This article will guide you on how to install Drupal 8 manually. There are several steps to installing Drupal 8:
Once you finish these steps your Drupal 8 installation will be ready for you to use to create your new site!
Step 1: Creating the database and user
The first step we need to perform is to create a database and user for the Drupal installation. This is important as it is where all the data for the site is kept, including pages, data, users, etc. This is done via your cPanel interface.
Creating a MySQL Database via cPanel
Step 2: Uploading the files
Now that you have the database and its connecting user profile set up, it is time to get the files uploaded to the hosting account. First, we need to get the current version of Drupal 8. That is located at https://drupal.org/start
Once you have downloaded the file to your local machine, you can continue with getting the files up to the hosting account.
- Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the compressed file. In our example, it is the downloads folder.
- Right click on the file and select Extract All to unpack the files. This may take a few minutes as there are quite a few files in the package.
Once the files are extracted, open up your favorite FTP client and connect to the hosting server. From here, upload all the files in the local client folder to the desired folder on the server side. Be sure you are uploading from the folder with all the files and not one of the container folders.
Step 3: Drupal installer
Now that the files are uploaded, you are ready to run the Drupal Installer. This portion of the setup is from the Drupal program itself.
- Visit the site where you installed the files. If you installed them into your public_html folder, then simply visit your site, for example https://example.com. If you have installed the files into a subfolder, visit that. An example is https://example.com/subfolder.
You will be met with the Drupal Installer screen. The first screen guides you to pick the language you want to use. Click the Save and Continue button to move on to the next step.
Next, you will choose the profile you want to install. There are two, standard and minimal. The largest difference is based on which modules are activated by default upon the complete installation. The differences for Drupal 6 and 7 are in the documentation, but as of yet, the Drupal 8 portion has not been created. It is advised to use Standard unless you are an advanced user. Click on Save and Continue to move on.
After Drupal verifies the requirements it will move you on to the database configuration. Enter the database name, database user, and password for the database you created in the previous step.
The configuration will now proceed. You will see a progress bar as it works in this step. Once completed, you will see a screen with a few details to complete. These are for your site admin. Once completed, click on the Save and Continue button at the bottom. This will complete your installation and you can now visit your new Drupal site directly!
I just got off tech support chat and they were able to help me. The issue I ended up having was with caching. I was told “Cache manager -> options -> advanced -> accelerate static content -> disable Drupal uses dynamic linking and when it’s accelerated, it doesn’t work” This worked for me! Great Tech Support!
We are happy you were able to find a solution using your 24/7 Technical Support Team! We also appreciate your contribution to our community in following up on your own comment with the resolution! Thank you!
Did this ever get figured out? I’m having the same issue. I installed Drupal 8 using Composer on a VPS. Has the image style issue been corrected? or any other options to get them to work other than the reinstalling?
I purchased InMotionHosting VPS hosting and installed Drupal 8 on it but image styles is not working.
I’ve checked the file system and the ‘styles’ folder which is supposed to be autogenerated is not generated.
It seems it’s an issue with their configuration but i don’t know what it is.
You may want to try installing again or performing a manual install.
InMotion hosting does not fully support Drupal 8. During installation on a shared hosting a warning comes up requesting PHP OPcode caching. Although this is not a systems requirment, I would not say that InMotion shared hosting fully supports Drupal 8.
You should be able to install Drupal using Softaculous without issue and it tested successfully for me on our shared servers. I recommend installing Drupal using Softaculous since it is a one-click installation. If your problems persist, I recommend contacting our Live Support Team so they can help you troubleshoot the issue.
Thank you,
John-Paul
Thanks! Awesome tutorial.
Log in to C-Panel
Under the section “Software and Services” click on
PHP configuration”
From the drop-down box select PHP 5.6
Click Update.
Inmotion tech support should have been able to tell you this.
On a related note… I know that a lot of you are eager to get Drupal 8 going. But I can tell you as a Drupal developer and user for many years that Drupal 8 is really not ready for a one-click installation experience.
Drupal 8 is radically different from all previous versions, and is an entirely new content management system. Many of the modules you used to add in order to accomplish certain things are now built in to the Core. And many of the familiar ways in which you did thigns in previous versions have been dropped from Drupal 8 completely.
And all support information is not located in one place. You are going to find yourself looking all over for information about 8. Likewise, there are not a lot of out-of-the-box themes available. So be prepared to do your own themeing for the most part.
