Preparation

Register a domain (you can register a domain with DreamHost or any other registrar)

Add a domain to your account at dreamhost.

Change DNS settings with your registrar to point to Dreamhost's name servers

(Note: The name server addresses and other details are provided when you add the domain.)

Installation

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Step 1. Create a new directory titled 'cgi-bin' at the webserver document root.

(Yes you read that right. This is the way dreamhost wants to you do it, i.e. with the cgi-bin directory under the web server document root.)

Step 2. Copy 'ode.cgi' from the 'Part1' folder of the installation package to the newly created cgi-bin directory.

Copy the 'data' directory from the 'Part2' folder of the installation package to the root folder for your account (outside of the web server document root).

Alternatively, if this is not your first Ode site, you might want to add a subdirectory for the new site's data under the existing 'data' directory.

For example

.../data one.sample.net addins ode_config ode_exempt two.sample.net addins ode_config ode_exempt

Step 3. Set path to Ode's config file in the configuration section of 'ode.cgi' using your preferred text editor. (If you would rather, You can do this prior to copying the CGI to your DreamHost account.)

Step 4. Copy 'ode_site' folder from the 'Part3' folder of the installation package to your site's general document root.

Step 5. Work through settings in the config file paying careful attention to anything involving a path (e.g. path to Ode's document directory, path to addin directory).

Step 6. Copy the 'shared_resources' folder from the 'Part4' folder of the installation package to your site's general document directory (alongside, not under, the 'ode_site' directory you copied to your DreamHost account in Step 4).

You're done

At the moment the only way we can access the site is with the explicit path to the .cgi.

For example:

http://sample.net/cgi-bin/ode.cgi

I prefer to make that URL a little prettier, disguising the path to the script.

For example:

http://sample.net/weblog http://sample.net/home

That's easily accomplished with DreamHost using an .htaccess file. Other shared hosting providers allow you to do the same thing. If you manage your own web server and have access to it's config file you may want to put in a redirect there (with Apache's ScriptAlias directive or something similar).

Create a plain text file titled .htaccess at the site's general document root (alongside not under, the 'ode_site' directory you copied to your DreamHost account in Step 4).

Add the following to the fie you just created:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^weblog/?(.*)$ /cgi-bin/ode.cgi/$1

http://sample.net/weblog

Replace the word 'weblog' with whatever string you'd like to redirect to ode.cgi. Continuing from the example's above, let's use home instead.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^home/?(.*)$ /cgi-bin/ode.cgi/$1

http://sample.net/home

You can include as many of these rules as you like.

For example, to have both /weblog and /home redirect to ode.cgi, combine the previous two examples by adding the following 3 lines to .htaccess:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^weblog/?(.*)$ /cgi-bin/ode.cgi/$1
RewriteRule ^home/?(.*)$ /cgi-bin/ode.cgi/$1

Lastly, update ode's config file to change the preferred base_url ($base_url).

This is the URL Ode will use for links it generates.

For example:

$base_url = 'http://sample.net/weblog';

That's it. You're done setting up your new site (assuming everything worked as expected). If you run into trouble try reading through the installation instructions carefully.

If you're stuck, ask for help (email help @ ode-is-simple dot com).

Read the few informational post files included with the installation package (which should now appear as the content of your new site). When you're finished reading, delete them and start creating your own posts.

You'll also want to modify the default theme. Editing the canned sidebar blocks is a good place to start.

Send me an email (rob @ ode-is-simple dot com). I'd love to know about your new Ode site.