Powweb

PowWeb offers their own proprietary one-click installation of Mambo. They provide you with a single free domain name upon sign up, but will allow unlimited domains to be hosted under one account. PowWeb offers enough features to entice advanced users, but with support and simplicity that will entice first time bloggers. Give PowWeb a try, if you don't like 'em you can get your money back with their 30 day guarantee.

www.powweb.com
$7.77/ month 20 gigs
space 400 gigs transfer

What is Mambo?

This article will give you a better explanation of how Mambo fits into the content management landscape.

First and foremost, Mambo is a Content Management System (CMS). It is the engine behind your website that simplifies the creation, management, and sharing of content.
There is an excellent article on How to evaluate a Content Management System (written by James Robertson) that covers the features of a good content management system in great detail.

The goal of the Mambo project is to meet most of the requirements highlighted in the above article. As each day in development goes by we are getting nearer and nearer, while at the same time building a solid core which can be extended by third party developers.
In the hands of a custom developer, this makes Mambo a powerful platform for a wide variety of Internet applications that go far above and beyond the simple creation of content.

What Mambo isn't!

Mambo is not a typical "portal" solution.

While Mambo can be modified or extended to provide this style of site this is not the goal of the project. Mambo is aimed at the more squarely at corporate websites or sites for small to medium businesses, families or personal sites.

The Mambo Team focuses on building a solid application framework rather than on add-ons that are typically found in many portal solutions. This keeps the Mambo core extremely lightweight and efficient, thus making it easier for anybody to extend Mambo through custom third party component and modules that directly serve their needs.

SiteGround

SiteGround caters to the Mambo user's needs. Because of that, more than half of our clients are Mambo users! We provide FREE Mambo installation, FREE Mambo Templates, Expert Mambo support, Mambo tutorial, as well as 24 GB of space, 800 GB of traffic, and more! We'll transfer your old site to our servers for free, and we offer professional installation of top Mambo modules, such as SMF forum, phpShop, and Calendar. Plus, if you ever have problems, our support staff can always answer your questions in less than 15 minutes.

www.siteground.com
24GB Storage 800GB
transfer US$4.95/month

New Mambo Book released- 'Learning Mambo'

Packt Publishing has published their third Mambo Book, Learning Mambo: A Step-by-Step Tutorial to Building Your Website.
This book is a well-structured and example-rich tutorial to creating websites using Mambo that is perfect for new Mambo users needing a clear a reassuring guide to this simple and yet powerful PHP and MySQL-based Open Source website content management system.
According to the publishers, this book is suitable for web developers, designers, webmasters, content editors, and marketing professionals who want develop a fully featured web presence in a simple and straightforward process. No prior knowledge of Mambo is expected, and it does not require any detailed knowledge of programming or web development. Any IT-confident individual will be able to use the book to produce an impressive website.
Packt Publishing is offering an exclusive offer to all Mamboserver users, simply add 'Learning Mambo' to your shopping cart, this will take you to a new screen that details your purchase. In the bottom left hand corner is a 'Promotional code' box, enter the discount code: 20MamboServerDx5. Once entered, press the 'Update' button on the right and the order will be discounted by 20% (off the full price of the book)!

Persian Mambo V4.6.1 out now

Finally Persian Mambo 4.6.1 released. Persian Mambo 4.6.1 version has some differeneces and advatanges in comparison with English 4.6.1 version as below:

Solving the bug in login
Solving the bug in comment
Solar calendar in posting the topics for the first time in similar CMSs'.
Solving the entire Archive problem and changing all the dates to Solar calendar type.
Solving the default Prefix problem
Using the MOStlyCE_2.0 Editor as a default in Persian Mambo 4.6.1 ( This Editor's version will place in English Mambo 4.6.1)
Backend Template
Frontend Template
Solving the problem in Search, Categories and Contact Components
Solving the Rotate Function's Problem

For this version Mambo-Foundation worked hard and we have done our best to release a powerful and flexible Persian Content Management System which is in Persian Users Dignity.

