Movable Type/MT3.2
From DreamHost
Contents |
How to Install Movable Type 3.2 on Dreamhost
Using DreamHost Web-based FTP
Based on this.
Any text in bold should probably be replaced with your specific website domain name, database name, database user, database password, MovableType username, etc.
These instructions are for using Dreamhost's Web-based FTP client.
Setup SQL Database
In your Dreamhost Panel, go to Goodies>MySQL and create a new database and hostname (alternatively, if you already have a hostname setup, you can use that one).
- Database Name: mtdb
- Hostname: mysql.website.com
- First User: mtdbuser
- Password: uniquepassword (keep this safe)
Click "Add new database now!".
It'll take a few minutes for this database to become active unless you had to create a new hostname (this could take as long as 24 hours).
Download the file and upload it
Download the most recent zipped file from Movable Type.
Unzip the file and re-name the folder to mt.
FTP the folder mt to the website.com directory on the Dreamhost server in automatic mode (I used Fetch and it worked). This might take a while. It's faster to upload the zipped file and unpack it on the server, but if you don't know how to do that, it's ok.
Preparing Directories
- While in the website.com directory, click "New dir" (top right) and type blog into the first box and click the green checkmark. It should then say "Directory blog was successfully created". Click the blue back arrow.
- While in the website.com directory, check the boxes next to mt and blog.
- Click Chmod (upper right-hand corner) and (in the box at the top of the page) check all the boxes for Read, the top box for Write, and all the boxes for Execute then click "Set all permissions" and click the green checkmark. It should then say "successfully chmodded to 755".
Editing Config Files
- Click on the mt' directory.
- Click the box next to mt-config.cgi-original and click "Copy".
- Scroll to the bottom, leave the "Target directory" the same and change "Target name" to mt-config.cgi Then click the green checkmark. It should say "Copied file mt-config.cgi-original". Click the blue back arrow.
- Click "Edit" next to mt-config.cgi
- Change value of CGIPath to http://www.website.com/mt/
- Change value of StaticWebPath to http://www.website.com/mt/mt-static
- Below the line for CGIPath, add/set the following MySQL settings (this is the stuff you created above, be sure to remove any '<' or '>':
- ObjectDriver DBI::mysql
- Database mtdb
- DBUser mtdbuser
- DBPassword uniquepassword
- DBHost mysql.website.com
- 8. Scroll down and if the following lines exist, uncomment them (these are almost half-way down):
- DBUmask 0022
- HTMLUmask 0022
- UploadUmask 0022
- DirUmask 0022
After making these changes, click the blue disk icon at the top left and then the blue back arrow.
Security
You may want to follow the directions at this website under "Secure the Files". Probably a good idea.
Set Permissions
Permissions for the CGI files, should be set to read/write/execute for you and read/execute for group and other. The root directory for your blog should also be set to read/write/execute for you and read/execute for group and other.
The following is staring in the website.com/mt folder (which is where you should be after the last step):
- Click the check boxes next to all the files (not directories) that start with "mt" (there should be like 15 of them).
- Click the "Chmod" button at the top right. In the top box, click all the boxes for Read, the top box for Write (for Owner), and all the boxes for Execute. Then click "Set all Permissions" and click the green check box. It should say that all the files were "successfully chmodded to 755". Click the blue back arrow.
- Click the mt-static directory.
- Click the check box next to the images directory. In the top box, click all the boxes for Read, the top box for Write (for Owner), and all the boxes for Execute. Then click "Set all Permissions" and click the green check box. It should say that the directory was "successfully chmodded to 755". Click the blue back arrow.
Check and then Install
Point your browser to website.com/mt/index.html and it should display a screen that says "Welcome to Movable Type, the premier weblog publishing platform for businesses, organizations, developers, and web designers!" and "Log in to Movable Type". Don't click "Log in to Movable Type" yet. Look at the bottom of the page and click the "Movable Type System Check" link to make sure everything's setup OK. If there are no major errors, click Back and then click "Log in to Movable Type". If the Check page doesn't work or there are errors, something is wrong.
Assuming everything is OK, click "Log in to Movable Type" and then click "Finish Install" and it will go through a series of steps and you will click "Login to Movable Type" to the login page. Here's the info you need: User: Melody, Password: Nelson. Once you've logged in, be sure to edit your profile to change your name and password.
