Hosting a shopping cart at Shanje.NET is easy to do, because all of the features you need to properly deploy
a shopping cart are included at no extra cost. This article explains how to use these features to deploy a popular shopping cart
package called Zen Cart, which is a PHP application based on the osCommerce source code.
The first step is to download Zen Cart from http://www.zencart.com/. The version we
downloaded for this sample store was Zen Cart version 1.2.4d - Full Download. Once Zen-Cart-v1.2.4.zip is downloaded, you need to
extract it to a temp folder on your PC. As soon as you have extracted the contents of the zip file, you will need to search for and delete
every file named .htaccess. The .htaccess files setup certain options within Apache, but Shanje.NET runs on IIS6 so the .htaccess files should
be removed.
If you have not created a website yet for your cart, you will need to do that now using the Shanje.NET Web Control Panel. For this
example, we created a site called mystore.demo. Make sure you have FrontPage disabled on the website, because FrontPage will interfere
with the permissions in the website. With FrontPage disabled, the default permissions will be correct for running the shopping cart software.
Also, make sure you have Shared SSL enabled for the website. We will use the Shared SSL feature for pages in the shopping cart where customers
will enter their credit card details to complete their online orders. Edit the Website using the Shanje.NET Web Control Panel to find out
what the Shared SSL URL is set to for your website. This information will be required once we start setting up the Zen Cart software.
For our example, our Shared SSL URL is:
https://ssl110.securefastssl.com/mystore.demo/
Now you will need to create a MySQL Database using the Shanje.NET Web Control Panel. If this shopping cart is for a customer of yours,
be sure to select that customer in the customer dropdown box in the Create MySQL Server Database menu. Then enter something into the
description field to explain what the database is for. In our example, we entered Zen Cart Example Store into the description field.
This next step will take a while. You need to upload all of the files and folders from the extracted ZenCart zipfile to the web server
using FTP. You can use any standard ftp client, such as WS_FTP or CuteFTP. We strongly encourage you to enable Passive Mode Transfers in your FTP client software, since
that tends to be more reliable when uploading a lot of small files. We suggest that you upload the cart software to a folder inside your website
instead of uploading the cart to the root of your website. For our example, we created a folder called catalog in our mystore.demo website.
The full path to the store in our example is as follows:
c:\websites\293\mystore.demo\catalog\
After you have uploaded Zen Cart to the catalog subdirectory of your website, then you can start the Zen Cart installation routine.
Open your web browser to http://yourwebsite/catalog/zc_install/ to start the process. In our example, we opened http://www.mystore.demo/catalog/zc_install/
At this point, one of two things will happen. You should see a Zen Cart Installer Welcome screen. If you see a file not found error, then you have
placed the files and folders into the wrong place. When you view the contents of the catalog folder through ftp, you should see folders listed as follows:
admin, cache, docs, download, email, extras, and so on. If you just have one folder called Zen-Cart-v1.2.4, then you need to redo the file/folder upload.
Once you have the Zen Cart Welcome screen loaded in your web browser, you are ready to proceed with the rest of the setup. Click the continue button
at the bottom of the screen. Agree to the license and hit the continue button. Now the installer will show the settings of the web server. All of the
settings will be OK. The MySQL Version will be flagged as unknown because we run MySQL on a separate box instead of on the same boxes as the web servers.
Anyway, the MySQL Version is fine, so all you need to do is click the Install button at the bottom of the screen.
The next screen is the Setup - System Setup Screen. This is where you define the paths to the shopping cart software. In our example, the correct paths are as follows:
Physical Path = C:/websites/293/mystore.demo/catalog
Virtual HTTP Path = http://www.mystore.demo/catalog
Virtual HTTPS Server = https://ssl110.securefastssl.com/mystore.demo
Virtual HTTPS Path = https://ssl110.securefastssl.com/mystore.demo/catalog
Then we set Enable SSL to Yes. Enable SSL in Admin Area can also be set to Yes. Then click the Save System Settings button.
The next screen is the phpBB setup. We setup setting this to No. Then click the Save phpBB Settings button.
Now you will see the Zen Cart Setup - Database Setup screen. Leave Database Type set to MySQL. Leave Database Table-Prefix blank.
For Database Host, enter the IP address of the MySQL server at Shanje.NET that hosts your MySQL Database. For our example, we use 216.51.232.120 as
the Database Host. For Database Username, you can use your main Shanje.NET Web Control Panel login or your can use the Customer login (if this is for a customer of yours).
For Database Password, use the password that corresponds to the username you entered into the Database Username field. In the Database Name field, enter the
name of the database you created to house your Zen Cart. In our example, the Database Name is db894. If you do not remember what the database name is, you can
find out using the Shanje.NET Web Control Panel. In the list of MySQL Databases, you will see one with the description you listed for the Zen Cart DB.
For Database Sessions, leave it set to Yes. Leave SQL Cache Method set to None. Leave Session/Cache Directory set to what ever is already listed
by default. Click the Save Database Settings button at the bottom of the page.
You will now see the Store Setup section of the Zen Cart installer. Most of these fields are pretty straight forward. Fill out the form and click
the Save Store Settings button.
Zen Cart Installer will now present you with the final step in the shopping cart installer. This is the Administrator Account Setup page. The Administrator account is used to
manage the store. Enter a username and password that only you will know. It can be the same as your Web Control Panel login, but it does not have to be. It can be anything
you want it to be, because the administrator username in Zen Cart is not directly linked to any Shanje.NET username. Click the Save Admin Settings button.
Note: Make sure you disable the Check for Updates option in ZenCart. The Check for Updates option currently fails on Windows hosts. If you enable that option, you will not be able to log into the Admin section of your ZenCart store.
Congratulations. You have now successfully installed and set up Zen Cart in your Shanje.NET account. You can view your store or enter the admin area.
Before you announce your storefront, you must remove the Zen Cart Installer files from the zc_install folder. If you leave the contents of zc_install on the server after you have completed
the install, then it would be possible for anybody with a web browser to reset your setup of your store using the same setup steps you just completed. So before you do anything else,
delete zc_install from your website!
You can now go into your store through the Zen Cart Admin and add products, set prices, and so on. If you need help using Zen Cart, please refer to the
Zen Cart instruction manual which is available through the Zen Cart Website at http://www.zen-cart.com/modules/mydownloads/.
