Manual installation instructions for Mambo Open Source 4.5
Modified: November 9th, 2003 by rcastley
Mambo Open Source is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.


Getting started

First you must have the base environment for Mambo Open Source (MOS). We have thoroughly tested MOS on: Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Windows NT/2000. Linux or one of the BSD's are recommended, but anything else that can run the 3 pieces of software listed below should do it.

Getting Mambo Open Source

You will find the latest version at http://sourceforge.org/projects/mambo

Installing Mambo Open Source

First up, download the Mambo Open Source tar.gz package. You can run MOS as a full site e.g. http://www.mysite.com, or you can run it in a subdirectory of another site e.g. http://www.mysite.com/mambo/. You just have to edit the configuration.php file to tell MOS in which part of your site it is. In this example it will run in a directory of a web site:

  1. Make a directory for the web site files:
    e.g.
    UNIX -
    /usr/local/www/mywebspace/mambo
    Windows - c:\apache\htdocs\mambo
  2. MOS is packaged in gzip and tar format. Untar or using Winzip uncompress the distribution file into the directory your created above:
    e.g. tar -xvfz latest_mambo_version.tar.gz -C /usr/local/www/mywebspace/mambo/
    (Make sure you have a trailing slash and replace latest_mambo_version with the version you have downloaded).

  3. Now you have to create a database for MOS in MySQL, you can choose any name you want, just remember to edit the configuration.php file with the name you choose. Use the mysqladmin command:
    e.g. mysqladmin -uroot -ppassword create mambo_database_name

    (replace 'root' and 'password' with the username and password that is used for your MySQL database)
  4. Edit the file sql/mambo.sql and uncomment the very last 2 lines of the file starting:
    INSERT INTO `mos_users` VALUES (62, ......
    INSERT INTO `mos_users` VALUES (63, ......

    Import the SQL into your newly created database from the sql/mambo.sql text file:
    e.g. mysql -uroot -ppassword mambo_database_name < sql/mambo.sql
    (replace 'root' and 'password' with the username and password that is used for your MySQL database)

    If you wish to load the sample data provide with the distribution, then run the above command and replace sql/mambo.sql with sql/sample_data.sql. The same applies if you require the help support for the administration section, use sql/help.sql.

  5. Copy the file configuration.php-dist to configuration.php in the root of your web directory and edit this file with the correct database name, password, host and directory info.

    Example:
    <?php
    $mosConfig_editor = "";
    $mosConfig_offline = "0";
    $mosConfig_host = "localhost";
    $mosConfig_user = "mysql_username";
    $mosConfig_password = "mysql_password";
    $mosConfig_db = "mambo";
    $mosConfig_dbprefix = "mos_";
    $mosConfig_lang = "english";
    $mosConfig_defaultpage = "1";
    $mosConfig_absolute_path = "/usr/local/www/mywebspace/mambo";
    $mosConfig_live_site = "http://www.yoursite.com/mambo";
    $mosConfig_sitename = "Mambo Open Source 4.5";
    $mosConfig_shownoauth = "1";
    $mosConfig_emailpass = "1";
    $mosConfig_offline_message = "<h3>This site is down for maintenance.<br /> Please check back again soon</h3>";
    $mosConfig_UseBanner = "0";
    $mosConfig_lifetime = "43200";
    $mosConfig_MetaDesc = "Mambo Open Source - the dynamic portal engine and content management system";
    $mosConfig_MetaKeys = "mambo, mambo open source, Mambo, Mambo Open Source";
    $mosConfig_debug = "0";
    $mosConfig_locale = "en_GB";
    $mosConfig_offset = "0";
    $mosConfig_hideAuthor = "0";
    $mosConfig_hideCreateDate = "0";
    $mosConfig_hideModifyDate = "0";
    $mosConfig_enable_log_items = "0";
    $mosConfig_enable_log_searches = "0";
    $mosConfig_sef = "0";
    $mosConfig_vote = "0";

    setlocale (LC_TIME, $mosConfig_locale);
    ?>

  6. You will need to change the permissions of several directories to 707, this should be done recursively (the following is not applicable to Mambo Open Source installations under the Windows Operating System):
    chmod -R 707 images
    chmod -R 707 media
    chmod -R 707 uploadfiles
    chmod -R 707 components
    chmod -R 707 language
    chmod -R 707 modules
    chmod -R 707 templates
    chmod -R 707 administrator/backups
    chmod -R 707 administrator/components

    chmod 744 configuration.php

Logging into the administration site

Go to
http://www.yoursite.com/administrator/

Username : admin
Password : admin

Or you can log in from the front end as an editor using:

Username : editor
Password : editor

Admin email Address

When you login to the administration section of MOS for the first time,remember to change the email address of the administrator to your own. This way you will receive all emails automatically sent by the system.

Sections and sub-sections (Administration)

Sub-Sections can only be added to a Section that is not a MOS component or a web-link. If you wish to create a Sub-Section, you must first create the main menu Section. This will populate the Section drop down box on the create new Sub-Section form, and allow the Sub-Section to be created.

Removing Installation files

Make sure that your remove the ENTIRE installation directory after a successful install. This will ensure that no one else will be able to run the installation again and possibily loose your configuration.