Beginning Drupal 8

Appendix A
Installing Drupal
If you are hosting your Drupal site on a commercial web-hosting provider, it is likely that it has a tool that
installs Drupal for you. If that’s the case, you can bypass this appendix and follow the directions provided to
you by your web-hosting provider. But if you need to install Drupal on your laptop, desktop, or server, then
this appendix is for you.
In the sections that follow, I will walk you through the step-by-step process of installing foundational
components such as PHP, MySQL, and Apache, as well as the steps for downloading and installing Drupal 8.
At the end of this appendix, you will have installed Drupal and will be ready to work through the main body
of the book.
The Foundation Required to Install Drupal
Before installing Drupal, you must have access to the operating system on the platform on which you wish to
install Drupal. That platform, whether it’s a desktop, laptop, or server, must have several pieces of software
installed and configured in order to support the foundational elements required to run Drupal (MySQL,
PHP, and Apache/IIS). The type of operating system and hardward that you choose is purely a matter of
personal preference. You can install and configure Drupal on Windows-, OS X-, or Linux-based platforms.
The hardware can be a local machine (your desktop, laptop, or a server that you have physical access to) or a
hosted server (shared or dedicated, hosted by an organization such as Pantheon).
You will need to have the following components loaded, configured, and running on the platform
before you begin the Drupal installation process:
• A web server: Either Apache, nginx/lighttpd, or Microsoft’s Internet Information
Services (IIS)). For the purposes of this book, I will focus on an Apache-based
solution, because Apache runs on all of the platforms that Drupal supports. For
information on installing and configuring IIS, please consult www.microsoft.com.
• PHP: The programming language used by Drupal.
• A relational database server: Either MySQL or PostgreSQL. For the purposes of
simplifying the installation process, I will focus on MySQL. For details on installing
and configuring PostgreSQL please consult www.postgresql.org.
• FTP (File Transfer Protocol): Used for uploading files to the server.
• Various libraries: For image handling, secure connections, and mail routing.
If your intent is to run your new Drupal site in a hosted environment, the work of setting up the
foundational components has already been done for you by the hosting company. If you are using a
hosting company, you can skip to the “Installing Drupal” section. If your intention is to develop your site
on a desktop or laptop and then deploy your site to a server, you will need to install and configure the
components required to support Drupal on your laptop or desktop, as described in the next section.
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