Joomla installation problem

[#1]

Hi all,
I've been a PN customer for some years now but I'm new at web hosting and am setting up a site using Joomla. I downloaded XAMP to my localhost and installed Joomla there with no problem. I then enabled mySQL and CGI with PN, and have FTP'd Joomla from my local host to the /htdocs folder on the PN webspace. This gave me 2 folders: /htdocs/joomla15 and /htdocs/xampp and it looks just like what I have on localhost - so I was happy with that. But when I point my browser at http://www.username.plus.com/ I get a page which says "It works!". When I point my browser at http://www.username.plus.com/joomla15/ I get a directory listing.
What I expected in either or both of the previous cases was the nice page to set up Joomla (i.e. the pre-installation check as per http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/joomla/joomla_manual_installation.htm ). When I navigate to http://ccgi.username.plus.com/ I get a 403 error (You don't have permission to access / on this server) - maybe that is telling me something - but I can't work out what!
I'm struggling to work out have I:
1. Copied the files to the wrong folder, or
2. Not done something with CGI that I should have done. (CGI is not something I understand at all - yet)
3. Messed up elsewhere
Have searched around with no success. If someone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it!
Thanks all.

[#2]

By default browsers look for an index.htm (or index.html) file (lower case letters), and the message suggests you have one (probably the default one?) in your top-level directory but not in the joomla15 sub-directory where you get a directory content list.
Have you FTPed Joomla to homepages or ccgi (where I think it needs to be)? Mentioning /htdocs/ suggests to me it is the former, i.e. the wrong one.

[#3]

Hi spraxtyt,
That's exactly right - I did FTP to to the /htdocs folder on the PN webspace and I've got an index.tml and an index.php in the top level directory (/htdocs/) but no index.html in /htdocs/joomla15. I assumed that this was as expected by the browser as this is exactly what I've got on localhost. But then I saw that the contents of index.tml was "It works!" and now I'm not so sure.
I browsed to my cshell.plus.net space and saw an empty cgi-bin folder. So I uploaded printenv.pl to the cgi-bin folder so that what I have on my HDD and the PN site were identical, but this made no difference.
So basically what I've got now is:
C:\XAMP\xampp\cgi-bin contains a single file (printenv.pl) and the folder cgi-bin  on cshell.plus.net contains the same file.
C:\XAMP\xampp\htdocs contains 2 folders - joomla15 and xamp and 2 files - index.html and index.php and username@ftp.plus.net contains exactly the same in teh corresponding htdocs folder.
You imply that this might be wrong. If you can point me at a tutorial to tell me how to do this right I'd be happy to follow it! 

[#4]

PHP (.php) and Perl (.pl) files need to reside on the CCGI server, Perl programs in (or in a subdirectory of) cgi-bin, PHP programs outside that directory. PHP programs on homepages (Plusnet webspace) will not work. If you put printenv.pl in the cgi-bin folder (as you have done), and make it executable (permissions 0700) you should find browsing to http://ccgi.username.plus.com/cgi-bin/printenv.pl gives the expected output.
A flavour of what is needed to install Joomla is given in UserTools Tutorial 55 (for a different CMS). However due to security concerns mentioned elsewhere in this forum shell access to CCGI is no longer available. I assume you've already extracted Joomla from its tar file (if it downloaded in one) so that step mentioned in the tutorial is done. However having FTPed Joomla to CCGI It is essential that programs are executable with file permissions 0700. The absence of shell access means the fixphpperms.sh -r command mentioned in the tutorial is no longer available to block change permissions, so either the FTP client needs to be used to do this or the PHP program posted here can be used instead (note: I haven't tried that myself).
Hope this helps.

[#5]

This did help! Quite a lot! Thanks! But I just seem to be onto the next roadblock!
I uploaded a vanilla Joomla installation to /cgi-bin/joomla, pointed my browser there and got a "Script is not executable" error from index.php. I changed the file permissions for index.php and retried. I got a second error from /cgi-bin/joomla/installation/index.php which I also sorted. Then... tara ... the Joomla installation script started.
BUT... it's formatting the page as text with no hyperlinks (apart from one to Joomla!), colours, formatting. Maybe the Javascript is not working. Or style sheets are disabled. The effect is that I can't step through the installation process. (I should be seeing something like the first screenshot here.) I attached a screenshot in case that helps.

