pMachine Tutorial and Installation How To

This tutorial describes how to use the pMachine weblog software with your NEXCESS.NET web hosting account. NEXCESS.NET specializes in hosting pMachine software and this tutorial is meant to help you quickly setup your site with our web hosting service.

pMachine is open source, meaning that you can use and distribute it as you'd like as long as you don't change it.

For the sake of this tutorial we'll assume that you own the domain 'johnsmith.com' and are setting up pMachine at http://johnsmith.com/pmachine/.

Follow these steps to complete the tutorial:

1. The first thing to do is to run through the SiteWorx MySQL tutorial and create a database for pMachine to use to store the information it needs.

   Create a database called 'pmachine' with a user named 'pmachine'. When you do this SiteWorx will prefix the database and user names with some text resembling your domain name.

   With our example domain of 'johnsmith.com' the database name is 'johnsmit_pmachine' and the username is the same 'johnsmit_pmachine'.
2. Download the latest version of pMachine from the pMachine website and unzip the contents of the zip file to your desktop using http://winzip.com.

   You should now have a folder on your desktop named 'pMachineFree2.3'. Rename the 'pMachineFree2.3' folder to 'pmachine'.

3. Open the 'pmachine' folder. Open up the 'pm' folder and delete the 'updates' folder inside it.

   Find the 'config.php' file that is located in the 'pm' folder. Open this file in your text editing program. There are 4 database variables that you need to change in order for the script to connect to your database. For this example, we'll change the following variables:

   • $hostname = "localhost"; - Stays the same
   • $dbusername = "johnsmit_pmachine";
   • $dbpassword = "mypassword";
   • $dbname = "johnsmit_pmachine";

   Once you've changed these values, your screen should look like this:

   

   Save and close the 'config.php' file.
4. Upload the 'pmachine' folder to your web hosting account. You can do this using an FTP program. If you don't know how to do this, check out the FTP tutorials on our tutorials page.

   Once the pMachine files and folders are finished uploading, you need to change the permissions on some files and folders in order for the script to be able to write to them. You can do this using the CHMOD command in your FTP program. If you don't know how to do this, check out the FTP tutorials on our tutorials page. For this example, we'll CHMOD the files and folders as follows:

   • CHMOD the 'images/uploads' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the 'index.xml' file to 666
5. Now that you've changed the permissions for the files and folders, you can access the 'install.php' file. For this example, we'll point to 'http://www.johnsmith.com/pmachine/pm/install.php'. You should now be on the first page of the installer. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'NEXT PAGE' link to continue. The pMachine script will attempt to connect to your database to make sure that it exists and is valid. If you recieve any errors, make sure you that you entered the correct information in the 'config.php' file for your database. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'NEXT PAGE' link to continue. The script will now ask you if you've changed the location of the pMachine scripts. Since you haven't changed the location you don't need to worry about this page. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'UPDATE' button to continue. The script will now create tables in your database. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'NEXT PAGE' link to continue. The pMachine script will now populate the tables that it created in the last step. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'NEXT PAGE' link to continue. The script will now ask for the name of your site, the absolute path to the 'pm' directory and your email address. The path should be correct so you don't need to change it, but enter a name you'd like for your site and enter your email address. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'UPDATE' button to continue. The script will now save the preferences. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'NEXT PAGE' link to continue. You should now be on the admin registration page. Enter the values according to your preferences for your admin account. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'REGISTER' button to continue. Your pMachine installation is now complete. Before you login to your admin control panel, you need to delete the 'pm/install.php' file from your webspace for security purposes. Your screen should look like this:

   

   You might want to make note of the URLs of your weblog and control panel. Click the link to your control panel in order to login. You should now be on the login page. Enter the username and password you created for your admin account. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Submit' button to login. You should now be on the main page of your admin control panel. From here you can manage and customize your pMachine as you see fit. The pMachine tutorial is now complete. Your screen should look like this:

   

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