Drupal Server Installation and Setup

The installation and setup of a Drupal server has come a long way since it's birth. Over the past year alone the setup process has become much more simplified, especially with the release of Drupal 6. Drupal 5 installations require a few minor tweaks in order to get the most out of your Drupal server. Drupal 6 on the other hand, has many of those other steps taken out and are just part of the installation process now.

Drupal 7 already here, and is available to download and test as an Alpha project right now. There are several critial issues to take care of yet, so if you are ready and willing take a stab at them! Plans for Drupal 8 are to be unveiled at Drupalcon Copenhagen 2010. It should be interesting to hear what is in store for the best CMS on the planet!

Drupal 5.x Installation and Setup

We have decided to abandon our Drupal 5.x installation and setup tutorials to work harder on releasing Drupal 6 and Drupal 7 tutorials, as they are the more active projects right now. The release of Drupal 7 is near and further work on Drupal 5 sites is pointless at this point really. If you are really deadset on installing Drupal 5, check out this great video tutorial that Jeff Robbins from Lullabot put together called, Installing Drupal 5.

Drupal 6.x Installation and Setup

Drupal 6.x is what would be considered the latest, or current Stable release of the Drupal CMS. Drupal 7 is only in Alpha right now, and is no where near production ready. With that in mind, there is much work still being done on Drupal 6 modules and Drupal 6 themes in the community, so check out how to install and configure your Drupal 6 server below.

The following Drupal screencast goes over the steps of installation and configuration of the installation process a Drupal 6 website after you have already created your MySQL database, and have downloaded Drupal 6 to your local computer.

I created this Drupal screencast on installing Drupal 6 locally for Drupal beginners. It is always best to setup your Drupal 6 website on your local machine first, then upload your files and import your database. Uploading your files with a version control system like SVN and GIT is always best, but if you don't have a repository setup yet, you can always just use FTP. I have also found a handy way to upload files in a pinch to your web server, if you have wget access and a Dropbox account. I will share more about that soon.

I am currently working on a step by step Drupal tutorial with screenshots and screencasts on setting up and configuring a local hostname and setting up and configuring a MySQL database for your Drupal 6.x server in OSX, Ubuntu, and Windows environments.

Drupal 6 Tutorials and Drupal 6 Screencasts Coming Soon...

Configuring Your Drupal 6.x Website

Part 1 - Drupal Site Configuration Overview - There are many parts to configure within a Drupal website, but some are more important to the average user than an advanced user. Here we explain all of the Drupal site configuration options, but go into more detail on a few very important areas below.

Part 2 - Configure Drupal Site Information - Add a Site Name, a Site Slogan, and Footer information to your Drupal website. These page elements are the first levels of building a great Drupal website, so what a better place to start our tutorials.

Part 3 - Configure Drupal Clean URLs - Remove the ugly ?q= parameters from your URLs and give them readable text aliases. There are several issues that could be causing your clean urls to not work properly. In this Drupal tutorial, I will go over as many ways as I have found that could be giving you an issue.

Administering Your Drupal 6 Website

Part 1 - Drupal Administration Overview - There are many options on the administration page of a Drupal website. If you are going to be building Drupal websites, it is best to get to know all of these sections like the back of your hand. In this tutorial, I will try to break down the Drupal administration sections the best that I can for beginners.

Part 2 - Drupal Content Management Administration - This tutorial will focus on how to manage your actual content within the Drupal CMS. This includes managing Drupal comment settings, managing your Drupal website's actual content, managing Drupal content types, manging Drupal post settings, managing basic Drupal RSS publishing, and managing your Drupal taxonomy settings.

Part 3 - Drupal Site Building Administration - This tutorial will focus on how to manage site building options within the Drupal CMS. This includes managing Drupal blocks and the block system, managing Drupal menus and the Drupal menu system, managing installed Drupal modules, and managing installed Drupal themes. I will cover installing and configuring both Drupal modules and Drupal themes in a separate series of Drupal tutorials.

Part 4 - Drupal User Management & Administration - In most cases, a sites's member base is very important. In this Drupal tutorial we whos you how to administer Drupal users, administering Drupal access rules, administering Drupal user permissions, administering Drupal roles, and configure Drupal user settings.

Part 5 - Drupal Site Reports - There is no way to guage how well your Drupal website is doing unless you setup reporting and stats. This tutorial will show you how to setup and monitor Drupal webstie statistics, track Drupal log entries with Watchdog, check for available Drupal updates, and get a status detailed status report on your Drupal website's operation and any detected problems.

Extending Your Drupal 6 Website

Installing Drupal 6 Modules

Part 1 - Introduction to Contributed Drupal 6 Modules - This Drupal 6 tutorial will simply be a guide to where Drupal 6 modules can be found, and some basic information about navigating the Drupal 6 module repository.

Part 2 - Installing and Configuring Drupal 6 Modules - This tutorial will go a bit more in depth in to how installing and configuring a Drupal 6 module is done. Installing modules is going to be able to be done differently in Drupal 7, so this guide will mostly help up until Drupal 7 for installation.

Part 3 - What Drupal 6 Modules Should I Install? - There are thousands of Drupal modules out there to choose from, and sometimes they aren't always that easy to understand the documentation. We will be putting together a master list of must have Drupal 6 modules that will also include explanations to what they do and how to configure them in layman's terms.

Installing Drupal 6 Themes

Part 1 - Introduction to Contributed Drupal 6 Themes

Part 2 - Installling and Configuring Drupal 6 Themes

Part 3 - What Drupal 6 Themes Should I Install?

Drupal 7.x Installation and Setup

Drupal 7 alpha is out and ready to test. We are working on tutorials and screencasts for this as well.

For now, please refer to the official Drupal website for more in formation on installing your Drupal server.