Installing CrafterCMS on WSL 2

This section describes in detail how to install/setup CrafterCMS on Windows via WSL 2.

First, we need to install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) by following the instructions here which will enable the required optional components, download the latest Linux kernel, set WSL 2 as your default, and install Ubuntu Linux for you.

All the commands/scripts in this section should be executed in your Ubuntu (or Linux distribution of choice) terminal.

To open your Ubuntu terminal, click on the Ubuntu icon from the Start menu, or, from a command prompt, type ubuntu or ubuntu1604 or ubuntu2004 depending on the version you’ve downloaded.

Setting up CrafterCMS in Windows - Open the Ubuntu terminal

It is recommended we store all files in the WSL file system for better performance speed.

See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/ for more information on WSL.

Installing CrafterCMS from Prebuilt Binaries

Here are the steps to start using CrafterCMS for development or evaluation by installing CrafterCMS from the prebuilt binaries:

Download and install Java 8

Download and install Java JDK 1.8 (either Oracle or OpenJDK).

Make sure that you have a JAVA_HOME environment variable that points to the root of the JDK install directory. See here for more information on the JAVA_HOME environment variable

Here’s an example of installing Java JDK 1.8 using apt then setup JAVA_HOME
Install Java JDK 1.8 and setup JAVA_HOME
```
sudo apt install openjdk-8-jdk
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin
```
Download CrafterCMS binaries

Download the CrafterCMS install prebuilt binaries from https://craftercms.org/downloads

Select crafter-cms-authoring-VERSION.tar.gz. The .tar.gz file will install a fully functional authoring instance. Out of the box, the authoring instance uses a local directory as the repository and an embedded database, which allows a quick and easy set up for local development.

You can download the CrafterCMS prebuilt binaries directly onto the WSL file system from the Ubuntu terminal using wget or curl, or, you can copy/move the prebuilt binaries in the Windows file system to the WSL file system via the Ubuntu terminal or the Windows File Explorer.

The Linux (WSL) file system root directory is : \\wsl$\Ubuntu-20.04\home\<user name>\path\to\project

The Windows file system root directory is : /mnt/c/Users/<user name>/path/to/project$ or C:\Users\<user name>\path\to\project
Extract the CrafterCMS binaries

Extract the contents in any directory.
Extract the contents of the CrafterCMS binary archive file to a directory
```
tar -zxvf crafter-cms-authoring-VERSION.tar.gz -C /tmp/extract_to_some_directory/
```
The extracted files should look like this:
CrafterCMS extracted files directory structure
```
{Crafter-CMS-unzip-directory}
|--crafter/
   |--LICENSE
   |--README.txt
   |--bin/
```
Start CrafterCMS

To start CrafterCMS:

From the command line, navigate to the {Crafter-CMS-unzip-directory}/crafter/bin/ directory, and execute the startup script:
Start CrafterCMS
```
./startup.sh
```
Note

It takes a few seconds for CrafterCMS to startup and takes longer to startup the very first time you startup CrafterCMS.

To stop CrafterCMS:

From the command line, navigate to the {Crafter-CMS-unzip-directory}/crafter/bin/ directory, and execute the shutdown script:
Stop CrafterCMS
```
./shutdown.sh
```
Access Crafter Studio

In your browser, go to
```
http://localhost:8080/studio
```
- Login with the following:
  - username: admin
  - password: admin
After logging in, you should be redirected to the Sites screen, and you’re now ready to create your first experience!