Basic Install Requirements

To get started, you will need a hosting environment. For most people, this means buying a hosting plan. Concrete5 will run just about anywhere, but we do have some hosting partners worth checking out.

If your preferred host does not have a one-click installer for concrete5 like Softaculous or SimpleScripts, you will need to take some steps to manually install concrete5. If any of this is confusing or unknown to you, you can ask your webhost's support for assistance, or ask in our helpful forums.

Install Steps:

1. Download the latest version of concrete5.
2. Upload that zip file to your webserver. You'll want to unzip the file in a web-accessible folder in your webspace. Usually this folder is public_html. If you want to run concrete5 in a subdirectory, you can create a new folder like "new-site" and unzip your concrete5 files in there.
3. After you unzip the file, it will add some new folders and an index.php.
4. The folders files/, config/, packages/ and updates/ will need to be writable by the web server process. This can mean that the folders will need to be "world writable", depending on your hosting environment.
5. Make sure mod_rewrite is setup and functioning. If you try and install Concrete5 and receive a 404 error, and the URL is "/install/-/configure," mod _ rewrite is probably not enabled. It is probably enabled and you should not need to worry about it.
6. Create a new MySQL database and a MySQL user account with full permissions on the database. Make a note of your database server (usually "localhost") as well as the database name, and the name and password for the database user that has access to that database.
7. Visit your site, "http://example.com", or "http://example.com/new-site/" if you extracted the concrete5 zip into a folder called "new-site".

8. You will see a helpful install screen like this:
   
   If everything is "green" you can click the "Continue to Installation" button. If you see anything wrong, those items will have instructions on what you need to correct the issue. You may need to contact your webhost to get it done.

9. Next up, you'll see this screen:
   
   All of that is fairly self-explanatory. Be sure to use your real email address. If you forget your site administrator password, you can use your email to reset the site password.
   It is possible to change everything listed there from within concrete5, except for your database details. But you should have no reason to change that once your site is up and running.

Ok, click "Install concrete5" and you should be all set! If something goes wrong, be sure to check out the install forum.

Next Steps

You should have a basic site going now with an admin user. If you haven't run through the Getting Started documentation, now is a good time to check that out.

Here are a couple things you might want to do right away:

Pretty URLs

Most people want this style of URL because it is important for search engine optimization. Basically by default concrete5 will create URLs like "http://www.example.com/index.php?cID=42" or "http://www.example.com/index.php/section/page/". The pretty URL for that page is "http://www.example.com/section/page/": no "index.php" in there.

To enable "Pretty URLs" you can just search "pretty url" in the intelligent search bar and that will get you to the right page. After you enable pretty URLs, you will have to add the provided rules to your site's .htaccess file. You may need to create the file if it does not exist. Without these rules in place, you will probably have 404 errors when browsing your site.

Internationalization

If you're going to use your site in a different language than English, you'll need to follow these instructions for everything to be in the right language.

Caching

By default, concrete5 has caching turned on. Most of the time, caching should be turned on because it will make your website's performance better. If you are a web developer and you want to start hacking on concrete5, you will want to turn this off.

To get to the right page, just search "cache settings" in the Intelligent Search. You'll want to disable "overrides cache" and "block cache".