I would not recommend Drupal 8 for a production site at this time. Wait a year. Upgrading to Drupal 8 is not for the inexperienced. So proceed with caution. There is a good reason that Drupal 8 is not available as an install-script in Softalicious.
Hello J. Black,
Thank you for contacting us, and providing your input on Drupal 8. We have a full guide on How to Change your PHP Version in cPanel. Anyone in Tech support should be aware of this.
The PHP switcher tool is not installed on Dedicated servers by default, so the previous user had to install the switcher on their own, or contact Live Support so they can install it for them.
Thank you,
John-Paul
I have maybe a silly question, however I couldn’t find an answer even after searching on internet.
My question is if I could install Drupal 8 on my Ubuntu 14.04 LTS machine ( desktop NOT server) as if I would install a WYSIWYG website creator (in order to get familiar with Drupal stuff and to learn creating a website) before making anything visible online, so I don’t want to work with something as a wordpress thing “everything online from first moment”, instead I want to work everything on my machine then to release it – only when finished it – in the wild 🙂
Thank you for any suggestions
Hello Erudi,
Thank you for contacting us. Yes, you can install any CMS (Drupal, WordPres, Joomla, etc.) on a local computer. Unfortunately, we do not have any walk-through guides at this time.
Here is a helpful link to the official Ubuntu community help page on Drupal.
Thank you,
John-Paul
The drupal 8 installer gives this: Your PHP installation is too old. Drupal requires at least PHP 5.5.9. See the system requirements page for more information.
Got a dedicated server and there is no help on installing 5.5.9 on it. Inmotion support team is keep ignoring me.
Hello Psifneos,
If you don’t have root and you would need to submit a support ticket to have the PHP switcher added to your dedicated server so that you can load that specific version through cPanel.
Regards,
Arnel C.
Hi,
Pardon my ignorance but what do I do with this <a href=”https://www.drupal.org/files/my.ini__0.patch”>patch</a> to put it on my online Linux server?
Thank you
This is a mysql configuration file. If you are on a shared server, you cannot do it. You must be on a VPS or dedicated server. If you are on a VPS or Dedi, simply email it to support and we can assist you with it.
I tried but just received this:
Additional uncaught exception thrown while handling exception.
Original
Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Exception\LogicException: Service ‘page_cache_kill_switch’ for consumer ‘drupal.proxy_original_service.page_cache_response_policy’ does not implement Drupal\Core\PageCache\ResponsePolicyInterface. in Drupal\Core\DependencyInjection\Compiler\TaggedHandlersPass->process() (line 130 of/home/timothyj/public_html/core/lib/Drupal/Core/DependencyInjection/Compiler/TaggedHandlersPass.php).
Additional
Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\Exception\InvalidArgumentException: The service definition “theme.manager” does not exist. inSymfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerBuilder->getDefinition() (line 796 of /home/timothyj/public_html/vendor/symfony/dependency-injection/ContainerBuilder.php).
Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerBuilder->getDefinition('theme.manager') Symfony\Component\DependencyInjection\ContainerBuilder->get('theme.manager') Drupal::theme() _drupal_maintenance_theme() drupal_maintenance_theme() install_display_output(Array, Array, Array) _drupal_log_error(Array, 1) _drupal_exception_handler(Object)Hello TJ Burton,
Sorry for the problem with the installation. I checked around on your error and the solution varies from user to user. Please check and read this post from the Drupal Community Support page. There are several listed solutions that address this error, but you need to find the one that matches with you.
I hope this helps to answer your question, please let us know if you require any further assistance.
Regards,
Arnel C.
Hello,
Can you tell me where to put database details in settings.php as it was possible before with drupal 6 ?
I cannot connect drupal 8 install to database but I checked and my DB is active in mysql
Thank you for your help.
Hello,
The settings for Drupal are located at: /sites/default/settings.php
Editing the file will allow you to see the database settings and you can change them manually.
Kindest Regards,
Scott M
Ok, here comes Drupal 8, to be released on November 19, 2015. What plans do you have to support it? Are users who want to run Drupal 8 going to need to upgrade their hosting level? Or should I be shopping for alternate hosting?
Hello,
Our servers should have everything you need to run Drupal 8 on them. Did you have any specific questions about potential issues?
