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Production installation

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Jaromír Kejda edited this page Jan 28, 2019 · 3 revisions

Dear user, welcome to the Production installation guide.

This tutorial will guide you through the set-up process of the JasperSite CMS.

Step 1 - Getting the right webhosting

Certain webhosting criteria have to be met before you can proceed to the installation process. Basically, your webhosting has to support the .NET Core 2.1 framework. You will also need a MySQL or MSSQL database. Let's also assume that you have already obtained your domain name (in this tutorial www.mywebsite.com). Here is a list of some webhosting providers supporting .NET Core 2.1:

Step 2 - Uploading the production-ready CMS to your webhosting

After you have logged into your webhosting administration, you can upload the JasperSite into the root folder of your website. You can download the production-ready files from the Releases section. As you might know, the JasperSite CMS and many other CMS require a certain level of permissions. For security purposes, it is a good practice to generally assign the minimal required permissions. By default, most of the webhosting providers will automatically assign the read-only permission for your root folder and other included files. You need manually set these permissions to read/write for the following files and folders:

  • ./jasper.json (main configuration file)
  • ./Themes (folder with themes)
  • ./Jasper-content (folder with user-uploaded images)

You can change these settings within your webhosting administration panel or through your favourite FTP client. After you have done that, also make sure, that your website is running (many .NET webhosting services provides an On/Off switcher for powering on and shutting down your entire website).

Step 3 - Boot up the installation page

Visit your website (www.mywebsite.com). An installation page should appear with further instructions. In this section, you are asked to choose your language, setup your database, and create a new admin account. At this point, the installation could fail from the following reasons:

  • You didn't set the required permissions properly. You can try to set the read/write permission for the whole root of your project.
  • The Recreate selected database option was selected but your webhosting doesn't support this feature (no dbcreator permission is assigned to your database account).
  • An invalid database connection string was specified.
  • Selected database is currently offline.
  • Your database is not empty (contains tables from the previous installation of JasperSite). You need to make sure your database is empty or tick the Recreate selected database option (granted you have the permission to create a database - some webhostings does not support this option).
  • Database Timeout - if your internet connection or your webhosting is too slow, the installation can fail due to a database connection timeout. For example, the connection string for the MSSQL database supports a Connection Timeout attribute (....;Connection Timeout = 30) - this means, that the database server has 30 seconds to establish the connection.

After the installation is completed you will be redirected to the login page. Now you can log in with the credentials that you specified during the installation.

Step 4 - Activate your website by choosing a theme

Your website is now showing only the default guide page. In order to display your content, such as articles, you need to change your current theme in the Theme section of your administration page. You can pick for example the Clean Blog theme.

Step 5 (optional) - Login to your account and perform a basic set-up

If you wish to use a contact-me form or enable comments on your website, please proceed to the following optional chapters:

Contact-me form

Optionally activate the Contact me form on your website: Navigate to the Settings section and locate the Global configuration file jasper.json section. You should see something like this:

"enableEmail": "",
  "email": {
    "smtpserver": "",
    "username": "",
    "password": "",
    "from": "",
    "to": ""
  }

Most of the current webhosting services provides you with free e-mail. From your webhosting or e-mail provider you can get all the required information. Please fill in all the required attributes, for example:

"enableEmail":"True",
  "email": {
    "smtpserver": "mail.mywebsite.com",
    "username": "mymail@mywebsite.com",
    "password": "myLongPassword",
    "from": "mail@mywebsite.com",
    "to": "mail@mywebsite.com"
  }

Usually, the "from" attribute has to be the same as the "smtpserver" attribute. The "to" attribute designates the e-mail address where you can read the messages left by visitors of your page. Confirm your changes by clicking the Save and update button.

Set-up your comments

People visiting your page can leave comments under your articles if you wish so. This has to be activated in a similar manner as the contact-me form.

  1. Firstly, you need to create your Disqus account, if you haven't done already.
  2. In the aforementioned Global configuration file jasper.json section of your administration there is a disqus setting that needs to be configured. First of all, set the enabled property of the disqus setting to true.
  3. Configure the urlStart property by filling in usually the following options (depends on your current webhosting settings):
  • http://
  • https://
  • https://www.

This information is Disqus using to identify your website. The urlStart property will be in the end prepended to your current URL ex.: https://www. mywebsite.com.

  1. Configure the src property by stating the URL to your disqus account. (The /.embed.js will be automatically appended to this property.)

The final configuration settings can look like the following:

 "disqus": {
    "enabled": "true",
    "urlStart": "http://",
    "src": "https://my-disqus-account-name.disqus.com"
  }

Finally, don't forget to save your changes.

Step 6 - Useful tips

  • You can now view your website by visiting www.mywebsite.com.
  • You can login into the administration panel by visiting www.mywebsite.com/admin.
  • You can add additional users and set-up user roles in the Settings section of the administration page.
  • If you have corrupted the JasperSite CMS, you can try to reinstall the whole system using the Settings/ Show Installation page option.
  • You can edit the individual theme templates through your FTP client. All themes are located in the Themes folder in the root of your website. All changes are propagated on the fly.
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