick process. You need to login to your SSH account (available only in Business or higher packages on 1&1) and then use one of the following procedures (depending on which file you downloaded) for uncompressing Joomla. I recommend you install WinSCP which will give you PuTTY for using your account at the command line. Of course, you can install PuTTY on its own, but WinSCP is a great tool for managing your files and folders in 1&1.

Steps for Uncompressing Joomla

The Joomla-1.5RC.zip should be in the folder that it will be installed on your server.

1. Login to your account with SSH.
2. Move to the folder where the .zip file is (this is where you’ll be installed Joomla). You can move around in Linux with the cd command, i.e. cd MyCMS, which moves you to the MyCMS folder

Uncompressing a Zip File in Linux

3. Enter the following command to unzip the Joomla files,

   unzip Joomla-1.5RC.zip

   Linux is case sensitive so enter the command exactly as displayed. Once you run the above command, the hundreds of files and folders will be uncompressed.

Uncompressing a Gzip File in Linux

3. Enter the following commands to uncompress the Joomla files,

   tar -zxvf Jooma-1.5RC.tar.gz

   Linux is case sensitive so enter the command exactly as displayed. Once you run the above command, the hundreds of files and folders will be uncompressed.

Run the Setup Program

4. After the files are uncompressed, open the URL in your web browser where the files were copied to and start the Joomla installation.

You will save a great deal of time by uncompressing Joomla on your server instead of uploading them from your computer using an FTP client.

Making Joomla SEO Friendly

The URL created by the default install of Joomla are not SEO friendly and could prevent your site from being properly indexed by search engines. Turn on the SEO Settings in Global Configuration and then make the following modification to the htaccess.txt files in the root folder:

1. Rename the file to .htaccess
2. Open the file in a text editor (this is where WinSCP is useful).
3. Scroll down the file until you find

   # RewriteBase /

4. Remove the comment so it looks like

   RewriteBase /

Your website is now SEO friendly.

By Johan • How To • 13

Sep 5 2007

Fixing Database Error 1054 in Fireboard

I found another problem with Fireboard. After I installed it, I went to the Forum Administration option in the Fireboard Control Panel and got the following error:

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DB function failed with error number 1054
Unknown column ‘g.group_id’ in ‘on clause’ SQL=SELECT a.*, a.name AS category, u.name AS editor, g.name AS groupname, h.name AS admingroup FROM jos_fb_categories AS a LEFT JOIN jos_users AS u ON u.id = a.checked_out LEFT JOIN jos_core_acl_aro_groups AS g ON g.group_id = a.pub_access LEFT JOIN jos_core_acl_aro_groups AS h ON h.group_id = a.admin_access GROUP BY a.id ORDER BY a.ordering, a.name

—

I found the solution from terrox in the Fireboard forums. You can fix the problem by downloading admin.fireboard.zip and extracting it to the /administrator/components/com_fireboard folder in your Joomla installation. There is a folder called /components/com_fireboard that can easily be confused with the correct folder. Keep in mind that you are replacing the admin.fireboard.php file. If you are not prompted with a message asking to replace a file, your probably copying to the wrong folder.

The Forum Administration option should then work correctly and you can begin creating forums for your web site.

By Johan • How To • 12

Sep 5 2007

Installing Fireboard in Joomla 1.5

Fireboard is a forum application that integrates with Joomla. It works without any problems in Joomla 1.0, but when you try installing it in 1.5, you get the following error (the folders may be different on your installation):

—

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 58368 bytes) in /var/www/joomla15/libraries/joomla/installer/adapters/component.php on line 548

—

What’s happening here is that PHP is running out of memory and more needs to be allocated for the installation to succeed. There are two ways you increase the memory.

1. Modify php.ini

   If you are using your own server, find the php.ini file (on Linux, type locate php.ini) and add the following command:memory_limit = 12M

   If this command already exists, the increase the memory to 12M.

2. Modify .htaccess

   Chances are that you won’t have access to php.ini if you are on a shared hosting plan. The alternative is to edit the .htaccess in the root folder of your Joomla installation. The default installation of Joomla has the file named as htaccess.txt. You will need to rename it to .htaccess before adding to it. Add the following command to the .htaccess file:php_value memory_limit 12M

If the memory problem persists, increase the value until it works.

As a side note, you need to have the System – Legacy plugin activated before you can install Fireboard. The application was written for Joomla 1.0 and won’t run natively in 1.5. You can find the plugin through the Extensions menu, and then select Plugin Manager.

By Johan • How To • 10

Jul 27 2007

Don’t Use Java 6

I’ve been having nothing but problems getting Java programs to run on Java 6. The Adobe CS3 suite requires Java to work properly. With Java 6 installed, certain features didn’t work. I also couldn’t get Eclipse to run on Windows with this version of Java either. All of these problems were solved by uninstalling all versions of Java and then installing Java 5.

It takes a bit of effort finding Java 5 on Sun’s web site. The application can be found on the Java download page, clicking on Previous Releases, and then going to the J2SE 5.0 Downloads page. If all that you want to do is run Java applications then it would be enough to install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 5.0 Update 12. Install the version with NetBeans IDE or Java EE if you want to write Java applications.

The installer will also add Java plugins to Internet Explorer and Firefox. If you try to run a Java application within a web browser and it doesn’t find Java installed, it will try to download the latest version by default which you don’t want.

All of the Java applications and web sites should then work properly. Sun should make an Update 3 for Java 6 to fix the current bugs.

By Johan • How To • 3