Kindest Regards,
Scott M
That would be great! I know they had some concerns about security, but from 5.4.16 on the DOS potential hole has been closed up, so no reason to keep the default disabled. Currently it is stopping me from being able to upload through my own CMS on my website…..
Yes fileinfo has been a default since php 5.3, but inmotionhosting will not enable it for some unknown reason…
Hello Adam,
I will try to work with our Systems Administration team in order to see if we can get File info enabled on all shared servers.
Best Regards,
TJ Edens
Hi Alexander,
Thank you for soon reply.
As my check, update manager module was already enabled but the issue is still there. Any other idea about this?
Best Regards,
Amy.
Hello Amy,
Sorry for the problem. In order for us to take a look at this issue, we need to be able to login to your CMS and then review the problem. If you can describe how you arrived at the problem (versions of the software) and any plugins, we an also try to duplicate it. However, the best way for us to troubleshoot the problem is if you provide access so that we can see the problem happening live. Apologies that we can’t provide a direct answer at this point. Please provide us some further info and we’ll be happy to look into it further.
Regards,
Arnel C.
What plans does Inmotion have to support Drupal 8? My understanding at this time is that users will have to upgrade to the more expensive VPS or Dedicated hosting plans in order to have a PHP that includes the fileinfo extension, because PHP will have to be recompiled in each case. (Isn’t fileinfo already in PHP 5.4 by default? Not sure about this, though.)
I have a number of Drupal 7 sites that I plan to move to Drupal 8. Having to upgrade to VPS-1000S hosting plan for another $325 per year is a deal-breaker for me, and I would not have moved to IM hosting had I known that this was going to be the case.
Hello [email protected],
Thank you for your question. You can install Drupal 8 on a shared hosting plan.
But, since some Drupal sites use more resources than others, it will depend on the specific nature of the site. For example, a basic site that gets a lot of traffic may be fine, while a robust site with little traffic may have a 3rd party script that is very intense
I recommend contacting Live Support, so they can review your specific needs and see if we can meet them.
Thank you,
John-Paul
If you can not install a module via link or upload you have not enabled the update manager. You will need to go to your modules can enable the update manager. This will allow you to add modules via the upload and link. 🙂 Hope this helps.
Thank you very much. I solved it! 🙂
Best Regards,
Amy.
Hello,
I also got one more issue when installing module in D8. I cannot install by adding the link of that module or upload the package. Nothing happens after that. (no error, no message). (please let me know if I ask in wrong room 🙂 )
Thank you!
Amy.
I saw the question about a blank screen and I experienced the same issue. I believe the issue you are coming across is based on php version. Drupal 8 needs a different php version then was standard with Drupal 7. Check the Drupal 8 requirements for php version and then after switching your php version Drupal installer should complete.
Hello Blank Screen,
You are absolutely correct. I thought I mentioned that previously. I have edited the original response to include that option. Thank you!
Kindest Regards,
Scott M
Hello,
I have tried to install Drupal 8 but it just shows the blank page only. I have no way to install it.
Is there any idea about it?
Thanks!
Hello Amy,
Are you able to get to the Drupal back end? If so, please follow the instructions for enabling error messages. The linked article is for Drupal 7, but should be the same with possibly some visual changes. This should allow you to see an error message when visiting the site . That should let you know what to fix to prevent the blank page.
Also, your php version may be inadequate, you can change your php version on your account. Drupal 8 requires php version 5.4.
Kindest Regards,
Scott M
I guess you have not tried to install this on a production server yet. I would love to see this method work to install d8 but I can only get it to install on simplytest.me D8 throws errors every time. Line 195 of other. D8 is seriously lacking if the installer can’t run normally. I fail to see why every Drupal distro released has install issues. Can’t people understand that if you can’t install it easy nobody wants to use it. This is why people look at Drupal as too complicated because they fail to focus on the important stuff. I have been a developer focusing on Drupal for 5 years and what I see is a rush to get more stuff without improving the quality of what they already have. It is a recipe for disaster. LEAN. Small improvements. Not big ones. This is just going to eliminate the need for Drupal specialists when normal developers can jump into Drupal. This solves the corporate problems and eliminates jobs for actual Drupal developers. We are so smart we are going to cut ourselves out of the picture. 😛 Wonky decision if you ask me.
Hello Alexander,
I did install it on my personal server, but the article was written in June of last year so it was one of the earlier Alpha releases. I will try again and see if I run across any of the issues you are having.
Kindest Regards,
Scott M