Unzip the installation file ( Joomla_1.0.12-Stable-Full_Package.zip ) onto your own computer into a directory without anything else in it. That is, first create a new directory on your system, give it a name and then extract all the files into the new directory.

Launch FileZilla and log into your server. You will need the information that you received from your ISP when the server was first set up. Specifically, you need the ftp address of the server ( in the form of ftp.yourdomain.com ) , the username and the user password. On hostrocket, when you login you see several files and folders in the right side window in FileZilla.

Double click on "public_html" to enter the part of the site where all site files will be located. Only files inside public_html can be seen by your site visitors.

If you intend to install Joomla as the top domain on this site, then you will install the joomla files inside public_html. But you might be installing joomla into a lower domain that exists below the top site at public_html. If you are installing Joomla into a lower directory, find it, or create it and move inside the directory by double clicking on it. I intend to show installation into a lower domain since I already have a site at the top level. For example, in filezilla2.jpg you can see the new directory humanrationality , which is a new site I will build. The folder is named the same as the domain name.

I assume you have a domain name that points to your new directory. Now is the time to tell the software at HostRocket where the domain should point.

Once you are inside the folder where you want to install joomla, you should see no files inside it since it is new. This is where you will upload all the files of Joomla.

On the left in Filezilla you should be at the folder where you extracted the joomla files. They should look similar to this figure to the right.

Select all the files on the lower left and drag them across to the right side in Filezilla. This will upload them to the new folder. It will take 10 minutes or more even with cable broadband speed. Once the files are up there it will look like this:

Once you have the files uploaded, all you need to do is to go there with a web browser. Since I had already used my controlpanel for the top site to turn on the domain name and point it at this directory, my browser went directly to the new site. And you should see this page:

They need you to adjust a few things. The configuration.php is unwritable. What they really mean is the file does not exist. And we will create it later at the end of this installation. But there are a host of things we must do in FileZilla first. Keep the browser window open as you work in Filezilla. Try to get agreement between all the red items on that first page. Especially the "Directory and File Permissions Check" section at the bottom. Go into filezilla and change the permissions of all the files and directories in that list. You can check if you changed them by the button at the top of the browser page. "Check Them".

Open FileZilla and go to the site and the installation directory. Lets take the first one in the list. They all are the same, find the file or directroy, change it's permissions in FileZilla and go to the next one until all the items in the list are writable.

In FileZilla, go into administrator and see this:

Right click on backups. See this:

Choose "File Attributes" and you will see this:

Change the two "Write" checkmarks from blank to checked. This gives anyone permission to write to these files and directories. You will change them back to the original permission level when we are though. Notice the number just below the checkmarks. 755 means no one can write except the owner. When the two marks are set, it changes to 777 which means anyone can read, write or execute the files. And we need that for a few minutes until we get it set up. Then we change them all back and prevent hackers from screwing with your site. After the change to 777 the screen should look like this:

Go down the list and make all the other files writable. Don't change anything but the two write buttons. Leave the "read" and "execute" buttons alone. You should be able to recheck things and get a page that looks like this:

Go on to the Next page.

Agree to the License.

Step 1 is basic information that will be wrtten to that configuration.php file later. Fill it in. This is also where you need to have already set up your database. You should have three important bits of data. MySQL user name, MySQL password, MySQL Database name. and a prefix.

Enter these three items and hit Next. You should see this:

You should see the word "Success" if things went OK. If not, then you entered the wrong data in those three items. DB name, username, userpass and Joomla was unable to use the database while logging in with that name and password.

Remember, when you created the user of the database in the control panel of the site, you gave the user a password. And now you need to know that password if you are going to use that username as the data for Joomla. As a final way around it, you can create a new user, a new password and assign them to the Database in your control panel. Then use the new set of data ( db name, username, user pass ) in Joomla.

We are at Step 2 now. Enter the Site name. For my www.humanrationality.com , I enter "Human Rationality" .

Step 3. Verify the data, give yourself an email address that will be used as a return address in emails from the site. Copy and keep that Admin password. You will need it to log in as Administrator. You can also change it to what ever you wish.

Set file permissions to "CHMOD files to" and directory permissions to "CHMOD directories to" and keep the default arrow checks.

Step 4 The most important point here is to copy the code from the window and paste it into a new file called configuration.php and save it into the top directory on your system where you extracted the joomla files before you uploaded them.

If you don't create and upload this new file, the site will not work.

You can open "configuration.php-dist" in any text editor (not a word processor ) and paste the code from the browser window into the file. Save it as "configuration.php" and upload it to your site along side the existing "configuration.php-dist". Use FileZilla to upload it.

At the same time, delete the Installation directory on the site by selecting it in Filezilla with a right click and choosing "delete".

You are essentially finished with the installation. Test that you can log into the administration using the name and password from the last page of the installation browser.

Problems. If you can not log in, then you have mis-copied the administration name and password. You basically have to start over, but retry to login a few times to make sure it's not just a typo as you type it in now. Best to copy and paste.

If you understand databases, you can go in to controlpanal -> mysql Manager -> phpMyAdmin and directly modify the database. If you browse the table "users" you will see one username "admin" , delete that user and go back to the mysql Manager and assign a new user. Next time , keep up with the user name and password, because you don't want to be editing the database except in emergencies.