Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites Guide

Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites is a bit tougher than installing WordPress or even installing Magento for the beginners. This guide for Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites will help both newbies and experts alike. Basically these three CMS – WordPress, Magento and Drupal has almost the same server requirements. We will use our test domain for Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites.

Preparation before Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites

You need to download Drupal following this link to official webpage. Select tar.gz (it will be more compressed = smaller to download) version. Save it to some easier location like desktop and uncompress it.

If you are using Windows OS, you can download WinSCP for accessing SFTP software for Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites.  Yummy FTP can be used for Mac OS X.

Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites on a Domain’s Sub Folder

If you are installing Drupal on subfolder, like example.com/subfolder/ then create a folder with your wished name at :

/<root>/www.example.com/web/content/subfolder/

Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites on a Domain’s root or on a subdomain

Login to the Rackspace Control panel, click Hosting and then Cloud Sites :

The wizard is almost same for both adding a domain and subdomain. Click “Add a Site” button and this window will come :

Type the name of domain or subdomain and you have to choose a plan, select one and go to the next page. In the œAdd New Site wizard which we are talking about, you will get œAdd Additional Features options. Keep it like this as we are Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites :

Microsoft SQL Server Storage “ Off
Databases “ Unlimited Databases
Default Technology “ Linux / Apache / PHP 5.2.0 (or newer)

Click next step, your billing will be $ 0.00. Click Finish.

If the domain is not purchased or purchased through separate register, we hope you can do those steps. We are not elaborating here on this Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites Guide as it will make it very complicated looking.

Now click the features tab, Click Add under Databases. Now open any Text Editor. Give the database a name, click continue and write the database name in your Text Editor. In the next page, you will have to add a Database Username and password, use anything and write down it in your text editor. Click Finish.

The database will be created and it generally takes 2-5 minutes for proper functioning. You will see the hyperlinked database name under Databases. Simply clicking it will open the Database Information page :

Copy and paste the ˜Hostname™ in your text editor for the next steps for Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites.

Next Steps for Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites

Open WinSCP and upload all contents of uncompressed contents of Drupal download so that the .htaccess files remains in the intended (for this installation’s) root.

Drupal download comes with a sample configuration file at :

sites/default /default.settings.php

Open it in WinSCP. Copy the full written things. Close it. Create a new file named settings.php in the same folder and paste the copied things in it. In other words,   default.settings.php  and  settings.php  will have same things written inside. No need to change any CHMOD.

Open browser and point to :

http://example.com/install.php

If you are Installing Drupal on example.com‘s root. Like this will come as first window for Installing Drupal :

Save and Continue. When database setup will come during Installing Drupal, (Important : this is very important step for Installing Drupal on Rackspace Cloud Sites), expand Advanced by clicking and change the localhost to Rackspace’s one :

Remaining one step for Installing Drupal is very easy. Just fill the form. Only carefully select your server location while Installing Drupal in the next step. It will be U.S. for us.