Installation and Upgrading

From Jomres v4 manual

Jump to: navigation, search

Obtaining Jomres

Contents


Obtaining Jomres

Where to Find Jomres

These notes apply if you want to obtain the demo or a full copy of Jomres. You can obtain Jomres by visiting http://www.jomres.net/ and registering a userid and password at the My Account -> Registration page, accessible via the main menu. I am not going to describe to you the individual steps you need to take; it's a fairly standard shopping cart that most people should be familiar with so I will not insult your intelligence.

When you have placed your order (the order value will be 0.00 if you've ordered a demo license key) you will find that an invoice has been created against your account. View the invoice to purchase Jomres (if you are purchasing a full license) Once you've chosen your payment method and made your payment (regardless of whether or not you've purchased a full license or a trial license) you will now find that a license key has been created for you and Jomres will be available to download when you view your license. This key is important, save a copy of it somewhere, as it leads to the first point that you need to learn about Jomres: when you get a license to use Jomres, you're actually purchasing the key, it's the key that determines how long you can use the license for. Jomres itself is the same regardless of whether or not you have a full or trial license, Developer or Solo version.


Downloading Jomres

Before you download Jomres, you will need to ensure that your hosting package can run Ioncube encoded files. If in doubt, please ask your hosts. Jomres is available as either a web installation, executable installer, or as a zip file. The recommended installation method is the web installer. This is because Jomres has features that require that it can overwrite some of it's files, and the most reliable way of ensuring that this is possible is by performing the initial installation via the web installer. What are the Loaders? (applies to ionCube encoded versions of Jomres) The loaders are used to encrypt two files within Jomres. If we didn't encrypt some files then it would be trivial for anybody with a little PHP knowledge to bypass the licensing system and use Jomres for free. In the past we have used other encryption software that didn't require loaders but it didn't take long for decrypted copies of Jomres to start circulating through the warez sites dotted around the web. To enable us to continue providing updates we have been forced to implement a license system and encryption.

The first encrypted file is "install_jomres.php". This file is encrypted purely to ensure that any encoder issues are detected during the install phase, rather than later on when you want to actually use Jomres. The other encrypted file is "integration.php". All other files within Jomres are open source. This means that you can see the source, and edit them if you need to.

If you are having problems finding a host that is suitable I can highly recommend United Hosting. Their services are excellent and they are very fast at responding to support tickets. Their servers are also configured so that apache runs as the account user, meaning that you're less likely to run into permissions issues when you want to edit files via ftp.

Installation

You have a choice of installation options when it comes to actually putting the files on your server. The web installer method is the recommended method.

Step 1 - Web Installer (recommended)

The web installer is designed to be as simple to use as possible. It will download a zip of the ioncube encoded copy of Jomres onto your web server, extract it and place the Jomres files in the /components and /administrator/components folders.

Download jomres_webinstall.zip to your desktop and extract it. Inside you'll find jomres_webinstall.php. Upload that via ftp to the root of your Joomla/Mambo installation then run it by entering http://www.domain.com/jomres_webinstall.php. If it cannot find configuration.php in the same folder then it will also download and extract Joomla 1.5 to the same folder. Please note you will need to follow the links on screen to install Joomla before you can complete the Jomres installation.

Once the installer has advised you that the download/extraction is complete it will give you a link to the second phase of the installation proces.

It's important that you upload the web installer to the ROOT of your Joomla/Mambo installation. This is because it needs to detect configuration.php. All of the Jomres files are then downloaded and moved into their relevant places within the /components and /administrator/components folders.

If you have chosen to install both Jomres and Joomla at the same time then you must complete the Joomla installation before you continue to Step 2. The web installer will provide you with a link to the Joomla install page, so work through that and if you run into any questions read the installation instructions available at http://www.joomla.org.


Step 1 - Executable Installation

Before installing Jomres make sure you have a backup of all your files and especially your database!

This section of the guide assumes that you already have Joomla or Mambo installed.

After downloading the Windows Installer, double click the .exe file. After a few seconds while the installer loads, you will be shown the welcome screen. Follow the step-by-step instructions to continue.

  1. From the welcome screen, click Next.
  2. You will be asked to read and agree to the License Agreement. Check the "I Accept The Agreement" radio button and then click Next.
  3. Depending on the package, some installation notes will be displayed. You should read these notes and then click Next.
  4. The next screen asks you if you would like to install to a remote server or to this machine. For this guide, we are going to be installing to a remote server. Leave the default option checked and click Next.
  5. You will be shown several option boxes to enter in your FTP details. You will be given the option to choose a folder an install location on your FTP server, you should choose the root of your installation. For example, if I was installing to www.jomres.net, I would choose /path/to/www/, however if the CMS is installed in a sub-folder, then I would choose /path/to/www/subfolder/. When you click Browse to locate the folder you are installing to the installer will open an ftp connection to your server and you will be able to choose your install folder. It is very important that you perform this install into the root of the CMS installation that you are going to be using Jomres on.
  6. Because you are installing into your CMS installation you will receive a warning that you may overwrite existing files. This is normal and safe, click Yes to continue.
  7. The installer will now perform a number of checks. You will be given the progress of this in the bottom of the installer window. When completed, you will be asked to confirm the web address you are uploading to. This is usually auto detected but if not, simply enter the web address into the Upload Directory URL e.g. http://www.example.com. Click Next.
  8. Another selection of tests will be performed to determine how the installer will upload and install Jomres. When completed, a final confirmation screen will appear. Double check all the values and when you are happy, click Install. To make any changes, simply click the Back button.
  9. The Jomres files will now be uploaded. You can view the progress in the window.
 10. If everything is successful, a success screen will appear and you can click Finish. At this point, your browser will be launched and you will be directed to the web based installer.

