# Coppermine Photo Gallery v1.5.x: Documentation and Manual

# The install screen

Your admin account |
This section requires information to create your administration account. Use only alphanumeric characters. Enter the data carefully ! | Input an original admin username and password here. Make sure to either memorize it well, or note it down somewhere safe; you won't be able to administer your site if you lose this data.
Username |  | This will be the username for your everyday administration of coppermine - choose one that you can memorize and enter easily. This entry is case sensitive so give special consideration when creating a username. Pics that you upload later under this admin account will display the name shown in the uploader field. Comments you make will also display this name, as well, for others to see.
Password |  | This will be your admin password to your coppermine install. Don't use trivial, overly abused passwords - if an attacker figures out your password, s/he will be able to hack your entire site! Use a combination of upper and lower case letters and numbers like "`j3e4N5n6yG`". Remember, passwords like your admin username are case sensitive. Be careful when creating your password. Write it down and keep it safe, preferably somewhere away from your computer.
Email address |  | This email address will be used to send emails from the webserver (e.g. the registration email, notifications and ecards). Make sure that it is a valid email address.
Your MySQL configuration | MySQL is the type of database service that is available on most webservers. If you don't have it, you cannot install it. That is, unless the server is yours to administer. If you are webhosted, you are probably out of luck. It's mandatory to have a mySQL database to run Coppermine or any other PHP-based script. You can not fake the mySQL information during install, you must know it before hand, and enter the information as required. If you're not sure about the information required, ask your webhost.
This section requires information on how to access your MySQL database. If you don't know how to fill them, check with your webhost support.
MySQL Host (localhost is usually OK) |  |
MySQL Database Name |  | Coppermine will not create this database for you - it must exist prior to any attempt at installing coppermine. (If you do not have a pre-designated database, you will have to create one, provided you have the authority on your site to do so).
MySQL Username |  | The mySQL user name does not have to be your coppermine admin username, nor is it the necessarily the same as your FTP username (although this can be the case for some users, but only by sheer coincidence or deliberate intention, to simplify site administration). The mySQL user needs the permissions CREATE TABLE, INSERT, ALTER, REPLACE, UPDATE, DELETE, SELECT.
MySQL Password |  | The password that goes with your mySQL username.
MySQL table prefix (the default value is OK; do not use dots!) |  | Coppermine's tables can co-exist in an existing database which has tables used by other applications. All coppermine tables will be using a different prefix from these, as specified here. You can even have several coppermine installs using one database - only the table prefixes have to differ in each case. Unless you know what you are doing, don't change the default value.
ImageMagick | You can not fake an ImageMagick path, you have to know it. If you're not sure, leave this field empty - Coppermine will then try to use GD by default. You can edit the path later as well in the config screen. You can only install ImageMagick or GD if the server is yours to administer - if you're webhosted, you probably can't. The user of the webserver, who wishes to use ImageMagick, will need read/write/execute permissions in the folder where ImageMagick's convert executable resides in.
Coppermine can use the ImageMagick 'convert' program to create thumbnails. Quality of images produced by ImageMagick is superior to GD1 but equivalent to GD2. If ImageMagick is installed on your system and you want to use it, you need to input the full path to the 'convert' program below. On Windows the path should look like 'c:/ImageMagick/' (use / not \ in the path) and should not contain any space, on Unix is it something like '/usr/bin/X11/'.
ImageMagick path |
| After having entered all required data, click this button to submit the form