Before installing CivicSpace, there are a few things you need to be able to do. Checking your ability to handle these prerequisites and, if necessary, researching them till you can do them properly will probably make your CivicSpace installation much smoother.
- Check your hosting specs. You'll need at least one MySQL database (CivicSpace and it's component module CiviCRM can both share this database) and the host, username, and password for it. In most cases, your host will be "localhost" and you'll set the database name, username, and password when you create the database.
- You must be able to create a database manually. This means using phpMyAdmin or another database management tool to access your database server and set up a new database for CivicSpace. It's really not that hard, even for a newbie...you find your database management tool on your hosting account's control panel, log in to it (this usually requires your main hosting account username and password) and find the option to create a new database. This will generally ask you for a database name, username, and password information, and tell you where the database is running ("localhost" or something else). Copy all of this information down, and that's it. If you can't figure this out, contact your host before you try the CivicSpace install.
- You must be able to change permissions on files and folders on your hosting space. If your host offers DirectAdmin, you can do this via the file manager. Simply browse to the file you need to access (the CivicSpace installation will tell you exactly which files and where they're located) and find the button at the bottom corner of the page that says "Set Permission" ...select the file(s) by clicking in the corresponding checkboxes, fill in the right permission value, and click the button. You should see the new permission set on the next page. (Tip: for the install process, you're usually going to be setting files to "777"). As an alternative, you can also access your hosting account via FTP and change the file / folder permissions that way...check your FTP program's documentation for more information. It's usually a simple process by FTP.
That's pretty much it. If you can figure out this stuff before you begin your CivicSpace install, it'll probably be a lot easier for you. Good luck!
