4.4.3. Understanding the configuration.php File

Before we start configuring our site, we wanted to take a minute to go over a very important file contained in the Joomla installation—the configuration.php file, which is contained in the root of the Joomla files. This file is where all your configuration options are contained. Did you mess up something during the installation process? Edit the configuration.php file. Do you have a Joomla installation on your machine at home that you want to move to a set of servers elsewhere? Edit the configuration.php file.

Although it is not required to know every single aspect of the configuration.php file, you will certainly find it helpful if you need to make a change to something that you are not able to do through the core Joomla Administration—like when it is not functioning. Some of our favorite settings in this file to remember are the following:

• $host: the hostname where the database server is running.

• $user: the user you connect to the database as.

• $password: the password for the $mosConfig_user that is used to connect to the database.

• $db: the name of the database/schema on the database server.

• $live_site: the URL used to access the site. This setting is important to ensure that stylesheets, images, and other relative path resources are properly referenced.