Shortcut for Installing Drupal & Modules Over SSH

If your server has SSH access you can upload Drupal and all of your modules and themes in their compressed state and then uncompress them on the server. The methods below will greatly speed up the process of installing Drupal, especially if you have a slow Internet connection.

First upload the compressed Drupal file. Then in a terminal (over SSH) type the following command to uncompress the Drupal file, changing the filename to the current Drupal version:

tar -zxvf drupal-5.5.tar.gz

Then navigate into the new directory, in this case, Drupal 5.5:

cd drupal-5.5

Then move all the new files up one level:

mv * ../

Don't forget the hidden .htaccess file:

mv .htaccess ../

Then move up one directory:

cd ..

Delete the empty folder:

rmdir drupal-5.5

Remove the compressed Drupal file:

rm drupal-5.5.tar.gz

Navigate to your sites/all directory:

cd ./sites/all

and make folders for your modules and themes:

mkdir modules themes

Move into your module directory:

mv modules

Upload your modules in their compressed state to the modules directory. Then run the following script to uncompress all of your modules and delete the compressed files -- hit ENTER after each line:

for i in *tar.gz
do
tar -zxvf $i
rm $i
done