Installing WordPress on DiscountASP.NET

Background

I’ve had personal and client sites hosted on DiscountASP.NET for 5 or 6 years now, and I’ve been very happy with them as a host.  I’ve found the first annoyance recently—despite being the most popular blogging platform in the world, running just fine on IIS, and being included in the Web Platform Installer, DiscountASP.NET does not have a one-click installation for WordPress.  Not a big deal, the installation is really easy.

This process assumes you’re doing a new installation, and that there is no content to migrate.  I’ll cover content migration options in the next post.

What you’ll need

1. Hosting account
2. Add MySQL option to your hosting account.
3. WordPress download, from http://wordpress.org/
4. FileZilla FTP program, from http://filezilla-project.org/.  FileZilla is the best FTP program to use with DiscountASP.NET.  I’ve tried others, but they hold connections open making directory manipulation impossible.

The Process

Provision a MySQL Database

First step—log in to your hosting control panel, and add a new MySQL database.  After you log in, go Database Management >> MySQL Manager.  If you don’t see MySQL Manager, you need to add MySQL to your hosting account.

The first options you’ll set are the database name, the username, and the amount of disk space to allocate (you add the password in the next step).  Click Create.

Once the database has been created, it will be listed with any other MySQL databases you have.  To change the password, click Manage.

Click Update Password, enter the new password, and click Update Password.  The database is now configured.  You’ll need this configuration information in the next step.

Add a Default Document

While you’re still in the Control Panel, go Tools & Utilities >> IIS Tools, and click on the Default Documents tab.  Add index.php to the list.  This allows visitors to browse your blog without specifying the file name in the URL.

Installing WordPress

Unzip WordPress, and follow the 5-Minute Install instructions.  The important part is the second step, where you rename the config file and edit the database information (see http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php).  Edit the file with Notepad or your favorite text editor.  You only need to change the four settings listed at the top of the help page.

Once that is done, connect to your site with FileZilla.  If you want to install WP in a subdirectory (such as www.mysite.com/blog), create the subdirectory.  Otherwise, delete the files in the root.  Then, upload all of the WordPress files to your site.

In order to populate the database tables, run the installer at www.mysite.com/wp-admin/install.php (or www.mysite.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php).  On the first page, you’ll set your blog’s title and create the initial user.  Make sure you keep track of this password!

If all goes well, you’ll see this:

You’re now ready to log in and start using your blog!