Using SSH & Command Line
Based on this.
Any text in bold should probably be replaced with your specific website domain name, database name, database user, database password, MovableType username, etc.
Setup SQL Database
In your Dreamhost Panel, go to Goodies>MySQL and create a new database and hostname (alternatively, if you already have a hostname setup, you can use that one).
- Database Name: mtdb
- Hostname: mysql.website.com
- First User: mtdbuser
- Password: uniquepassword (keep this safe)
Click "Add new database now!".
It'll take a few minutes for this database to become active unless you had to create a new hostname (this could take as long as 24 hours).
Download the file and upload it
Download the most recent zipped file from Movable Type.
FTP the file to the website.com directory on the Dreamhost server in binary mode.
Unpacking the file and Preparing Directories
You'll need some knowledge of SSH, shell commandline to do this (you may need to enable SSH in your account. Visit Users>Manage Users and edit the account you want to use and check "Enable ssh/telnet" if it isn't already).
- Visit this page to learn about using SSH.
- Connect to website.com using ssh and cd into the website.com directory.
- type the following into the commandline in ssh: tar xvzf MT-3.2-en_US.tar.gz (your filename may be different. If so, correct accordingly.)
These instructions assume you want to install MovableType into a new sub-directory called "mt" and you want your weblog's public homepage to be at www.website.com/blog.
- Type mv MT-3.2-en_US mt (this command just renames the directory the tar command above created)
- Type chmod 755 mt
- cd into the website.com directory.
- Type mkdir blog
- cd into the website.com directory.
- cd mt
Editing Config Files
These instructions are specific to emacs, but you can use whatever editor you'd like (the web-based FTP utility that Dreamhost offers now is able to edit files.).
- cd into the website.com/mt directory.
- Type cp mt-config.cgi-original mt-config.cgi
- Type emacs mt-config.cgi
- Change value of CGIPath to http://www.website.com/mt/
- Change value of StaticWebPath to http://www.website.com/mt/mt-static
- Below the line for CGIPath, add/set the following MySQL settings (this is the stuff you created above, be sure to remove any '<' or '>':
- ObjectDriver DBI::mysql
- Database mtdb
- DBUser mtdbuser
- DBPassword uniquepassword
- DBHost mysql.website.com
- 7. Scroll down and if the following lines exist, uncomment them (these are almost half-way down):
- DBUmask 0022
- HTMLUmask 0022
- UploadUmask 0022
- DirUmask 0022
- 8. Press ctrl-x then press ctrl-s then press ctrl-x then press ctrl-c to save and exit emacs
Security
You may want to follow the directions at this website under "Secure the Files". Probably a good idea.
Set Permissions
Permissions for the CGI files, should be set to read/write/execute for you and read/execute for group and other. The root directory for your blog should also be set to read/write/execute for you and read/execute for group and other.
Type the following staring in the website.com/mt folder:
- chmod 755 mt*.cgi
- cd mt-static
- chmod 755 images
- cd ..
- cd .. (takes you to the website.com directory)
- chmod 755 blog
Check and then Install
Visit website.com/mt and it should display a screen that says "Welcome to Movable Type, the premier weblog publishing platform for businesses, organizations, developers, and web designers!" and "Log in to Movable Type". Don't click "Log in to Movable Type" yet. Look at the bottom of the page and click the "Movable Type System Check" link to make sure everything's setup OK. If there are no major errors, click Back and then click "Log in to Movable Type". If the Check page doesn't work or there are errors, something is wrong.
Assuming everything is OK, click "Log in to Movable Type" and then click "Finish Install" and it will go through a series of steps and you will click "Login to Movable Type" to the login page. Here's the info you need: User: Melody, Password: Nelson. Once you've logged in, be sure to edit your profile to change your name and password.
External Links
- "Installing Movable Type at DreamHost" (This page is based on it) - If anything on this page is confusing, he probably explained it better on the original webpage.
- "Installing Movable Type on Dreamhost" - (Movable Type 4)
- Movable Type 3.2 User Manual
- Movable Type Forum
- Userful Forum Topic - For "Got an error: Bad ObjectDriver config: Connection error: Access denied for user:" error.

