X-Cart:Installing X-Cart Manually
It is assumed that you are installing X-Cart on a UNIX-based server with terminal access and have adequate skills in using the basic UNIX commands.
To install X-Cart manually:
1. Download the distribution package from the File Area section of your HelpDesk account at https://secure.qtmsoft.com/ . The package is archived in the file x-cart-x.y.z.tgz, where x, y and x indicate the version of X-Cart.
You can also download the evaluation copy from http://www.x-cart.com/download.html
2. Use an FTP client to upload the distribution package to a web-accessible directory on your server or hosting account.
3. Decompress the package by typing one of the following commands:
gunzip < x-cart-X.Y.Z.tgz | tar -xvf -
or
tar -xzvf x-cart-X.X.Z.tgz
That should create the directory /xcart that would contain all the X-Cart files and folders. The /xcart directory is created automatically. If necessary, you can rename it or move its content to a different location; e.g., your document root. In this manual, we are going to refer to the directory with the X-Cart files and folders as X-Cart root directory, X-Cart installation directory or /xcart directory.
4. Change the active directory to the X-Cart root directory.
> cd xcart
5. Set up a MySQL database, which you are going to use with your X-Cart.
The shell commands listed below use the following abbreviations:
<username> : your MySQL account username <password> : your MySQL account password <db_host> : your MySQL server host name or IP-address <db_name> : your MySQL database name
- a. Clear all the data that could exist in the database, then create the required tables and populate them with the new data. You can do that by typing the following shell commands.
> mysql -u<username> -p<password> -h<db_host> <db_name> < sql/dbclear.sql > mysql -u<username> -p<password> -cccch<db_host> <db_name> < sql/xcart_tables.sql > mysql -u<username> -p<password> -h<db_host> <db_name> < sql/xcart_data.sql > mysql -u<username> -p<password> -h<db_host> <db_name> < sql/xcart_language_US.sql
- b. If you want to test-drive the newly created online store and import a sample product catalog with the demo data, similar to the one you could try with the online demo available at the product website | www.x-cart.com , run the following shell command.
> mysql -u<username> -p<password> -h<db_host> <db_name> < sql/xcart_demo.sql
- Later on you will be able to remove the demo data using the Remove data tool available in the Summary/Tools section of the Admin area.
- c. If your company is based in a country that has states, or if you are planning to sell internationally and your customers are going to be from countries that have states, you may want to import the names of the states for each of these countries. Later on you will be able use the imported state names for setting up destination zones, your company address and user addresses.
- To import the names of the states, run the following shell command
> mysql -u<username> -p<password> -h<db_host> <db_name> < sql/states_<country>.sql
- replacing the <country> part with one of the following values:
| AT | for Austria |
| AU | for Australia |
| BE | for Belgium |
| CA | for Canada |
| DE | for Germany |
| ES | for Spain |
| FR | for France |
| IT | for Italy |
| LU | for Luxemburg |
| NL | for the Netherlands |
| UK | for the United Kingdom |
| US | for the United States. |
- If a particular country is missing from the list, you will be able to manually add the country and its states later. The instructions on how to carry out this task are available in the States section.
- d. For some countries X-Cart enables you to define pre-configured store settings. These settings include generic tax rules and rates, destination zones, default company and customer addresses and phone numbers, language variables which may differ from one country to another (e.g. postal code instead of zip code), etc.
By default, the store is installed with pre-configured settings for the United States. If your store is based in a country other than the United States, you may find it useful to import some pre-configured settings and thus speed up the process of configuring your store.
Currently the settings are available for the following countries: Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom (Great Britain). To import the settings for any of these countries, run the following shell command
> mysql -u<username> -p<password> -h<db_host> <db_name> < sql/xcart_conf_<country>.sql
replacing the <country> part with one of the following values:
| AU | for Australia |
| CA | for Canada |
| UK | for United Kingdom. |
6. Create the required directories and set proper permissions.
- a. Set up permissions 777 for directories /files, /catalog and /var.
> chmod 777 files catalog var
- b. If you are planning to use the PGP encryption method, create the directory .pgp and set its permissions to 755.
