phpCollab Tutorial and Installation How To

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

phpCollab 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 phpCollab at http://johnsmith.com/phpcollab/.

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 phpCollab to use to store the information it needs.

   Create a database called 'phpcollab' with a user named 'phpcollab'. 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_phpcollab' and the username is the same 'johnsmit_phpcollab'.
2. Download the latest version of phpCollab from the phpCollab 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 with all the files and folders you need to install and run phpCollab. Open up the 'includes' folder. Rename the 'settings_blank.php' file to 'settings.php'.
3. Upload the 'phpcollab' folder to your web hosting account. You should do this using an FTP Program. If you need help with FTPing files, you can check out the FTP tutorials on our tutorials page. Once all the phpCollab files have finished uploading, we need to change the permissions on some of the files and folders so the script can write to it. 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. We're going to use the CHMOD command as follows:
   • CHMOD the 'includes/settings.php' file to 777
   • CHMOD the 'files' folder to 777
   • CHMOD the 'logos_client' folder to 777
4. Now we can access the phpCollab install wizard. In this example, we'll point to 'http://www.johnsmith.com/phpcollab/installation/setup.php'. You should now be on the first page of the phpCollab installation. You should now be on the GNU General Public License page. This license states that you can use, distribute and modify this script as you see fit as long as you don't remove the original author's copyright information. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the 'Step 2' link to continue. You're now on the settings screen. Here we're going to enter the information for the database you created in step #1. For this example, we'll enter the following information:

   • Installation type : Online - Stays the same.
   • Database type : MySql - Stays the same.
   • Database server : localhost
   • Database login : johnsmit_phpcollab
   • Database password : mypassword
   • Database name : johnsmit_phpcollab

   You can leave all the other fields and radio buttons set to the default values or you can change them according to your needs. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Save' button to continue. You should get a message saying that everything was created correctly. If you receive any errors, make sure you set the right permissions for the files and folders. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Please log in' link to continue. You should now be on the phpCollab log in screen. Choose a username and password. Your screen should look like this:

   

   Click the 'Log in' button to continue. You should now be on the admin control panel. From here you can manage your phpCollab system. You should delete the 'installation/setup.php' file for security purposes. Your installation is finished and the phpCollab tutorial is now complete. Your screen should look like this:

   

   For more information on how to use phpCollab once it's installed, check out the phpCollab Documentation.

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