Setting up a Drupal 11 website from scratch involves several steps, including preparing your environment, downloading Drupal, configuring it, and verifying that everything works. Here’s a complete step-by-step guide using Composer, which is the recommended method for managing modern Drupal installations.
✅ Prerequisites
Make sure you have the following installed:
- PHP 8.2 or later (PHP 8.3 recommended)
- Composer 2.5 or later
- MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.4+
- Apache or Nginx
- Drush (optional but useful)
- A local development stack (e.g. DDEV, Lando, or Docksal)
🚀 Step-by-Step Setup
1. Create a New Drupal 11 Project
composer create-project drupal/recommended-project:^11 my_site_name
cd my_site_name
This creates a Drupal 11 site with standard directory structure and Composer-based dependency management.
2. Set File Permissions
mkdir -p web/sites/default/files
chmod -R 755 web/sites/default/files
cp web/sites/default/default.settings.php web/sites/default/settings.php
chmod 644 web/sites/default/settings.php
3. Create a Database
Create a MySQL/MariaDB database:
CREATE DATABASE drupal11 CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_general_ci;
Take note of:
- Database name
- Username/password
- Host (usually
localhost)
4. Start Local Server (Optional)
If you’re not using DDEV/Lando, you can use PHP’s built-in server:
php -S localhost:8888 -t web
Or configure Apache/Nginx to point to the web/ folder.
5. Run Drupal Installer
Open browser:
http://localhost:8888 (or your virtual host)
Go through the installer:
- Choose language
- Choose standard profile
- Provide database credentials
- Set admin username, password, and site email
6. (Optional) Install Drush
composer require drush/drush
vendor/bin/drush status
You can now use Drush to manage your site from the command line.
7. (Optional) Enable Clean URLs with .htaccess
If using Apache, make sure .htaccess is respected and mod_rewrite is enabled.
8. (Optional) Set Up Git
git init
echo "/web/sites/default/settings.php" >> .gitignore
echo "/web/sites/default/files" >> .gitignore
git add .
git commit -m "Initial Drupal 11 installation"
🧪 Verify Installation
Check:
- Admin login:
/user/login - Status report:
/admin/reports/status - Cron:
/admin/config/system/cron
✅ Optional Modules
You might want to install some popular contrib modules:
composer require drupal/admin_toolbar
composer require drupal/pathauto
composer require drupal/token
composer require drupal/redirect
Enable them with:
vendor/bin/drush en admin_toolbar pathauto token redirect -y