• Document Under Review
  • Since 4.0.0

Getting Started

This section lets you get started quickly on using CrafterCMS.

How do I install CrafterCMS? First, let’s make sure we have all the requirements.

Requirements

To run CrafterCMS, the following are required:

  • Java 11

  • 8+ Gig of memory to JVM (additional memory may be required depending on the size and number of your web experiences)

  • Git 2.20.1 and later

Please note that CrafterCMS does not require any external databases for the core system to run and deliver fully dynamic experiences. MongoDB is used by Crafter Profile and Crafter Social which are optional components that provide user management and social features.

Supported Platforms

OS (All components)

The following Operating Systems are supported (64Bit only for all OSs)

  • Linux (Ubuntu, RHEL)

  • macOS (10.12 and later)

  • Windows via WSL

JVMs (All components)

The following JVMs are supported:

  • OpenJDK 11

  • Oracle JDK (HotSpot) 11

Verify Java Version

Ensure that you are running Java 11. To check, run the following command at the command prompt and make sure that the version displayed is Java 11:

java -version

The command above should output something like this:

openjdk version "11.0.11

Verify JAVA_HOME environment variable is set correctly

Make sure that you have a JAVA_HOME environment variable that points to the root of the JDK install directory. To check the value set for JAVA_HOME, enter the following command at the command prompt:

env | grep JAVA_HOME

How to set the JAVA_HOME environment variable

To set JAVA_HOME

  • Korn and bash shells:

    export JAVA_HOME=jdk-install-dir
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

  • Bourne shell:

    JAVA_HOME=jdk-install-dir
export JAVA_HOME
PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
export PATH

  • C shell:

    setenv JAVA_HOME jdk-install-dir
export JAVA_HOME
PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
export PATH
setenv PATH $JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

Browsers (Crafter Studio & Crafter Social/Profile Admin Consoles)

The following browsers are supported:

  • Chrome and Chromium-based Browsers

  • Firefox

  • MS Edge

OS X Prerequisite

For OS X users, the latest openssl formula needs to be installed via homebrew:

brew install openssl

Linux Prerequisite

  1. The library libaio is required by the Authoring install. Please note that some Linux distributions does not install the library libaio by default and so, may need to be installed. You may get the following error when starting up Studio:

    error while loading shared libraries: libaio.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

    To install libaio for Debian-based Linux distros: sudo apt install libaio1

    To install libaio for RedHat-based Linux distros: yum install libaio

  2. For Linux users, some of the scripts uses lsof. Please note that some Linux distributions does not come with lsof pre-installed and so, may need to be installed.

    To install lsof for Debian-based Linux distros: apt-get install lsof

    To install lsof for RedHat-based Linux distros: yum install lsof

  3. The library libncurses5 is required for the Authoring install and the restore script. You may get the following error when running an Authoring install or the restore script without the libncurses5 library installed:

    error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

    To install the library libncurses5, use the following commands:

    On Debian-based Linux distros: sudo apt install libncurses5

    On RHEL, CentOS: sudo yum install ncurses-compat-libs

    On Fedora 22 and newer version: sudo dnf install ncurses-compat-libs

Windows Prerequisite

For Windows users, WSL 2 needs to be installed. All CrafterCMS scripts/commands to be executed and items that needs to be downloaded and installed needs to be in WSL 2.

Follow the instructions here to install WSL 2.

Building with Gradle Prerequisites

For building with Gradle for installing CrafterCMS, the following must be installed in your system:

On Linux/Windows WSL 2

  • Java 11

  • Git 2.20.1+

  • Maven 3.3.x+

  • make and GCC

    • For Debian based distributions (such as Ubuntu), make and GCC can be installed through build-essential

      sudo apt install build-essential

    • For RHEL based distributions (such as CentOS), make and GCC can be installed through “Development Tools”

      yum groupinstall "Development Tools"

On macOS

  • Java 11

  • Git 2.20.1+

  • Maven 3.3.x+

  • make and GCC, which can be installed from XCode Command Line Tools

    xcode-select --install

    • For macOS Catalina, a failure may occur with node-gyp when building like below:

      [ERROR] Building: /Users/myuser/craftercms/src/studio/target/node/node /Users/myuser/craftercms/src/studio-ui/ui/scss/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js rebuild --verbose --libsass_ext= --libsass_cflags= --libsass_ldflags= --libsass_library=

      See https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/blob/master/macOS_Catalina.md for more information on resolving the issue.

Installing and running CrafterCMS is easy. You have a number of choices:

Linux System

You can use the Linux bundles or Docker.

Mac System

You can use Mac bundles or ref:Docker<newIa-running-craftercms-in-docker>.

Windows

You can use WSL or ref:Docker<newIa-running-craftercms-in-docker>.

Note that the preferred method of installing and running CrafterCMS is via the binary archive through WSL as described here.

AWS

You can use Linux bundles or a prebuilt AMI<https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=6d75ffca-9630-44bd-90b4-ac0e99058995> from the AWS marketplace.

SaaS

You can sign up for Crafter Cloud<https://craftercms.com/products/crafter-cloud>.

How do I start crafting my experiences?

Once you have CrafterCMS up and running, proceed to learn more about CrafterCMS by reviewing the documentation based on your role or interest here.