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More information are available for system administrators in the System Administrators Guide.
Installing PrestaShop
Downloading the PrestaShop archive
You can download the latest version of PrestaShop at http://www.prestashop.com/en/downloads. This page presents you with a informal form, which helps PrestaShop better know its users. Whether you fill the form or not, click the "Download" button to display the download choices.
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Extract the content of the archive to a know location of your hard-drive.
Uploading PrestaShop
You should now have a hosting space and a folder with the uncompressed PrestaShop archive. This step makes you upload the PrestaShop file on your hosting space. This is done using a FTP client.
Installing and configuring your FTP client
FTP is short for "File Transfer Protocol". A great and free FTP client is FileZilla. Download it and install it. Note: do not download FileZilla Server, only FileZilla Client!
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- Click the "New Site" button. A new entry is created in the site list. Give it a recognizable name.
- On the right side, in the "General" tab, enter the parameters your host provided you with: host, user, password. You should not have to change the other default parameters, unless told so.
- Once all the fields are properly filled, click the "Connect". This will both save your site, and log you into your account, so that you can make sure everything works right.
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Uploading your files
Now that you are connected to your hosting space, it is time to transfert the PrestaShop files from your computer to your server.
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After a short while, all of PrestaShop's files and folders should be online. Great!
Creating a database for your shop
Before you can actually install PrestaShop, you need to make sure you MySQL server has a database ready for PrestaShop's data, and if not, create one. This can be done using the free phpMyAdmin tool, which should come pre-installed on your web server most of the time. Some hosts prefer to have customers use a graphic control panel, such as cPanel, Plesk or a custom-made one. Make sure you read your host's documentation about handling MySQL.
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Either way, you can create a brand new database using the central form named "Create new database". Simply enter a unique name, and click "Create". The name of the database will be added to the list on the left. You can now use it to store PrestaShop's data.
Launching the auto-installer
Now comes the part where it all comes together: installing PrestaShop.
The installation process is quite easy, as it is streamlined by PrestaShop's auto-installer. To launch it, simply browse to PrestaShop's location on your hosting: the script will automatically detect that it is not yet installed, and will take you to the auto-installer. From there on, you just have to read and click.
Step 1: Welcome page
This page is a quick intro into the installation process.
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To access the next step, you must check the "I agree to the above terms and conditions" box, then click "Next".
Step 2 & 3: System compatibility & system configuration.
The second page makes a quick check of all the server parameters on your host, and if nothing wrong is found, takes you directly to the third step.
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Once all indicators are green, you can click "Next"
System configuration
This page contains a form that enables you to tell PrestaShop where the database server is, and which database it should use, along with a few other details.
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Database configuration
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Fill all the fields with the connection information provided by your web-host, along with the name of the database you chose/created for PrestaShop, then click the "Verify now!" button in order to check that everything is fine. If so, the installer will display the following message: "Database is connected".
Choose the prefix for your tables. "ps_" is the default, resultat in the PrestaShop SQL table having names such as "ps_car" or "ps_wishlist", but if you need to install more than one instances of PrestaShop on the same database, then you must use a unique prefix for each install.
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Installation type
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Two modes are available:
- Simple mode: a blank and empty PrestaShop will be install. It will have no modules, no theme, and no demo products/categories. This is great if you know what you are doing.
- Full mode: PrestaShop will be install with a theme, more than a hundred modules, and some demo products and categories. This is great for newcomers, as it helps you learn how to use PrestaShop... and can of course server as a good basis for your own store, after removing the demo products and categories!
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E-mail delivery set-up
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PrestaShop relies heavily on e-mail for notications, both for the shop owner and its customers. This form enables you to test whether the current server configuration lets you send e-mail using PHP's mail() function. If this is not the case, then check the "Configure SMTP manually" box in order to configure your own mail server. Note that this is reserved to advanced users.
Click "Next", and the installer will start filling the data with tables and data. This might take a few minutes in the slower server.
Step 3: Shop configuration
This is where you can already start customizing your shop: give it a name and a logo, indicate its main activity, indicate the personnal information for the shop owner (which has legal binding in most countries)...
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Click "Next": your shop is online!
Completing the installation
There are a couple of last actions to perform before you can call it a success, which you can read about right on the final page of the installation process.
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