We hope for respecting us and for supporting Mambolearn team you do not delete Mambolearn Footer and Link (However, you don't have obligation!!!)

Mambohub goes to Lao!

Mambohub.com has co-operated with Thai Journalists Association (TJA) to help Lao Journalists Association(LJA) organize the workshop on "Website Building by Mambo CMS" for Lao media personals during 16-17 September 2006. This event will be a great opportunity for Mambo to promote usage in Lao. Mambohub.com also arranges the Component and Template workshop on 23-24 September and basic workshop on 8th October which there are many people interested in and our Mambo Basic workshop# 20 on 27th August got a very good feedback.

Book review

The Mambo content management system is generally easy to install, set up, configure, and use, but that doesn't save you from the complexity of designing and managing a large Web site. Mambo may be easy to install, but the post-install configuration has so many facets and possibilities that it's easy to drown in the details. Wiley Publishing's new Mambo book accelerates Mambo site development by providing new Webmasters and small publishers with the requisite details and tips to get a Mambo site into production the way they want it in a short amount of time.

Mambo in the Raw!

Team Mambo has released a new flavor of Mambo -- the Raw Core installation. This installation is for everyone who wants a Mambo with a smaller footprint; for those who don't want sample data, a WYSIWYG editor, and a bunch of components and modules you may not use.
The Raw Core is currently available for download and feedback. We've only released 4.6 RC2 in this format for now. If the feedback supports continuing down this path, the Team will move forward with developing this idea.

A Blueprint for Mambo

Global publisher, John Wiley & Sons has released their newest Visual Blueprint title -- Mambo: Your Visual Blueprint for Building and Maintaining Websites with the Mambo Open Source CMS.Wiley’s Visual Blueprint series relies on a series of short (one or two page) chapters that focus on the accomplishment of discreet tasks. The chapters are illustrated with screen shots from the system and provide a step-by-step breakdown of exactly what the user needs to do to complete a task successfully. The task chapters are supplemented by charts and explanatory screens which detail the interface, the controls and key concepts.The title, authored by Ric Shreves, provides the most comprehensive documentation yet released for the award-winning Mambo Content Management System (CMS). “The Mambo system is widely acknowledged as under documented,” notes the author, “with this title, Wiley has moved in to help address the need for accessible and comprehensive documentation for users.”

Upgrading from 4.5.2 to 4.5.2.3

How to upgrade from 4.5.2 - 4.5.3h
This guide describes how to update Mambo version 4.5.2 to version 4.5.3h.

First of all,it is important to determine which version of Mambo *exactly* you are running.You can do this by looking in the "includes" folder in your Mambo directory and reading the file named "version.php".

If indeed you are running 4.5.2,you are advised to bring your Mambo up to version 4.5.2.3 before attempting to patch to 4.5.3.For this you will need the Patch_4.5.2_to_4.5.2.3.zip

The first and most basic rule is to back up your current Mambo files before attempting any upgrade - FTP* a copy of your Mambo folder to your PC,or at least copy all your Mambo files to a directory named "backup" outside of public_html, your server web folder.Take a back up of your database too.Here's how.or,at a pinch if you don't have phpMyAdmin,you can use this method though phpMyAdmin is preferable.

* FTP - Windows users should be aware of these issues:http://webtips.dan.info/misc.html

With your back ups safely stored,you can proceed to the next step.Take your Mambo site offline,there are two means of doing this.You can do it via Mambo's Administrator Console Site > Global Configuration > under the "site" tab change Site Offline to "yes".(you'll need to make configuration.php writable to do it this way.CHMOD 777 is sometimes the only value which works on some servers,and that is scary,even for a moment)

Alternatively,take a copy of configuration.php,open it in a text editor on your computer and set $mosConfig_offline = '0'; to $mosConfig_offline = '1'; upload this modified file in ASCII mode to your server,overwriting the old.You can also do this via cPanel's file editor - but take great care not to insert a carriage return (space) after the final ?> or you will get an array of errors all over the header of your Mambo site which will scare the heck out of you and keep everyone scratching their heads until they figure out the mistake.

