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Step 2 in Installing an OSCommerce Template:

Next you will need to load your FTP client. A FTP client is used to transfer files from your computer to your website hosting space. If you do not have a FTP client, some popular choices include:

AceFTP Freeware
WS_FTP
FileZilla

After your FTP software is downloaded and installed, you will need to contact your website host for specific details on how to connect to your website space.

Once you have  connected to your website space, you will need to FTP to your website and upload the files from your extracted OSCommerce template. In the left window pane, you will need browse to the location where the template was downloaded, which again, will have an extracted folder name similar to:

TS-OSC-TemplateName

You will then enter a directory further to:

TS-OSC-TemplateName\OSCTemplate\

Once you have entered into the above directory on your hard drive, it is time to transfer your OSCommerce files to your server. This is done by selecting the folder that is stored within the "OSCTemplate" directory named "catalog" and dragging it to the right hand window pane. The "catalog" folder must be transferred to a publicly readable directory in order to access it on the web in the next step.

Alternatively, you may select just the files within the "catalog" directory if you desire the OSCommerce program to be installed to your website's root public directory, however for the tutorial example OSCommerce will be installed to yoursite.com/catalog, and the entire "catalog" directory will be uploaded.

After the template has been uploaded to your "catalog" directory of OSCommerce, it will appear on both the left and right window panes of your FTP client as shown below:

Step 5 in Installing an OSCommerce Template:

This stage of the installiation script requires you to enter your mySQL information so OSCommerce can connect to your database to store your customer and product information. You will need to have the below details in order to proceed:

1. The Hostname of your mySQL database (also called "Database Server")
2. The Database Name
3. The Database username
4. The Database password

If you do not have this information, then you will need to contact your website host or website administrator and request these specific details. After all of the information is filled into the fields marked by the red arrows below, click on the "Continue" button to continue. Do not check "Persistent Connections" or change the "Session Storage" unless you understand the use of these features.

Step 6 in Installing an OSCommerce Template:

After you have correctly entered your mySQL information in step 5 and have pressed the "Continue" button, OSCommerce will test your database connection, and if you have entered the correct information you will receive the "successful" message below:

Database Import

A test connection made to the database was successful.

Please continue the installation process to execute the database import procedure.

It is important this procedure is not interrupted, otherwise the database may end up corrupt.

The file to import must be located and named at:

/your_server_path/catalog/install/oscommerce.sql

If you received a "failed" or "error" message instead of the above "successful" message then it means that you did not enter your correct mySQL information and you will need to contact your website host or administrator for this information before completing your install.

Once you have received the "successful" message, click he "Continue" button as shown below to complete your database import:

Step 7 in Installing an OSCommerce Template:

In this stage the paths and URLs of your website will be automatically detected by OSCommerce. You may leave this information as is, or if you understand the information and wish to make changes then you may do so at this time. Additionally, there will be an option to "Enable SSL Connections". Doing so will require you to have an SSL certificate installed and configured for use for your domain name. Do not select this option unless you are sure you have an SSL cert correctly configured or portions of your website will become inoperable.

After you have reiewed the pre-configured information, press the "Continue" button.

Step 8 in Installing an OSCommerce Template:

INext, OSCommerce will automatically populate your mySQL data that you entered previously into the online wizard, and write to your configuration file. In order for it to do so successfully, you will need to change the permissions of your configure.php files to either 706 or 777. You can change the file permissions by using either a FTP client, a SSH client, or by requesting your webhost or website administrator to do this for you.

The paths to your configure.php files are:

your_website_path/catalog/includes/
your_website_path/catalog/admin/includes/

If you are using ssh, you will need to navigate to each of the above locations and enter the following commands in each location in order to change the permission of each configure.php file:

touch configure.php
chmod 706 configure.php

If you are using a FTP clilent, the you can often modify the permissions and file attributes by right-clicking the file and selecting the appropiate option from the short cut menu. However not all FTP clients are enabled with this feature.

After both configure.php files have been modified to be writable as described above, you may press the "Continue" button and allow OSCommerce to write to your configure.php files.

Step 9 in Installing an OSCommerce Template:

If all of the above steps have been correctly followed then your Skinned OSCommerce CMS will be installed successfully, and you will be directed to the page below: