Step 1: Download the Drupal software

Where to find Drupal

Drupal is available in several download versions. Most people will want the version posted under "Official releases", as it is the latest stable release. The versions posted in the "Development Snapshots" list incorporate the latest advances, but haven't been fully tested for stability or security. Use with caution!

Please review Drupal version information if you are not sure what file to download.

• The most current, stable version of Drupal. The Drupal community considers this its highest priority, and works continually to improve its stability and security.
• The previous, stable version of Drupal. While not in active development, the Drupal community monitors security issues and patches them as quickly as possible, so you can feel safe using it.
• Development versions.
  These incorporate the latest advances, but haven't been fully tested for
  stability or security. Use with caution!

Language Translations

Drupal has been translated to many different languages. Check whether a released package of the language desired is available at http://drupal.org/project/translations.

Downloading Drupal

Except for development versions, Drupal is available as a package with GNU Zip compression at http://drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-x.x.tar.gz, where "x.x" is the version number.
(Note: the download link for development versions may have "-dev" included in the filename. To get the exact link you can visit the Drupal Project download page, right-click on the "Download" link for the version you wish to use, and choose Copy Link in your browser's contextual menu.)

Before you begin, log into your server and use the cd command to move into the directory from which you will be serving your Drupal site. On many *nix computers the path from the server's root will be /var/www/html, so cd /var/www/html. On a shared server, or a server that hosts multiple domains, the path will be different -- perhaps the command cd ~/www or cd ~/public_html will work. If you are unsure of the proper directory to use, ask your hosting provider for assistance.

Once in the proper *nix directory, download Drupal using any download utility, the two most popular of which are wget and curl. Not every computer has both. If one doesn't work, use the other. The commands are:

wget http://ftp.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-x.x.tar.gz
or
curl -O http://drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-x.x.tar.gz

(Note that the option for the curl command is the upper case letter "O" and not the numeral that stands for zero.)

(For these above commands, replace the "http://drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-x.x.tar.gz" string with the link for the version you will be installing. If you copied the link to your clipboard as suggested above, you can simply type "wget " or "curl -O " and paste the link into the command line.)

Uncompressing Drupal

To convert the .gz-format Drupal package into Drupal itself, type the following command (replacing "x.x" with the version number of the package you just downloaded, of course):

tar -xzvf drupal-x.x.tar.gz

You'll see a list of files as the package uncompresses. When it's finished, the directory you are working in will contain both the original .gz file and a folder named "Drupal-x.x": The latter is the Drupal software. You can now safely delete the .gz file by typing rm drupal-x.x.tar.gz.

Moving Drupal to its intended location

Now you need to move the contents of the drupal-x.x directory one level "up" into the web server's document root or your public HTML directory:

mv drupal-x.x/* drupal-x.x/.htaccess ./

The files from the directory you downloaded and decompressed have now been moved up a level into your web directory, and you can delete the drupal-x.x directory (which is now empty):

rmdir drupal-x.x

Before continuing to the next page ...

The base URL for your Drupal installation will be set in your Web server's configuration file. You will need to know this URL before proceeding to the next steps of the installation. If you are installing Drupal on your local machine the base URL may be: http://localhost. If you are installing Drupal onto a Web server your base URL may be a specific domain name (such as http://example.com).

If you have finished downloading, decompressing and moving the Drupal files on your *nix server or computer, you can skip the remainder of this page and proceed to the next page of this manual.

Note for Mac users

If you are installing on a Mac server, or are creating a test site on your Mac, you may also want review this handbook page during installation: http://drupal.org/node/22676 -- especially in cases where you don't understand where the "web server's document root or your public HTML directory" is on your local machine as referred to above.