Installation / Quick Start Guide

Product Release Information

Product: CRE Loaded Pro White Label
Release Number: 6.2.11
Release Date: June 15th, 2007
Customer Support: For more information or support, please visit our website or email us at helpdesk@creloaded.com
For support open a ticket at our helpdesk or email: support@creloaded.com

Introduction

This document describes how to install and get started with CRE Loaded Pro White Label.

It is to be used as documentation for your distribuitions.  For instructions on setting up the White Label features see the White Label Setup pdf file.

Manuals

About the Manual:
We have arranged for each copy of all CRE Loaded Pro releases to include a manual at no additional cost to you.  You will find this manual in the 2nd zip file you downloaded when you purchased CRE Loaded Pro.  
Open your Install & Quick Start Guide and Manual (Windows only) by double-clicking the file named \install-guide-and-manual\CREWhite_Label62.exe. Once you obtain your key, you will have full access to the CRE Manual.
If you have any problems with your Quick Start Guide, see http://oscommerceguides.com/support.php

Minimal System Software Requirements

What type of Server is required for this product?
The software is designed to run on a LAMP server with the following minimum requirements:
Do you support any other types of servers?
Officially, we do not support any other servers or configurations.
However, there have been reports of people successfully running on a WAMP server. This is a server running the Windows operating system with Apache Web Server, MySQL and PHP.

Installation

How do I install CRE Loaded Store?
  • General Preparations:
    1. Obtain access to a LAMP server (See software Requirements).
    2. Obtain a registered domain name.
    3. Obtain a SSL certificate for your domain. Or ensure the hosting company has provided you a shared SSL to be used with your domain.
  • Database Preparations:
    1. Acquire the ID and Password for MySQL. The ID must have CREATE privileges for databases.
    2. The hosting company should have also supplied the hostname to be used. It will be required to access MySQL.
    3. Check if the hosting company has any rules concerning the database names. Ex: database names must be prefixed with the hosting account ID.
    4. Any problems access MySQL should be reported to the hosting company for resolution.
  • Server Preparations:
    1. Validate that the DNS for your domain is set up and is pointing to the server. If there is a problem, contact your hosting company for support on this.
    2. Verify that you have a working ID and Password for FTP access to the server.
    3. Decide if you will install the CRE Loaded Store in the root of your web site, or in a sub folder. Root is recommended, but not required.
    4. Set up the sub folder if required.
    5. Use FTP to copy your dearchived CRE Loaded Package on to the server.
      • Place the uploaded files into either your web site root or the sub folder you created.
      • Monitor the upload closely.
      • FTP may fail to upload all files. Re-upload as needed to get a full and complete copy.
      • Upload the CONTENTS of the catalog directory, but not the catalog directory itself.
  • CRE Loaded Installer:
    1. The install routine will require a writable configure.php file in the includes/ and admin/includes/ folders. You may copy or rename the sample configure_dist.php to configure.php and set the file permissions to 777.
    2. File and folder permissions will have to be changed as the installer check for accessibility. This can be done with either FTP or a control panel option provided by the hosting company. Recommended to keep this open during the install process.
    3. Select an Administration user id and password.
      • The ID must be a valid email address.
      • The password should be at least 8 characters and contain one or more numeric or special characters.
    4. Finally, point your web browser to http://your.domain/install/ and run it. Follow the instructions.
    5. You will be prompted for server information twice. This is not a mistake. It will allow you to set the store up using a MySQL user with limited privileges for security purposes. Do not attempt this on a live store without carefully establishing what MySQL grants are required to run the script on your server.
  • Post Installation:
    1. Secure the includes/configure.php and admin/includes/configure.php by setting the permissions to 444.
    2. Create an encryption key. Please see the admin Encrypt & Decrypt >> Help for details. The key file will need permission 777 to create it, but then secure it by setting it to 444.
    3. The install folder is unsecure and must be removed to protect your store. Recommended to delete the folder and all it content. Renaming it is strongly not recommended.
    4. The CRE Loaded Store is now installed.
How can I uninstall CRE Loaded Store?
Simply removing the files from the catalog root or sub folder and deleting the database should do it.
What if I encounter problems?
Please see the troubleshooting section in the FAQ.  A link to the bug tracker will be found on your Admin home page.

Getting Started


How can I quickly get started using CRE Loaded Pro B2B?
You should start by exploring your admin tool. It can be used to accomplish most if not all of the following tasks. Some of them may require a decent PHP programming editor. We suggest HTMLKit, which may be acquired at Chami.com
  1. Configure The Store Admin
  2. General Configuration
    • Store Name and Address
    • Owner information
    • Policy Setup
  3. Zone Setup
    • Tax Zones
    • Payment Zones
    • Shipping Zones
  4. Module Setup
    • Payment Modules
    • Shipping Modules
    • Order Total Modules
    • Checkout Success Modules
  5. Design Adjustment - using the Design Control Menu options.
  6. Product Creation - using tools found in the Category/Products menu.
  7. Testing - use a variety of web browsers. We suggest FireFox and Internet Explorer. Use others if at all possible to assure your site looks correctly to and functions correctly for the widest possible variety of users.
Copyright © 2005-2007 Chain Reaction Works, Inc.  Software released under GNU General Public License Version 2
Terms CRE Loaded, Chain Reaction Works, and all logos are trademarks of Chain Reaction Works, Inc.  all rights reserved.