[WP Install] Step 7. Preparing to install WordPress: Extracting the program and setting up a local directory structure for Weblogs
Monday, 23 April 2007After transferring the WP tar.gz file to the correct directory on your Web server, the archive needs to be uncompressed to extract the program (WordPress).
If you have followed my instructions at Step 6, your WordPress compressed archive will be located at /usr/WWW/users/replaceusername/sboxcrnr/wordpress-2.1.3.tar.gz.
Decompressing the archive requires that you access your Web server through Telnet or SSH, where you can issue commands to interact with your remote directories and files. Both Telnet and SSH are available through Mac OS X’s Terminal utility. To decompress the wordpress-2.1.3.tar.gz archive and extract the WordPress program,
A. Open Terminal and connect to your server on pair.com.
B. Navigate to the root directory of Soap Box Corner, where you have uploaded the wordpress-2.1.3.tar.gz archive (file).
C. When you are at /usr/WWW/users/replaceusername/sboxcrnr/, type in the following command at the prompt:
tar -xzvf latest.tar.gz
Decompressing the WordPress archive will place a wordpress directory (folder) inside the /usr/WWW/users/replaceusername/sboxcrnr/ directory. This directory contains all the files required to install and run the first WordPress blog as a subdirectory of http://www.soapboxcorner.info/ (remember that URI and directory names here are fictitious, and need to be replaced according to your own installation plan).
Now that you have one (remote) WordPress directory ready, there are only a couple more steps before proceeding to the actual (Famous 5-Minute) Install. (And please don’t laugh or yell at me, ’cause the idea of WordPress barely taking 5 minutes to install is not mine!)
The first step is to extract your local copy of the WordPress archive - on Macs, this is done by simply double-clicking the .tar.gz file. Having a local copy of WordPress will not automatically allow you to run blogs locally, on your own computer; however, it allows you to easily set up remote installations, and also opens the door to becoming familiar with those features of WordPress that can be customised by non-programmers, such as themes and templates.
Once you have extracted your local copy of WordPress, it is a good idea to move both the .tar.gz archive and the automatically generated wordpress directory to a place where you can easily find them in the future; for instance, I have saved my local copies under /Documents/WWW/tools/Weblogs/WordPress/.
I suggest that you also create a local directory, under /Documents/WWW/, called WP_Blogs or something similar, where you will store in separate subdirectories —one for each Blog you will be installing— the individual WordPress configuration files for all your blogs.