ExpressionEngine is a flexible & secure open-source CMS that gives you a near-infinite capacity to manage your site content.
In fact, it is safe to say that no matter what you have dreamed or want to design, you can build it with ExpressionEngine.
No wonder great companies, businesses, and government entities have made ExpressionEngine their most favored CMS.
Today, you will learn how to install ExpressionEngine CMS in seconds using cPanel & Softaculous or manually.
Requirements:
- if installing new ExpressionEngine, the latest PHP with mod_lsapi. If running old ExpressionEngine, PHP5.6.
- if installing new ExpressionEngine, latest MySQL. Else, use our Iowa servers that support MySQL 5.7.
- a hosting account with the HardenedPHP package (recommended)
- your cPanel login for access
- an up-to-date modern browser
How To Install ExpressionEngine with Softaculous and cPanel
As your web host, we offer the latest version of cPanel.
Each hosting account also has access to Softaculous auto-installer.
Softaculous is a one-click web application installer that provides the simplest way to instantly install and effortlessly manage top web applications while keeping up to date.
With Softaculous, you can one-click install ExpressionEngine.
All you need to do is to:
- Login to your cPanel
- Scroll down to the Software section.
- Click on Softaculous, then search for ExpressionEngine under Portal/CMS.
- Click Install Now.
Once you have access to the ExpressionEngine login screen you will need to log in with a username and password provided to you by an administrator.
How To Install ExpressionEngine Manually
Login to your cPanel
Scroll down to the Databases section.
Click on the MySQL® Database Wizard icon.
In the New Database text box, enter a name for the database, copy and save it then click Next Step.
In the Username text box, enter a name for the user to copy and save it.
Enter and confirm the new password in the appropriate text boxes.
Click Create User.
Select ALL PRIVILEGES. You can fine-tune this after the installation.
Note that when you use the MySQL Database Wizard interface to add a user and a database, the system automatically grants the user access to the database.
You do not need to use the Add User to Database feature in the MySQL Databases interface (cPanel >> Home >> Databases >> MySQL Databases).
Click Next Step.
You have successfully set up the database and user account.
Now you have:
- the MySQL Database Name
- the MySQL Server Address (localhost)
- the MySQL Username
- the MySQL Password
It is time to download the latest release of ExpressionEngine.
You can use "curl" or "wget" to download this straight to server.
If you have used curl/wget to get the zipped file to your server, then:
cd public_html (or whichever folder you are using) unzip ExpressionEngine$version
You will get a file structure that looks something like this:
LICENSE.txt admin.php favicon.ico images/ index.php system/ test.txt themes/
Or download it to your workstation as ExpressionEngine$version.zip, unzip the compressed files to a folder, and then use an SFTP client to move the files to your hosting account.
Our systems will recursively set the appropriate permissions for the files (644) and directories (755).
If for some reason your FTP client is not configured properly to get this done, you can use the command below to set things right:
find system/ee \( -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; \) -o \( -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \; \)
All that is needed is for you to visit the URL of the admin.php file (e.g. https://webcomm.dev/admin.php) and follow the on-screen instructions to install ExpressionEngine.
Having completed the installation, rename or remove the system/ee/installer/ directory from your server.
You can do this using either cPanel File Manager or the terminal:
rm -rf installer
or rename it with:
mv installer old-installer
Visit the URL you have installed ExpressionEngine on.
Enjoy.
If you are an existing customer and need help installing ExpressionEngine, just create a ticket request and our team will install it for you.
