Doteasy Tutorials - Scripting
Setting up Moveable Type
Movable Type is Six Apart's powerful, customizable publishing system which
installs on web servers to enable individuals or organizations to manage and
update weblogs, journals, and frequently-updated website content.
This tutorial will guide you through the Movable Type setup and installation
process on our servers. It is assumed that your account has support for CGI
and MySQL database and that you have already created your database.
Part A - Downloading the Script
The script can be downloaded here.
The
file that you will download is a compressed bundle containing the files of the
Movable Type distribution. Unpack this archive in a temporary directory on your
computer using a decompression software.
Part B - Movable Type (mt.cfg) Configuration
Before
you begin Part B, please ensure that you have created your MySQL database on
your web server via your Site Administration Panel. View the database
creation tutorial.
If your MySQL database is already created, you are ready to begin the Movable
Type configuration process.
Open mt.cfg in a text editor.
Change line 14 from:
CGIPath http://WWW.YOUR-SITE.COM/PATH/TO/MT/
Change to:
CGIPath http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/mt/
(Replace yourdomain.com with your domain name.)
Put a "#" sign at the beginning of line 22.
# DataSource ./db
Insert the following lines after this line (#DataSource ./db):
ObjectDriver DBI::mysql
Database yourdomain_com_-_db
DBUser memberID
DBHost 127.0.0.1
(Replace yourdomain_com_-_db with your database name
and replace memberID with your Doteasy Member ID.)
Change
line 35 from:
# StaticWebPath /path/to/static-files/
Change to:
StaticWebPath http://www.yourdomain.com/mt/
(Replace yourdomain.com with your domain name.)
Save
mt.cfg and exit.
Part C - Setting your MySQL Database Password
Open
mt-db-pass.cgi in a text editor and change the database password by replacing
database_password with your MySQL database password.
Then save mt-db-pass.cgi and exit.
Part D - Uploading Files to Server
Start
your FTP software and connect to your FTP server. In the HTML root
folder /var/www/html/, create the sub-folder /mt. In the /mt sub-folder,
create the folder /archives.
Change directory to /var/www/html/mt and change the permissions of the weblog
archives folder to 7-7-7 or:
- Owner: Allow Read, Write, and Execute
- Group: Allow Read, Write, and Execute
- Others: Allow Read, Write, and Execute
Change your FTP software transfer mode to Binary. Upload the /images folder
to your server.
Change your FTP software transfer mode to ASCII. Upload index.html and
styles.css files and the /docs folder to the server folder
/var/www/html/mt/.
Change
directory to /var/www/cgi-bin (your cgi-bin folder) and create a folder called
/mt.
Upload all the other files to /var/www/cgi-bin/mt/ using ASCII mode excluding
the /docs and /images folders and styles.css file.
Set
the file permissions of all CGI scripts (files with .cgi extension) to 7-5-5
or:
- Owner: Allow Read, Write, and Execute
- Group: Allow Read and Execute
- Others: Allow Read and Execute
To change file permissions using CuteFTP, select the file by clicking on it
once on the remote system side and then right-click on the file to bring up
the option menu and select CHMOD.
Part E - Checking Perl Modules and Initializing the MT System
Using
your web browser, access mt-check.cgi to initiate the script to check
the Perl modules on your server.
Enter the web address as http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-check.cgi.
(Replace yourdomain.com with your domain name.)
The script should confirm that your web server has all of the required modules
and that you are not required to install any additional modules.
Using
your web browser, access mt-load.cgi to initiate the script to initiate
your Movable Type system.
Enter the web address as http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-load.cgi.
(Replace yourdomain.com with your domain name.)
The script should confirm that initial data has been loaded and will display
'All went well. FAILURE TO DELETE mt-load.cgi...'
Using
your FTP software, delete mt-load.cgi from your server. The file is located
in the /var/www/cgi-bin/mt/ folder.
Part F - Configuring and Running Movable Type
To access
the Movable Type administration interface, access mt.cgi using your browser.
Enter the web address as http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi.
Login using the default user name Melody and the default password Nelson.
The
first thing to do is to change your user name and password.
To do so, click EDIT YOUR PROFILE and assign a new user name and password.
To
configure the correct paths for your Weblog, click the default Weblog called
FIRST WEBLOG.
Click
WEBLOG CONFIG in the Manage menu.
Change
the Local Site Path to: /var/www/html/mt
Change Site URL to: http://www.yourdomain.com/mt/
(Replace yourdomain.com with your domain name.)
Change
Local Archive Path to: /var/www/html/mt/archives
Change Archive URL to: http://www.yourdomain.com/mt/archives/
(Replace yourdomain.com with your domain name.)
Click
Save and click REBUILD link to reflect the new changes.
Now
you can being to configure your preferences for your Movable Type Weblog. The
default First Weblog already exists in the system and will help to give you
a head start in setting up your first weblog in Movable Type. The weblog comes
with some pre-made templates; of course you can edit or delete these templates
and to use them as a starting point to customize and create your own.
That's
it! You're now ready to start posting entries to your new Weblog!
