One of the many third party products that Weberz offers to its customers is osCommerce, a free, powerful and robust php based ecommerce solution. To make installation even easier for our customers, there is a one click install wizard available in the control panel.

There are a few things that need to be configured before osCommerce can be installed. All of osCommerce's data is stored in a MySQL database, so the first step is to set up a database for osCommerce to use. This can be done from within the control panel using the database wizard.

To get started, login to your control panel. Don't know how to login? Click here to find out how. Once the control panel has loaded your account, the quick access page will appear. Scroll about 3/4's of the way down this page until you see a section called databases. Look for an icon with a dolphin in front of a computer. Click this icon to load the MySQL manager.

Once the manager has loaded, an info bar with the hostname to the MySQL server and a listing of any databases that are in your account will be displayed. Click add a database.

This will start the MySQL Database Creation Wizard. Type in a name (required) and description (optional) for the database. Click next.

You will now need to specify a user (or create a new one) and assign that user the appropriate access rights. For this example, we're going to add a new user. Type in the username, password, and select DBA as the user role. Click Add User.

When the new user has been added a success message will be displayed. Click Finish. Remember this username and password, you will need it during the setup of osCommerce.

Now that the database has been set up, it is time to install osCommerce. Navigate back to the Quick Access page, and scroll down until you see the E-Commerce section. Click the osCommerce button

This will load the osCommerce configuration page. This page will show a listing of your domain(s) and tell you which domains, if any, have phpBB installed on them. You will also see a status page that shows the status of the phpBB installation for the associated domain. Find the domain that you wish to install phpBB on, and click the red off button.

This will start the installation process. You will be prompted to select a database and database user for osCommerce to use. Select the database and user that was set up earlier and click next.

The control panel will pause for a second while it is creating the database structure and getting phpBB installed into the webspace for that domain. When this process is completed you will see a success message.

You will notice that a few new icons have appeared next to the domain that has osCommerce set up on it. Rolling your mouse over each icon will tell you what each one does.

The configure button resets the osCommerce configuration to the default configuration. This is useful when attempting to recover from a misconfiguration. The "upgrade osCommerce database to version 2.2" upgrade your database configuration. This is not a necessary step. The Your e-shop button will take you directly to your osCommerce site and display the it in its current state. To change the osCommerce, click the your eshop configuration button. This will take you to the configuration site.

Now nobody wants their configuration site open to the public. The settings in the configuration section completely change how your system works, what is displayed, etc. To secure this section, we will use the control panel's built in security system. To access the security section, go back to your control panel quick access page (the first page displayed after you login). Click the File manager icon. You will find it in the Tools section of the quick access page. Clicking this icon will launch the file manager. Click the protect button at the bottom of your screen. This will start the password protection wizard. Find the admin directory (usually under yourdomainname.com/catalog/admin) using the wizard. Once you have found the directory, click the blue file icon next to it (do not actually go into the directory). The first option allows what gets displayed in the pop-up box that asks for the username and password. Anything can be typed here. For this example osCommerce Admin is being used. Click the next button. On the next screen the control panel will display the location to the password file. The default location is fine. Click the edit button. On the next screen, you will see all valid users (if any) displayed. Click the add button to add a user. Enter the desired username and password and click save. When you click save, you will be brought back to the screen that displays the existing user(s). If you want more than one user to access the admin section, repeat the steps above for each user. When finished adding users, click the close button. This will go back to the screen displaying the location of the password file. Keep clicking next until you are brought to the summary screen. Click the apply button on the summary screen to save your users, then close the window and close webshell. That's it! Your phpBB forum is now installed and ready to be configured/used. You may want to join the phpBB community at phpBB.com. There is a wealth of information in their documentation section along with a user forum where users can interact and share information with each other.