Check that your site is now offline by accessing your Mambo URL - taking the site offline during patching is important because your server can lock files and prevent them from being overwritten correctly if you do not.

Next,simply unzip Patch_4.5.2_to_4.5.2.3.zip on your computer,fire up your FTP client and copy the extracted folders and files inside to your Mambo directory,carefully overwriting the corresponding folders/files.Basically,click "Yes" or "O.K" each time your FTP client prompts you,asking if you want to replace the existing folder/files of the same name.

** See this note from Asphyx:http://forum.mamboserver.com/showpos...21&postcount=5

That done,you can repeat the process with the 4.5.2.3 - 4.5.3h patch.

These are the official patch instructions from within the Patch_4.5.2.3_to_4.5.3h.zip

Mambo 4.5.2.3 to 4.5.3h Patch Installation Instructions:

Below you will find the steps to bring a Mambo 4.5.2.3 system up to the 4.5.3h version. This will NOT bring prior versions up to date. You should first try to bring prior versions up to the 4.5.2.3 patch level before applying the 4.5.3h patch.

Step 1: Backup your site (both database & site files).

Step 2: Take your site offline: Site->Global Configuration->Site Offline (YES).

Step 3: Extract all files inside the patch into your Mambo installation. The files are organized in a hierarchy identical to your 4.5.2.3 install. Let them overwrite the existing files.

Step 4: Log into the Administration system of your Mambo site, goto the Site>Global Configuration screen, click on the "Server" tab and turn ON register globals emulation. With a brand new 453h install this will default to ON, but with the patch you will need to set it manually. Leaving this OFF may cause certain site functions and/or components not to function as expected.

Step 5: Bring your site back online: Site->Global Configuration->Site Offline (NO).

That's it. Patch complete.Another alternative to the 4.5.3h patch is to simply replace all the core files in your Mambo directory with the full 4.5.3 package.

There are no database upgrades between the above mentioned versions.

Many thanks to maligned-geek for permission to use his upgrade guide

Upgrading 4.5(1.0.9) to 4.5.1

This is the recommended upgrade procedure for your existing 4.5 (1.0.9) site:

1.BACKUP YOUR DATABASE! Use the inbuilt database backup facility or phpMyAdmin.

2.BACKUP YOUR WEB SITE FILES!

3.Do not procedure until you have completed steps 1 and 2.

4.Download the Mambo 4.5.1 distribution and unpack it into a new directory under you web server root.

5.Apply the upgrade script from the /installation/sql directory. If this completes successfully, delete the /installation directory.

6.Rename the configuration-dist.php to configuration.php. Copy the database connector values from your existing site's configuration.php file. The minimum you will need to copy over are:

$mosConfig_host
$mosConfig_user
$mosConfig_password
$mosConfig_db
$mosConfig_dbprefix

Set $mosConfig_absolute_path and $mosConfig_live_site accordingly for the 4.5.1 test files and site.

7.Open the new 4.5.1 site in your web browser and see if it roughly works. You may experience errors because of missing modules at this stage (don't worry about them).

8.Copy any 3rd party modules, mambots, components and administrator components to the new site.

components/com_xxxx
administrator/components/com_xxxx
modules/mod_xxxx
templates/xxxx
mambots/mosxxxx (but not moscode.*, mosimage.* or mospaging.*)
* Where xxxx is the name of the component, module, template or mambot.
Do not overwrite and Components, Modules, Templates or Mambots provided with 4.5.1.