[#6]

I've had this on joomla - There is a variable to set in one of the files which tells it the "location" of the root file - hang on I'll look it up......

Got it, it is in configuration.php, and the line I have is:
$mosConfig_live_site = 'http://ccgi.username.plus.com/folder/';

[#7]

I wonder if this arises because Joomla was loaded into a sub-folder of cgi-bin and not all PHP files being executable? I think I'd have tried FTPing to /joomla, making any PHP files executable then running the browser from there (http://ccgi.username.plus.com/joomla).

[#8]

I uploaded again so that the files were in /joomla and changed all php files in that folder from 640 to 700. (Why do I have to do that? Is it because the files were uploaded from  Windows XP?) Then browsing to  http://ccgi.username.plus.com/joomla resulted in the following error:
joomla/installation/index.php  "Script is not executable. Issue 'chmod 755 filename'"
So I fixed that and got the installer. Yippee!!!
I started the installation and got a warning that the php setting Register Globals was on instead of the recommended off. I ignored this and went on to successfully connect to mySql. Next up was the FTP settings. This should have been easy but when I selected "verify FTP settings" I got a dialogue with:
"Error: the XML response that was returned from the server is invalid."
I spent last night Googling for a resolution to this and found loads of different solutions (everything from stop using Firefox to set permissions in the root folder to 755). It felt like a permissions problem so I set permissions to 755. No change. I tried this all again tonight with no improvement. I ignored the problem and went on to finish the installation, deleting the installation folder as requested, and then browsed to http://ccgi.username.plus.com/joomla/. The site was kind of there, but again not showing up properly. I'll try Tony's suggestion tomorrow (I tried it yesterday without success, but you never know...)

[#9]

New files uploaded using FTP are usually assigned permissions 0640. However if the upload replaces an existing file the current permissions are retained.
The Register Globals setting is a security issue, but as long as 'off' is expected having it set to 'on' won't affect Joomla operation. It will be 'off'' on new CCGI.
From Google it seems "Error: the XML response that was returned from the server is invalid." is a common problem. On one of the threads I noticed a suggestion to try installing with configuration.php made non-writeable  (permissions 0555).

[#10]

Hi SCookie,
It's not necessary to enable the FTP layer on the ccgi platform (and it won't work any way).
You need to set permissions for ALL .php files in ALL subfolders to 700. If you use the script spraxyt mentioned above, it will do it for you. Don't set anything to 755 - the error message is misleading.
The remaining problem is probably caused by Joomla expecting to be installed in your document root. Tony has the answer: edit the line in your configuration.php file. New version:

var $live_site = 'http://ccgi.username.plus.com/joomla/';

(I only know this because I did a test install of Joomla when I posted the permissions script, just to check I'd left a long-enough timeout. I don't use Joomla.)
With any luck, it won't be long before you get to migrate it all to the new ccgi platform. 
Good luck.
Gabe

[#11]

Quote from: Gabe

With any luck, it won't be long before you get to migrate it all to the new ccgi platform.

I'm still standing by my prediction I made on 3rd September:

Quote from: jelv

(My feeling is that we will be fortunate if this completed this side of Christmas given the tone of Gricey's post which says the options are still being investigated)

(Click the link on the quote title for the full post then scroll up to see Gricey's post)

[#12]

It works!
And a bit of humble pie: I seen now that earlier answers told me how to do this but I was too dim to understand. Thanks for your patience and help all.

[#13]

I'm getting exactly the same problem as SCookie did with the Joomla install getting stuck in plain text.
I've just uploaded all of Joomla to -> http://ccgi.username.plus.com/cgi-bin/joomla
I've updated the configuration.php-dist file with the suggested: var $live_site = 'http://ccgi.username.plus.com/joomla/';
And I've used the script to update ALL permissions to 700
I will try to run it without the changed config.php-dist file, but any other suggestions would be very welcome....
UPDATE: ran with unchanged var $live_site= etc, etc and that did nothing.

[#14]

Quote from: Jasper

I'm getting exactly the same problem as SCookie did with the Joomla install getting stuck in plain text. I've just uploaded all of Joomla to -> http://ccgi.username.plus.com/cgi-bin/joomla

On the current (pre 2010) ccgi platform, the joomla folder should not be in the cgi-bin.
Gabe

[#15]

That fixed it thank you