Using WordPress as a CMS for your sourceforge project web page can be a great idea. WordPress really goes beyond the boundaries of only a blogging tool. This guide would serve as step by step procedure to setup WordPress on your sourecforge project page.

Logging in

After logging in to your sourceforge account, go to the concerned project page, which will be something like this [http://sourceforge.net/projects/wordmint]

Database Setup

Wordpress requires MySQL database management system for it’s beck-end as it stores all the CONTENT of it’s pages in the database. So we have to get that database setup first.

To set it up, in the admin menu click on Shell/DB/Web. This page contains wealth of information about your Database, Web services and shell. There in the Database Service heading click on Manage Project Databases link. ( If you already have setup a database, in that case the password for all the users will be visible in plain text, so be aware of this fact ). The project databases are not activated by default, they are activated only after you set password for different user permission sets. So set passwords for all the three users listed there.

Wait for sometime and the databases will be active. Keep the username admin and it’s password noted or remember.

On the same page, the phpmyadmin URL would be listed. Press your left mouse button over it. It should lead you to a username password authentification dialogue. Enter your admin username and it’s password. If you have entered the username and password correctly, then you should be taken to the phpmyadmin welcome page.

Delete the three dots ( … ) after the underscore ( _ ) in the Create new database entry cell and replace them with your database name. say ‘blog’, write it there and click on create.

WordPress download and upload on the web server

After setting up the database, download the latest version of WordPress from ‘http://wordpress.org/download/’

To transfer the file to the web server, we can use any of the methods described in file transfers page on the sourceforge wiki. I personally use sftp method. In case of windows Win-SCP is a good GUI client. Upload the zipped folder to the /home/groups/P/PR/PROJECT_NAME/htdocs/ directory. Here P and PR represent first and first two letters of your project unix name. PROJECT_NAME is your project’s unix name.

After uploading the zipped folder, uncompress it there using shell. Now the blog address would be http://projectname.sourceforge.net/wordpress. You could also change the folder name ‘wordpress’ to something else.If you want to integrate WordPress into the root of your domain (e.g. http://projectname.sourceforge.net/), move all contents of the unzipped WordPress directory (but excluding the directory itself) into the htdocs directory.

Configuring WordPress

Inside the wordpress folder find the wp-config-sample.php file. Edit it as described below and rename it to wp-config.php// ** MySQL settings ** //
define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere'); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere'); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere'); // ...and password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // 99% chance you won't need to change this value
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
define('DB_COLLATE', '');
As commented in the code, first replace ‘putyourdbnamehere’ with your database name which you created in phpmyadmin. (e.g. pr229903_blog ). Then enter the admin username as was listed on the “Shell/DB/Web” admin page of sourceforge. Now enter the password for the same account and leave the database host to the default value.

The Final Steps

After completing all the above steps, enter the installation address in your web browser’s address bar. e.g. http://projectname.sourceforge.net/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php or http://projectname.sourceforge.net/wp-admin/install.php (in case all the files and folders were moved to the htdocs folder of the web server ).

That’s it!!! WordPress should now be installed. At the end of the installation it will give you a login and a random password. The password is random, so be sure to write it down or at least copy and paste it. Once you’re logged in you can change the password.

Tags: database, install, mysql, phpmyadmin, sourceforge, wordpress