How to Deploy Nodize CMS

Nodize is an open source lightweight content management system, written in CoffeeScript. It offers such features as live articles' update (by means of Socket.io and JQuery), drag&drop uploads and pages sorting, helping to bring your website to a new level. Among other useful capabilities of this CMS you can benefit on, are easy integration of articles into HTML code and auto-generated SEO-friendly URLs. Nodize visual interface is truly simple and comfortable to work with, allowing to put together a website within minutes.

Below, you can find a simple step-by-step instruction on how to install, configure and run Nodize CMS at the platform. So, log in to your PaaS account let’s go on!

• set up environment and DB
• deploy and configure Nodize
• start application

Set Up Environment and Database

1. Click the New environment button on the top dashboard pane.

In the appeared frame, switch to the Node.js tab (where NodeJS application server will be chosen automatically as the only available one), select the desired engine version and enable the MySQL node within the SQL database section to the left.

Then, state the amount of resources for each layer using cloudlet sliders in the middle section, select the preferred environment region, name your environment (e.g. nodize) and click Create.

2. Once the environment is ready and appears at the dashboard, let’s proceed with DB configurations - namely, you need to create a dedicated database, where your project data will be stored.

So, access the MySQL web interface by clicking the Open in Browser button next to your database node.

3. Use the credentials you’ve previously received via email to log in and navigate to the Users tab at the top pane.

Click the Add user link within the New section.

4. Specify the desired User name and Password within the appropriate fields. Tick the Create database with same name and grant all privileges option below and click on Go at the very bottom.

5. As a result, you’ll see a message informing that your new user with a dedicated database was successfully added.

Now, we can proceed to the app server configuration.

Deploy and Configure Nodize

Once the database is created, you need to deploy Nodize CMS itself and connect it to this DB.

1. Navigate to Nodize sources at GitHub and click Copy to clipboard next to the project link at the top pane.

2. Then, return to the platform dashboard and select the Add project button for the NodeJS app server.

3. In order to launch the CMS, paste the URL you’ve just copied to the appropriate field within the Git tab and click Add.

Wait a bit for all of the required operations to be completed (it will take some time to build and deploy the project).

4. Now, let’s configure the connection between application and database.

Open the configuration tab by clicking the Config icon next to your application server.

5. In the appeared tab, locate the webroot/ROOT/themes/pageone/settings/database.json file and adjust the parameters it comprises with your custom values (indicated with the curly brackets below):

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"host" : "{db_ip}",
"port" : 3306,
"database" : "{db_name}",
"user" : "{db_user}",
"password" : "{user_password}",
"logging" : false,
"dialect" : "mysql"

where:

• {db_ip} - internal IP address of your database

  Note: You can find node IP by expanding the Additionally list (gear icon) at the appropriate line.

  

• {db_name} - name of the database you’ve created in the previous section
• {db_user} - dedicated user for the stated database
• {user_password} - user’s password

As a result, you should get the similar config:

Don’t forget to Save the changes with the appropriate button.

6. Next, navigate to the webroot/ROOT/settings/nodize.json file and substitute the default value of the pixlr_callback_server line (approximately at the 32nd line) with a link to your environment.

Save the changes once again.

Start Application

Finally, when all the preparations are done, let’s start Nodize CMS itself - follow the next steps to perform this:

1. Locate the package.json file within the webroot/ROOT folder and insert the following line into the scripts section (starts approximately at the 41st line):

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"start": "cd ~/ROOT/ && coffee app.coffee",

Save the changes with the appropriate button on the top pane.

2. In order to apply the made changes, Restart your NodeJS app server by clicking the appropriate button.

3. While this operation is performed, open the node.log file by clicking the Log button next to your app server node and selecting it within the list to the left. Here, you can track the current status of the server initialization process.

Wait a while for the Sequelize session store initialized string to appear and you are good to proceed.

4. Finally, hit the Open in Browser button next to your environment (an empty page should be opened, as you haven’t added anything to your site yet) and append /admin to the end of the URL within the tab address bar.

You’ll see a login frame opened, where you need to specify the admin user credentials you’ve got during the first initialization (within the preceding instruction step). Click the Login button.

Great! Now you can start creating, editing or deleting any content at your site with the help of a simple and powerful Nodize CMS, enjoy!

What’s next?

• Tutorials by Category
• Node.js Tutorials
• Setting Up Environment