Automatic WordPress installation
385 words, 2 minutes
Here’s a quick trick that allows automatic installation of WordPress on an HTTP server.
The normal process is: browse to wordpress.com, grab the archive locally,
upload to your server, unzip and run the installer. Sometimes, you even have to
unzip locally and then upload the whole sets of files to the server.
The automatic process can be done using Instant Install.
Grab the installer from here and upload it to your Web server root. Then simply
browse the script from your Web instance:
http://my.empty.website.tld/instantinstall.php
I was going to do it. Then I read the code… First thing it does is grab
another script… OK, let’s say it is smarter to put a really tiny file (417B)
onto your server and then let him fetch the other stuff. Then, that
installer.php script defines a big blob ; as far as I understand, it is used
to pass stuff in a manner that structure and data are kept properly.
To unzip the archive, the script uses ZipArchive, for PHP, or gets a personal
lib (PCLzip). It extracts it to your server and move the application data. In
my testings, it failed to remove the wordpress directory and sent me to a
wrong setup-config.php URL. But I used my Free account and they’re “Pages
Perso” have issues with PHP, sometimes…
In the meantime, it sends analytics to instantinstall.org about which software you installed…
Further down in the script, you get the following warning:
<!-- If you're reading this, you need to go outside. -->
<?php # And if you're reading this, you probably don't know what "outside" means
and are wondering what the web address is. ?>
No need to say that it made me read further on…
The script grabs a CSS file from dropbox.com, then some images and, finally, some applications listing from instantinstall.org.
In the end, I felt like there were too many mysterious parts in this process to use it. Probably to much OpenBSD those times… I’m probably wrong as I never read WordPress’ code (or any of its plugins) so carefully. I guess it can be really useful for people having small bandwidth and no complex access to their Web server. But hey, I’m root on mine and can read my email… So i’ll install WordPress the “usual” way.
Make up your mind!