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1.2. Getting the Files & Installing

Installing PivotX is pretty simple. The process basically consists of getting the zip file, extracting the files, uploading the files to the server and setting the file rights / permissions.

If you have command-line access on the server, and are comfortable using it, the setup is even easier. If so, skip to Using the command line. You can also get the files directly from SVN.

Tip: Upgrading PivotX is identical to installing PivotX except that you can usually skip the file rights step.

Getting the files

The first step of the install process is downloading the PivotX files from pivotx.net. You can get the latest stable version of PivotX from the following location: pivotx.net/files/pivotx_latest.zip.

After downloading the file, extract it. Usually you can do this by simply double-clicking on the .zip file. If this doesn't work, use a tool like the free 7-zip to extract the file.

Getting translations

If you want to use PivotX in your language, download the (compiled) translation from the translation download page and then upload the file to the pivotx/langs folder (after having uploaded the other files to your hosting space).

The compiled translation files are named xy.mo where xy is the two letter language code.

More details about translations...

Uploading the files using FTP

You can use any FTP-client to upload the files to your hosting space. If you don't have a FTP-client yet, you can use Filezilla, which is free and very good. Some Mac users prefer Cyberduck, which is also free.

Usually, your host has provided a folder in which you can place the files that will be accessible from the internet with a webbrowser. This folder is often called 'html', 'www' or 'public_html'. If you're not sure you're in the right place for putting your PivotX files, check the credentials that your hosting provider gave you. It's usually mentioned together with your FTP username and password.

In the FTP-client, log in with the hostname, username and password your hosting provider gave you, and upload all files from the unzipped file to the correct folder. Afterwards, it might look like this:

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Tip: If you don't want your PivotX site as your main website, you can make a new folder on your hosting space, and put it there.

Using the command line

If you have shell access to your webserver, setting up PivotX is even easier. Copy and paste the following commands to the command-line:

curl -O pivotx.net/files/pivotx_latest.tgz  
tar -xvzf pivotx_latest.tgz   
chmod -R a+w images/ pivotx/db/ pivotx/templates

If you can't use Curl, try this instead:

wget pivotx.net/files/pivotx_latest.tgz  
tar -xvzf pivotx_latest.tgz   
chmod -R a+w images/ pivotx/db/ pivotx/templates

And, that's it!

Checking out from SVN

If you'd like to get the absolute latest (and perhaps broken) version of PivotX, you can always do a checkout from our SVN. If you don't know how this works, this option probably isn't for you. ;-)

svn co https://pivot-weblog.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/pivot-weblog/trunk trunk

Setting the file rights

Several folders need to be writable by PivotX, so they can be used to store files and images, and PivotX can save the settings and templates in them. This is sometimes called chmod'ing, where 'chmod' is short for 'change mode'. We're going to change the rights to '777' (which is the easiest way to ensure that everyone with access, including PivotX, can write to folders and files). Sometimes '777' is displayed as 'rwxrwxrwx'.

Tip: If your hosting provider tells you that chmodding to 777 is 'not safe', ask them what value you should use, so that both you and the user under which the webserver runs have full read- and write access to the files. Any half-decent hosting party has completely seperated spaces for each user, so there should be no risk involved with changing these folders to be writable. If your hosting provider has not done this, you should really start looking for a new one.

The following folders (and everything in them) should be chmod'ed to '777':

images/  
pivotx/templates/  
pivotx/db/

Usually you won't have to set the file rights again after upgrading PivotX.

Most modern FTP clients allow you to apply the changed rights recursively. For example, in Cyberduck it looks like this:

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