> mkdir .pgp > chmod 755 .pgp
- c. Set permissions to 755 for the script admin/newsletter.sh (The this script is used by the News Management module for sending newsletters).
> chmod 755 admin/newsletter.sh
- d. Set permissions to 755 for all the payment modules (files with the *.pl extension inside the payment/ directory).
> chmod 755 payment/*.pl
7. Set up the skin.
- a Copy the contents of the directory /skin1_original to the directory /skin1.
> cp -Rp skin1_original/* skin1
- This will set up the default interface including the default skin Light & Lucid (2 columns) for the Customer area.
- b. If you want to replace the default skin Light & Lucid (2 columns) with one of the alternative skins that come with the X-Cart distribution package, copy the directory with the skin to the directory /skin1. Use the command:
> cp -Rpf schemes/templates/<Skin_name>/* skin1
- replacing the <Skin_name> part with one of the following values:
| artistictunes_business | for Artistic Tunes Business |
| artistictunes_car_tires | for Artistic Tunes Car Tires |
| artistictunes_fragrances_and_makeup | for Artistic Tunes Fragrances and Makeup |
| artistictunes_water_colour | for Artistic Tunes Water Colour |
| fashion_mosaic_blue | for Fashion Mosaic Blue |
| fashion_mosaic_green | for Fashion Mosaic Green |
| fashion_mosaic_grey | for Fashion Mosaic Grey |
| fashion_mosaic_pink | for Fashion Mosaic Pink |
| light_and_lucid | Light & Lucid (3 columns) |
| neon_lights_flowers | for Neon Lights Flowers |
| neon_lights_household | for Neon Lights Household |
| neon_lights_music | for Neon Lights Music |
| neon_lights_sport | for Neon Lights Sports |
| vivid_dreams_aquamarine | for Vivid Dreams Aquamarine |
| vivid_dreams_chromo | for Vivid Dreams Chromo |
| vivid_dreams_lotus | for Vivid Dreams Lotus |
| vivid_dreams_violet | for Vivid Dreams Violet |
- c. After you have copied the skin files to the directory /skin1, set the permissions of every subdirectory and file inside the directory /skin1 to 777.
> chmod -R 777 skin1
- d. To see the changes, clear the directory var/templates_c which contains compiled templates.
> rm -rf var/templates_c
8. Open X-Cart's main configuration file config.php for editing and set the true values for the following variables:
$sql_host =’%SQL_HOST%’; $sql_user =’%SQL_USER%’; $sql_db =’%SQL_DB%’; $sql_password =’%SQL_PASSWORD%’;
and
$xcart_http_host =”$HTTP_HOST”; $xcart_https_host =”$HTTP_HOST”; $xcart_web_dir =”/xcart”;
Blowfish key
To ensure the safety of sensitive data in the database (user info, order details, etc.), X-Cart uses the Blowfish encryption algorithm. Encryption is performed using a special key code. In X-Cart, this code is referred to as Blowfish key. The same code is used to decrypt the data when you or your authorized personnel is trying to access the encrypted data (e.g. when viewing an order in the Admin area).
X-Cart keeps the Blowfish in the main configuration file config.php in the variable $blowfish_key. Before the store is installed, the $blowfish_key variable contains a default value. When you install X-Cart using the Installation Wizard, the installation script install.php generates a new Blowfish key and writes it to the $blowfish_key variable in the config.php file. With manual installation, a new Blowfish key is never generated. And when the installation is complete, the $blowfish_key variable still contains the default value. Using the default Blowfish key is not secure, because its value is known to many people. And you need to generate a new value for the Blowfish key.
To generate a new Blowfish key you should go to the Summary/Tools section of the Admin area and use the Re-generate the Blowfish encryption key tool. For details on how to carry out this task see section X-Cart:Advanced Tools.
If the newly installed store is supposed to use a database that was previously used use by another X-Cart installation, the data in such database is already encrypted by the Blowfish key generated by that store. It means that neither your nor any of your customers will be able even to log in to their accounts, because the value of the variable $blowfish_key is different to the value of the key which was used to encrypt the store database. To resolve this issue, you need to open the main configuration file config.php for editing and change the value of the variable $blowfish_key to the value of the Blowfish key that was used by the previous X-Cart installation.