9.Try your site again if all is looking OK goto step 10.
10.Login into administration and edit the Global Configuration values to suite your site.
11.If all running satisfactorily then move the 4.5.1 directory over to your main site. Do not forget to change $mosConfig_absolute_path and $mosConfig_live_site.

Quick Fix for Old Modules

Modules written for version 4.5 that use parameters will not work correctly in version 4.5.1 or later.
Developers are encouraged to upgrade the method of using parameters as it is very simple to do so. However, to get things running quickly you may insert the following code near the head of you module, before the parameters are used:

$params = mosParseParams( $module->params );

Configuration File

Making your Configuration editable

- Open FTP and go to your site root

- CHMOD configuration.php to 777

Additional Notes on CHMOD [Permissions]

- For additional security return configuration.php to CHMOD 644 after making changes.

- Additional information on CHMOD and permissions can be found at

http://catcode.com/teachmod , and also

http://www.evolt.org/article/A_quick_and_dirty_chmod_Tutorial/18/541

Manual Installation

NOTE: This is the approach you need to take when APACHE SAFE MODE is on.
Getting started

First, you must have the base environment for Mambo as set out in the System Requirement. We have thoroughly tested Mambo on: Linux, Free BSD, Mac OS X and Windows NT/2000. These are recommended platforms, but anything else that can run the 3 pieces of software listed below should do it.

You MUST ensure that PHP has been compiled with support for MySQL, zlib and XML in order to successfully run Mambo.

Getting Mambo

You will find the latest stable version at mamboxchange.com

Installing Mambo

First of all, download the Mambo tar.gz package. You can run Mambo as a full site e.g. http://www.mysite.com, or you can run it in a subdirectory of another site e.g. http://www.mysite.com/mambo/. You just have to edit the configuration.php file to tell Mambo which part of your site it is in. In this example it will run in a directory of a web site:

Make a directory for the web site files e.g.

UNIX - /usr/local/www/public_html/mambo

Windows - c:\apache\htdocs\mambo

Mambo is packaged in gzip and tar format. Uncompress this distribution file into the directory you have created above using Untar or Winzip, for example:

tar -xvfz latest_mambo_version.tar.gz -C /usr/local/www/public_html/mambo/
NOTE: Make sure you have a trailing slash and replace latest_mambo_version with the version you have downloaded.

Now you have to create a database for Mambo in MySQL. You can choose any name you want, but just remember to edit the configuration.php file with the name you choose. Use the mysqladmin command, for example :

mysqladmin -uroot -ppassword create mambo_database_name
NOTE: Replace 'root' and 'password' with the username and password that is used for your MySQL database.

You may also use phpmyadmin (a php based, MySQL Administration tool), instead of the command line tools, as this makes dropping the database in quick and easy. Edit the file sql/mambo.sql and uncomment the very last 6 lines of the file starting:

INSERT INTO `mos_users` VALUES (62, 'Administrator'

Import the SQL into your newly created database, from the sql/mambo.sql text file, for example:

mysql -uroot -ppassword mambo_database_name < sql/mambo.sql

NOTE: Replace 'root' and 'password' with the username and password that is used for your My SQL database.

If you wish to load the sample data provided with the distribution, then run the above command and replace sql/mambo.sql with sql/sample_data.sql. If you require the help support for the Administration section, use sql/help.sql.Copy the file configuration.php-dist to configuration.php in the root of your mambo directory, for example:

UNIX - /usr/local/www/mywebspace/mambo

and update this file with the correct database name, password, host and directory info.
NOTE: Nearly 80% of installation problems are due to an incorrect absolute path. Ensure that you know what the absolute path is.

