I am pretty sure most of you guys have heard of osCommerce. If not, then let me tell you what it is. It is a shopping cart script meant for web owners to setup a e-commerce store, usually to sell stuff online.  And it is one of the most popular shopping cart scripts out there. When I first started experimenting with e-commerce, I used a manual system to get sales. I didn’t realize that you could get such a power script for free (it’s open source). And when I started playing with it, I realize that it is indeed very useful for someone thinking to setup a shopping cart on their website. In fact, it acts perfectly as a CMS (though bit limited in functionality) as well. I guess that is why a lot of webmasters are so keen on anything open source.

Okay, this tutorial is for beginners to learn how to setup their first online store website using osCommerce. Yes, it’s the bling bling that matters! All you need is some Windows experience, a little webmaster knowledge and the osCommerce script. You must also have a webhost to host your files and they must support Php and MySQL. These are the two major requirements in order for your script to run. However, I am certain that most of the webhost nowadays will support these two features.  if not, then it is high time for you to change your webhost. I have seen “free” webhost offering their users MySQL database support, so there is no reason why your paid webhost is not. And osCommerce is a very easy script to setup and install. In fact, most Php based scripts are getting easier and easier to setup and install.

Now, let’s begin.

Goto osCommerce website and under solutions in the menu, click on downloads. Choose the latest version (at the time of writing the latest version is 2.2rc2a) and click on it to download. You should keep a note of where you have downloaded the file to as you will need to extract out the files from the original zipped file.

I am using IZArc to extract the files out. You can of course use any other unzipping software to extract the files. The steps should be pretty straightforward. If you are using IZArc, you should open the zipped file you have just downloaded and extract it out.

Again, you will need to keep track of where you have extracted the files to. After opening the file and choosing the location you want the files to be extracted to, click on Extract to extract out the files.

The files IN the catalog folder are what you will need to upload to your webserver. You do not need to upload the rest of the files to the webserver as they are more for documentation.

You will need to get your FTP username, password and hostname from your webhosting company. These are the information you need to access to your FTP server. I am using Filezilla as my FTP Client. I am using Filezilla as it is very stable and free. I have used it for years without any problems. If you are using some other FTP client, you should refer to the manual on how to upload files to your server.However, I am pretty sure that the steps for some other FTP Client are rather similar. Anyway, if you are using Filezilla, you will need to choose the files you want to upload and then right-click and choose Upload. Remember, the files are all located in the “catalog” subfolder. Do not upload the entire directory of the osCommerce extracted folder!

After you have clicked on upload, you should go for a smoke break and come back 15 minutes later. No matter how fast your Internet connection and your server’s bandwidth is, it should take 15 minutes or more to upload all those files. Of course, if you are doing it in a LAN, it should take much faster.

After you have finished uploading all the needed files to the webserver, you will need to start your web browser (eg Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and so on) and browse to your website and adding in the “install” directory. So if your website is “http://www.somebody.com”, you will need to browse to “http//www.somebody.com/install”. Of course if you have uploaded your files to a subdirectory, you should do the necessary changes to the URL. Once you have done that, you will be a prompted an error message as above. This message tells you to chmod 777 (world-writable) several files on your webserver. The files are “includes/configure.php” and “admin/includes/configure.php”.

So you will need to go back to your FTP Client and make all the necessary changes. The first file for you to change the permission is the “includes/configure.php”. So navigate to the correct folder, right click and choose File attributes for the “configure.php” file.

Since you are going to chmod 777 for your files, please tick all on Owner permissions, group permissions and public permission. Click Ok once you are done. Please note that some other FTP Client may have different names for setting permissions, it would be wise to consult the software manual.

We are then going to do the same for “/admin/includes/configure.php”. So navigate to the “admin/includes” folder, right click on the “configure.php” file and choose File attributes.

Yet again, we do the same thing as above. No sweat, it’s pretty easy.

Now, let’s go back to our browser and click on Retry.

If everything is done correctly, you should be directed to a page like this. Click on Continue to err…continue.

The next step is to setup your database and provide osCommerce script the necessary information to access this database. If you have no idea how to create a database, you should refer my tutorial on setting up MySQL databases on Cpanel and setting up MySQL databases on DirectAdmin. You will need the hostname of the database server (which is usually localhost), the database name, the username and password. As seen above, you will need to key in all those information before you click on Continue.

The next step is for you to key in your web address and the webserver root directory. If you have no idea what’s your webserver root directory, don’t worry the default should be correct (hopefully). If you are a worry-wart, the webserver root directory is the same as the address for your FTP Client when you access the main folder (that is the folder where you upload your files to). Click on Continue once you are done.

Okay, now it is time for you to key in your store name, the store owner name, the email address, the administrator username and password. Remember the administrator username and password as you will need them to access your osCommerce administrator console.

Wow, you are actually done. However, there are still several additional security steps for you to do. Click on any one of the two links. I have clicked on the “Catalog” button.

You will be directed to the catalog page. You will see that there are some warnings at the top. The first warning is saying that the “install” folder is still on the webserver and that will need to be removed. The second warning is telling us that the “configure.php” file in the “includes” folderis writeable and we have to change that in the permissions.

So let’s start with deleting off the install folder. Again go back to your FTP Client and you will see the install folder. Right click on it and choose delete.

Now let’s go change the permissions for the “configure.php” file in the includes folder. Navigate to the includes folder and right click on the file and choose File attributes.

You will need to chmod 644. That means removing the write permission and execute for the group and for the public. You will also need to remove the execute permission for the Owner. Click on Ok after you are done.

Although it is not stated in the warning, you should also chmod 644 of the “configure.php” file in the “admin/includes” folder. So navigate to the correct folder and look for the configure.php file, right click on choose File attributes.

Chmod 644, just like what you did for the other “configure.php” file. Click on OK once you are done.

Now let’s set the images folder to world writable. The images folder is located in the default directory you upload all the files to. So right click on the images folder and choose File attributes.

Chmod 777.  If you are finished configuring the permissions, click on OK.

Your next step is to make the backups folder world-writeable, that is chmod 777. The backups folder is located at the default directory where you upload the files to. So right click on the backups folder and choose File attributes.

Chmod 777. I am pretty sure by now, you are an expert in setting permissions for files and for folders. Thumbs up! Click on OK once you are done.

You will have the do the same for the “admin/images/graphs” folder. So navigate to the “admin/image” directory and right click on the graphs folder and then choose File attributes.

Well, do the same thing all over again. After that click on OK.

Now let’s go back to our browser and check whether there is any problem. If not, then you have successfully installed your first e-store. That was pretty easy right? The actual steps are very easy and once you have done with one script, you will find that the scripts are very much pretty similar in terms of installation and setup. Anyway, you are now free to explore the functionalities of osCommerce. You will surely be impressed! Go ahead and make some money on the Internet!

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