Step 1 - Manual Installation

You will need to perform this step if you are not using the Windows executable.

This section of the guide assumes that you already have Joomla or Mambo installed.

First confirm that your server offers the Zend Optimizer or ionCube loaders. Also, when uploading files ensure that you upload them in Binary mode, not ASCII.

Download and extract the manual install zip file locally then open the ftp client of your choice. Upload the files via ftp client to your web server. It is important that the files be installed maintaining the existing directory structure. Place the folder /administrator/components/com_jomres into your /administrator/components/ folder, and the files in /components/com_jomres into your /components/ folder on the server. Finally place install_jomres.php in the root of your CMS installation (/).

Next, perform the Database and license installation .


Step 2 - Database and license installation

install_jomres.php will either be launched for you by the Windows Installer, it'll be a link provided by the web installer, or you will need to access it manually. If you need to access it manually, for example after a manual install, launch your web browser and then browse to where you uploaded Jomres. e.g. if you uploaded to http://www.domain.com/ then you would access the installer by going to http://www.domain.com/install_jomres.php.

When it runs install_jomres.php checks that certain directories exist, and if not that it can create them. This is done because the web server needs to ensure that it has write access to those directories. If it can't then the installer script will stop running and you need to make those directories and give the web server write access to them. Typically this is done by creating the folder and chmodding it to 777 but depending on the server you may meet varying levels of success. This is why it's advisable that you use the web installer wherever possible, and that preferably you are using a SUexec enabled server so that when you want to modify Jomres files later you can without wrestling with file permissions.


1. Jomres will first ask you for your license key. This can be obtained by visiting the My Account page at www.jomres.net, and clicking on the link to view the full license details.

2. When you click the Save Key button Jomres will then check to see if the typical Jomres tables exist in your database. If they do not then a new install is assumed. It will create all of the mySql tables that it needs, it will insert some sample data, it will create your property specific settings and it will make admin a super property manager.

3. When this is all done you are almost ready to use Jomres, but before you do that you should remove the file install_jomres.php. As of Jomres v3.1 it will attempt to remove it for you if it can, but if it can't then it'll warn you that the file still exists and you should use your ftp client to remove it.

4. You can now go to your Mambo administrators backend and view your Jomres installation. Don't forget to add Jomres to a menu so that you can view it from the front end, this is where most of your property management is performed.


Upgrading

Important: Ensure that you've taken your server offline before attempting to upgrade Jomres. This is because Jomres will try to remove certain files that shouldn't be left on your server once installation/upgrade is complete (mainly install_jomres.php) so you don't want anybody browsing your server until you're ready.

Before upgrading your Jomres installation, make sure you have a backup of all your files and especially your database!

Note that the Updates and Plugin manager functionality cannot be translated by editing the language files. This is because much of the information is pulled directly from the updates server and is only available in English. To reduce ambiguity and confusion we've chosen to not include the text for these two features in the language file.

As of Jomres v3.1.3 there is a new Upgrade process. In the main panel of Administrator -> Components -> Jomres you will see a new button Upgrades. This feature allows the system, if it can, to automatically download and apply the most recent copy of Jomres available to your system. Be aware that once it has run you will need to run install_jomres.php to apply any database changes that are required.

If you cannot see this Upgrades button then please ensure that CURL is enabled on your server.

Alternatively, you might want to download the executable installer, and after uninstalling Jomres via the CMS component manager run it to upload the files from your desktop. To use the executable, see here


Removal

To uninstall Jomres you can use the CMS component uninstaller, but note that depending on how your web server is configured the web server software may not have the correct permissions to remove some files so it's always wise to check the /components/ and administrator/components directories after performing an uninstall to ensure that the com_jomres sub folders have been removed.

You will need to manually remove any jomres related files in /media and you may also want to consider removing the Jomres folder in /images/stories, via ftp.

Jomres does not modify any tables during the uninstall process so you will need to manually edit your CMS tables to drop those created by Jomres. They are easily identified as they use the pattern XXX_jomres_XXXXXX

As of 2.7 some of the tables will use the pattern XXX_jomcomp_XXXXXX or XXX_jomresportal_XXXXXX

Personal tools