Here is an example of a configuration.php file:

File System Permissions

On POSIX based systems (like Unix, Linux, etc), you will need to change the permissions. There are two methods to do this, of which the first is recommended:

Telnet, or secure shell, to your server. Enter the following system command:

> ps -ef grep apache

You may have to change the name of the process, depending on your system (for example, the process name could be httpd). You may receive output like the following:

root 7508 1 0 08:58 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 7511 7508 0 08:58 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 7512 7508 0 08:58 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 7513 7508 0 08:58 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 7514 7508 0 08:58 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 7515 7508 0 08:58 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 7521 7508 0 08:58 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 7522 7508 0 08:58 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
nobody 7523 7508 0 08:58 ? 00:00:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd

This tells you that the user "nobody" is running the web server process. Change to the Mambo directory. Enter the following system command (substitute the user name appropriate for your system):

> chown -R nobody .

WARNING: Make sure the user you use to ftp or Administer the site is in the file system group, and that all files have the permission set to 775. If you don't you may not be able to edit files on the file system remotely.

- The second method, is to change the permissions of the images/, media/,uploadfiles/ and administrator/backups directories to 707, this should be done recursively:

chmod -R 707 images chmod -R 707 media chmod -R 707 uploadfiles chmod -R 707 components chmod -R 707 languages chmod -R 707 modules chmod -R 707 templates chmod -R 707 administrator/backups chmod -R 707 administrator/components chmod 744 configuration.php

Logging into the administration site

Go to http://www.yoursite.com/administrator/

Username : admin Password : admin

Or you can log in from the front end as an Editor using:

Username : editor Password : editor

Admin email address

When you login to the Administration section of Mambo for the first time, remember to change the email address of the Administrator, to your own. This way you will receive all emails automatically sent by the system. Mambo will prompt you to delete your Installation folder and then refresh the page. This is for security reasons, so that a malicious user cannot change your installation. Until this is done, Mambo will not work.

You are now looking at two menu items, Admin, or Frontend button. You will want to click your admin button, and go straight to the Administration panel, to set up the various configuration features of Mambo.

Your set up has now been completed, and you are ready to MAMBO!

Browser Installation

When installing Mambo for the first time, verify the system requirements previously stated above first!

Assuming you have a working Apache web server, with PHP and a MySQL Database, you are on your way to installing Mambo।

When you have finished uploading the files and folders, go to your homepage (http://www।yoursite.com or http://yoursite.com/mambofolder). You should see a pre-installation check page generated by Mambo.

If you don't see the Check page please verify the following:

Was everything uploaded to your web site?
Did you remove (and back up) your old web site?
Do you really have an Apache / MySQL / PHP Web server?
Do you have a configuration.php file in your mambo directory?
If everything checks out ok, and you still don't see the Check page, try: http://www।yourpage.com/installation/index.php This is the direct address for the Check page. If it doesn't show up, or you see a lot of errors and techno mumbo-jumbo, you probably don't have an an Apache / MySQL / PHP Web server.

The pre-installation check page is in three parts:

The first checks that your system is able to run Mambo
The second part are some PHP settings
The third part checks several file and directory permissions

If everything checks out ok click the "Next button"। If there are some items highlighted in red, please ask your web service provider to correct them. If it is not possible to correct them yourself, you can still click "Next", and see what happens.

The next page displays the license for Mambo।

If you agree with the terms, click the checkbox next to "I Accept the GPL License" and the click the "Next" button. You will not be able to proceed unless you agree to the license terms.
The next page configures the MySQL database which Step 1 of the installation process.
Enter the configuration of your MySQL Database। The hostname of your database is usually localhost. This means the database server is running on the same computer as your web server. On occasions where localhost is not a usable database server, you will need to contact your administrator.

You are given the option to delete the existing tables in the nominated database and also to backup the tables। You may also install come sample data. If this is your first installation we recommend you check this option.

When you have entered your database information properly, click the "Next" Button. You will be asked to confirm the database operation. Click OK if you are satisfied that you can proceed. The database will be populated between this and the next step. Any errors that occurred during initialisation of the database will be displayed on the next page.
Step 2 is simply a page where you enter the name of your site।

Enter a name for your site and click the "Next" button। Please note that special characters are usable in this information area.

