Tutorial: Installing Movable Type (v2.661) 

Who knows why, but the installation instructions for Movable Type are ridiculously convoluted. If you're a newbie to CGI or installing scripts and are feeling frustrated because of this, don't be! Webdesigner-Freebies has pulled together a foolproof tutorial guaranteed to work.


 

What You'll Need to Know Before Moving On...

In this tutorial, we will be multi-tasking and moving back and forth between: 
  • a) the Movable Type installation folder; 

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  • b) your browser; 

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  • c) and your FTP client. 
This means that all three will be open at the same time at some point, and we will be jumping back and forth between using all of them.

Also: you need a number of requirements to run MT. 

  • a) Your web host must be able to run cgi scripts. 

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  • b)  Perl installed on your server. 

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  • c) FTP d) Javascript-enabled browser 

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  • e) Enough web space (initially 2 MB, but an available 25 MB). 
If you have a decent web hosting account and javascript enabled, you will most likely have all of these requirements. However, double check to see if you have these items before you start.

Do you have them? Great! Now, onwards to the tutorial!
 

STEP 1: DOWNLOAD, THEN UNARCHIVE MOVABLE TYPE
The first thing you should do is actually download the software from Movable Type's homepage. (Well, duh!) It will come in an archived format, which means that you have to unzip it using your archival tool of choice (like Win Zip or Power Archiver).
 
STEP 2: OPEN FOLDER
Once you've unzipped Movable Type, open it up. Inside it will be all the files you'll need to run it on your server. You will be uploading them. However, before you do, there are a few things that must be done first.
 
STEP 3: CREATE 3 NEW FOLDERS
While you are inside the Movable Type folder containing all of the files, 
  • a) create three new folders: 1. mt 2. mt-static 3. archives. The "archives" folder will remain empty. However, we will be moving some of the Movable Type files into the "mt" and "mt-static" folders. 

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  • b) For the mt-static folder, place these items in there: docs folder, images folder, and styles.css. 

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  • c) For the "mt" folder, place the rest of the Movable Type files.

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STEP 4: CREATE NEW FOLDER INSIDE "MT" FOLDER CALLED DB
  • a) Open up your mt folder. 

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  • b) Create a new folder inside of it. 

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  • c) Name the folder "db." It has to be named "db," no ifs, ands, or buts. This folder will store your database.
STEP 5: WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE SO FAR
Double check that you have done everything correctly so far. 
  • a) There are only three folders inside the Movable Type installation folders: mt-static, mt, and, archives. 

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  • b) The archives folder is empty. 

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  • c) "Mt-static" should only have three items in it-- images, docs, and styles.css. 

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  • d) The "mt" folder should have all the other files you didn't place inside of mt-static, plus a folder you created called "db".
STEP 6: SEE IF YOU MUST ALTER ALL THE CGI FILES
  • a) Open the "mt" folder, then open any file with the .cgi extension (doesn't matter which). When you do, you will see a line that says something like usr/bin/perl. This is a path. All of these .cgi files have this line, which must be edited to match the path to perl on your own server. Usually, what path is in the file will match the path that is on your server. However, you must double check with your web host to see if it does. So...

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  • b) ...go to your web host account and try to find the information that says what the path to perl is. If it is usr/bin/perl, don't change the files at all. If it isn't that, you must edit each file in a text editor to match what your web host account says it is.
STEP 7: OPEN YOUR FTP CLIENT
  • a) Login to your web server account using your FTP client.

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  • b) Find the cgi-bin folder on your server. 

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  • c) Upload the folder you created called "mt" into your cgi-bin folder, checking to make sure that the folders are uploaded in the right mode-- binary or ASCII. (If you have an FTP client that does this automatically, don't worry about this part.). 
STEP 8: CHMOD
When you're done uploading:
  • a) open the "mt" folder on your server and CHMOD all files with a cgi extension to 755. 

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  • b) Then CHMOD the "db" folder to 777.
STEP 9: GO OUTSIDE OF THE CGI-BIN FOLDER, UPLOAD MT-STATIC AND ARCHIVES FOLDER
When you're done:
  • a) leave your cgi-bin directory altogether, and 

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  • b) go to the place on your server where you would like the public pages of your blog to appear. (In other words, this is the directory you would normally go to if you were uploading your regular web pages). 

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  • c) Upload the mt-static and archives folder onto it.
STEP 10: POINT BROWSER TO MT-CHECK.CGI FILE
Movable Type has a special file to check what modules your server has. It will also display information that is going to help you configure your files and blog correctly. So point your browser to the mt-check.cgi file, which is located inside your cgi-bin folder. This would mean going to 
http://www.yoursitename.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-check.cgi
When you do this, this will load a page giving some technical information about your server. There will be a line that will inform you where your Movable Type (mt folder) has been installed to. It's going to be a very helpful clue in helping you configure a special file, especially if you're clueless about paths. It may look something like: 
/home/yourusername/public_html/cgi-bin/mt
See it? Good. 

Now you will have to go back to your hard drive to configure a special file with this information. 
 

STEP 11: EDIT MT.CFG FILE
  • a) go back to your hard drive again where you have your Movable Type installation files (without closing your FTP client!), and 

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  • b) open a file called mt, with the cfg extension (mt.cfg, not mt.cgi!). 
There are three paths in the mt.cgf file you must change. 
  • a) Where it says CGIPath, replace it with http://www.yoursitename.com/cgi-bin/mt/. (Don't forget the forward slash at the end. You must include it!) 

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  • b) Where it says Data Source, change the path to the path where your db folder is located, using the path the mt-check.cgi file gave you as a guide. For example, if the path it gave you was: /home/yourusername/public_html/cgi-bin/mt, all you have to do is add "db" at the end. (Example: home/yourusername/public_html/cgi-bin/mt/db.)

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  • c) When you're done, look for the line that says "Static Web Path." This is the path to where your mt-static folder was installed. You must put /mt-static/. Don't put the full server path-- it won't work! Especially important: remove the hash symbols (#, #) in front of the words, "Static Web Path." 

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  • d) Save this file when you're done, and reupload it again to the "mt" folder on your server.

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STEP 12: POINT BROWSER TO MT-LOAD.CGI FILE
Next, point your browser to a file on your server called mt-load.cgi. (This URL would be something like http://www.yoursitename.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-load.cgi) 

When you do this, Movable Type will give you a confirmation message telling you whether or not everything's been installed properly. If you get a message saying everything is alright, you are ready to proceed to the next step. If you get an error message, check the installation manual for details. More often than not, the problem will be one of two things: 1. you didn't CHMOD the proper files 2. you didn't correctly edit the mt.cgf file. (See below for more details.)
 

STEP 13: DELETE MT-LOAD.CGI FILE
Once you have gotten a confirmation message, delete the mt-load.cgi file to avoid a security risk.
 

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