Installing BANS on Dreamhost

I already have an account with Dreamhost. I pay around $120 a year and have an insane about of free bandwidth and disk space. I have the capability to host multiple sites very easily and I didn't want to spend more money to get an account at Hostgator. I'm cheap that way! If you use coupon code "PassiveIncome" you'll get $20 off your hosting so it works out to $100/year to get more diskspace than you can use!

Assuming you already have an account with Dreamhost, login to the webpanel and go to Goodies. There you should see a tab for Manage Mysql.

Under their sharing hosting system, you can create separate names for the database server. HOWEVER, they all are synonyms for the same server and are not unique servers. So you'll need to create a separate database for EACH BANS store. If you create separate database hostnames with similar database names, you'll actually be using the SAME database. So you need to create unique database names per store.

Also make sure you've installed PHP version 4.x and not version 5.x

Buy the BANS software if you don't already have it.

Download the BANS zip file and extract it to a sub folder. You'll need to log into the BANS forum and download the modified installation file (install.php).
Overwrite the existing install.php in the BANS/USstore folder.

FTP the stuff into your Dreamhost directory.

go to a browser and type in your domain name. It should ask you to login with the following info
database name: use the newly created unique databases for this one
username: your dreamhost mysql username
password: your dreamhost mysql password
server: the name of the dreamhost mysql server (the one with multiple hostnames that all point to the same server!)
session name: just type any random crap
session code: just type any random crap

after that, just follow the various steps and you should hit page 4. go back to your FTP client and delete install.php from the server. Don't delete it on your local computer because you'll need it next time!

Also change the permissions on the /cont directory to 755.

Go back to the website and type in "yoururl.com/admin".

It should take you to a login screen. Log in using 'admin' and 'bans' and go to Security and change that information!

Then go to Setup and scroll down to the end of the page. Where you see Switch, replace 'normal' with 'curl'.

Thats it folks, your BANS store installation on Dreamhost is now complete!

If you have any questions, let me know! I can help you install it for a small fee ;-)

Check out my sites on Designer Coach Diaper Bags, Exotic Plus Sized Lingerie and Cheap Paintball Guns for examples on great store ideas.