Step 3 is a page to confirm the installation directory, the url to the Mambo site, your email address and the administrator password।

The email address is for your Super Administrator email। This user account is automatically created for you. The password you enter will be used for your "admin" account. The username for the Super Administrator is "admin". You may change the randomly generated password if you desire.The permission settings will be used while installing mambo itself, by the mambo addon-installers and by the media manager. If you are unsure what flags shall be set, leave the default settings at the moment. You can still change these flags later in the site global configuration.

Click the "Next" icon। The final page confirms the status of the installation and the Super Administrator login name and password.

Do not forget your Super Administrator login name and password as it is not possible to enter the admin section without this। If you lose this information, you must the restart the complete set up procedure.

For security reasons you are reminded to delete the installation folder, and then refresh the page। Until this is done, Mambo will not work.

There are two buttons that will take you to either the Mambo Site or the Site Administrator। If this is your first installation click the "View Site" button. You should see your new Mambo site. Take a moment to explore some menu options. When you are ready, click the "Administrator" link in the Main Menu. Enter the user name and password as you saw them on the Step 4 page.

If this is not your first time then you will know what to do next.
Your set up has now been completed, and you are ready to MAMBO!

Getting the Files

The main distribution files for Mambo can be downloaded from mamboxchange.com। The file will be a compressed archive so you will need a utility program, either locally on your host server, that can "unzip" the file.

Installing Locally
Unzip the distribution file into a directory under your web server root। If you are using the Apache web server, this is typically c:apache groupapachehtdocs on Windows and /usr/local/apache/htdocs on a POSIX system but it may vary. We are assuming you have a working web server and that you know where to put files to display on the web server.

Installing Remotely
What you do to install Mambo on a remote host is largely a function of what facilities your hosts provide and how skilled you are with server access. However, a simple and typical procedure may involve:
Unzip the Mambo distribution to a local directory on your PC
FTP the files to host server placing them either directly under or in a directory under the web server root. There are many free programs available for this, such as Filezilla.

Configuring MySQL

In order for Mambo Open Source to work properly, you will need to set up a MySQL Database prior to beginning the Mambo install process। When installing it for the first time, Mambo will ask for the following information:

The name of your MySQL database

The name of the MySQL host, this is usually called "localhost" if you are installing on a PC or a local server। However, if you are using shared hosting, check with your hosting provider to be sure this is the case.

A MySQL username

A MySQL password

You should ask your web server provider if you are not sure about how to go about installing a MySQL database, and what the above details relate to, before beginning the installation! NOTE: Please check to see if your server provider has set your hosting account to Safe Mode. You will be unable to install Mambo with the Mambo installer if your server is set to safe mode. If this is the case, you will have to manually install Mambo. Path is available on the forums at: http://forum.mamboserver.com/viewtopic.php?t=1537

System Requirements

Here are the minimum requirements for Mambo 4.5
PHP 4.2.x or above - http://www.php.net
MySQL 3.23.x or above - http://www.mysql.com
Apache 1.13.19 or above - http://www.apache.org
You must ensure that you have MySQL, XML and Zlib support built into your PHP.
Mambo can be used with most major browsers including: Internet Explorer (version 5.5+) Netscape, and Mozilla. These browsers take great advantage of Mambo's Administrative interface. The WYSIWYG editor, htmlArea from www.interactivetools.com, works only under Windows Internet Explorer. Extensive testing has also been completed using Mozilla 1.4, but the WYSIWYG editor is not available in this browser due to htmlArea being incompatible.

Preface

Mambo Installation ManualAcknowledgementsAndrew Eddie, Lead Mambo DeveloperCopyright © 2000-2004 Miro International Pty LtdRelease under the Free Document License, http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.htmlThe information in this publication is furnished for informational use only, and should not be construed as a commitment by the Mambo Project. The Mambo Project reserves the right to update or modify the contents. The Mambo Project assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in this publication.