Installing Magnolia

This guide assumes that you are installing Magnolia for non-production purposes. Installation and deployment of Magnolia for production is usually associated with additional installation, configuration steps and testing phases that are not mentioned in this guide.

See also the Modifying the magnolia.home property section on the Configuration management page.

Get Java

Magnolia needs at least a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to run. Check if there’s a version of Java already installed on your computer by opening the terminal or command prompt and typing java -version in a terminal or command prompt. If the system reports a version number, Java is installed on your computer.

See the Certified stack page to confirm that the version installed is supported.

If you don’t have Java on your computer, proceed to install it.

Windows
Mac
Linux

On Windows, you need a Java SE Development Kit (JDK). The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is not enough because the Tomcat application server does not recognize it.

What is the difference?

JRE is for users who run Java programs on their computers.
JDK is for developers who write Java-based applications.

Download and install JDK. By default, JDK is installed at C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-<version>\. You can choose another location.

Check JAVA_HOME environment variable

Open the command prompt.
Type set and press ENTER.
Find JAVA_HOME in the command output and verify that the path points to your JDK installation directory, for example, C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-<version>>.xx.
If JAVA_HOME is missing or it points to the wrong directory, see Set JAVA_HOME environment variable below.

Set JAVA_HOME environment variable

Right-click My Computer and select Properties.
Go to the Advanced tab.
(In Windows 7+, right-click Computer and select Advanced System Settings, then Environment variables.)
If the JAVA_HOME environment variable does not exist in User variables or System variables, create it:
- User variables apply to the currently signed-in user only. Create JAVA_HOME here if you want it to apply only to the currently logged-in user. These variables take precedence over system variables.
- System variables apply to all users. Create JAVA_HOME here if you want it to apply to all users. You must be an administrator to modify a system environment variable.
Set the value of JAVA_HOME to the path of your JDK installation directory, for example C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-10.0.xx.
Optional step: Add the Magnolia bin directory to the PATH variable, for example, C:\Program Files\magnolia\apache-tomcat-x.y\bin. Setting the PATH allows you to issue the Magnolia start and stop commands from anywhere without navigating to the installation directory first. Separate the path from existing paths with a semicolon ( ; ). If you do this, you also need to add CATALINA_HOME to environment variables. Set the value of CATALINA_HOME to the Tomcat installation directory, for example, C:\Program Files\magnolia\apache-tomcat-x.y
Click OK.
Go back to Check JAVA_HOME environment variable above and test that the variable is found and has the correct value. You need to open a new command prompt since environment variables are session specific.

Alternatively, you can set JAVA_HOME with a batch file. Add this line to /apache-tomcat/bin/magnolia_control.bat:

set JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-<version>>.xx

The set command creates the JAVA_HOME environment variable and sets its value to the JDK directory. The command is executed when Magnolia starts.

For Mac, you need to download or update to Java 11 or higher. After reviewing and agreeing to the terms of the license agreement, download the file, then double-click it to launch the installation wizard and follow the installation instructions.

The installation directory varies from one Linux system to another. On Debian-based distributions, JREs or JDKs are usually installed in /usr/lib/jvm/.

As an alternative to the following instructions, you can use the Magnolia CLI to install and start Magnolia.

Download Magnolia

magnolia-community-demo-webapp-6.2.39-tomcat-bundle.zip

Other downloads

Extract the zip to your computer.

Extracted folder structure

magnolia-x.y/
├── add-ons/
└── apache-tomcat-x.y/
    ├── bin/
    ├── conf/
    ├── lib/
    ├── logs/
    ├── temp/
    ├── webapps/
    | ├── magnoliaAuthor/
    | ├── magnoliaPublic/
    | └── ROOT/
    └── work/

Where to extract:

Extract the zip to /Applications or another directory on your computer.

Extract the zip to C:\Users\<username>\magnolia or another directory on your computer.

If you are installing Magnolia for personal use extract the zip to /home/<your account> or equivalent directory. If you are installing onto a production server extract the zip to /usr/local or /opt. A normal user account may not have permissions to extract files into a target directory such as /opt. If this is the case extract the zip in the folder where you downloaded it, open a terminal window, and move the extracted folder using sudo mv magnolia-x.y. The sudo command will execute the mv (move) command as superuser, prompting you for a password.

If you are installing Magnolia for personal use extract the zip to /export/home/<your account> or equivalent directory. If you are installing onto a production server extract the zip to /usr/local or /opt. A normal user account may not have permissions to extract files into a target directory such as /opt. If this is the case extract the zip in the folder where you downloaded it, open a terminal window, and move the extracted folder using sudo mv magnolia-x.y. The sudo command will execute the mv (move) command as superuser, prompting you for a password.

GPL v3 disclaimer

Magnolia Community Edition software is distributed free-of-charge and without any warranty under the terms of the GNU General Public License (version 3), a license that permits you to redistribute and modify the software under certain terms and conditions. It is important that you read the license to understand your rights and obligations.

Start Magnolia

Go to the magnolia-x.y/apache-tomcat-x.y/bin directory and type:

./magnolia_control.sh start

If you get an error due to a low max open files limit, try executing the command with the --ignore-open-files-limit option:

./magnolia_control.sh start --ignore-open-files-limit

Detailed instructions

Mac OS

Open a terminal window in Applications > Utilities > Terminal.

Go to the Magnolia installation directory

cd /Applications/magnolia-x.y/apache-tomcat/bin

Start Magnolia.

./magnolia_control.sh start && tail -f ../logs/catalina.out

The first part of the startup command ./magnolia_control.sh start launches Magnolia. The second part && tail -f ../logs/catalina.out displays log messages written to /apache-tomcat/logs/catalina.out log file. This makes it easier to troubleshoot startup errors.

Magnolia reports startup information. If startup fails, look for the reason in the report. In a successful startup the last line reads:
INFO: Server startup in 12345 ms.

To stop Magnolia, type CTRL + C, then ./magnolia_control.sh stop and press RETURN.

Windows

Open a command prompt and go to the Magnolia installation directory.
(To do this, type cd C:\Users\<username>\magnolia-x.y\apache-tomcat\bin)
Type magnolia_control.bat start and press ENTER.
Magnolia reports startup information in a new Tomcat window. If startup fails, look for the reason in the report. In a successful startup the last line reads: INFO: Server startup in 12345 ms

To stop Magnolia, type CTRL + C, then ./magnolia_control.bat stop and press ENTER.

Linux

Open a terminal window.
Go to the Magnolia installation directory:
cd /home/<your account>/magnolia-x.y/apache-tomcat/bin
Your path may be different.
Start Magnolia:
In bash shell: ./magnolia_control.sh start && tail -f ../logs/catalina.out
In fish shell: ./magnolia_control.sh start; tail -f ../logs/catalina.out

The first part of the startup command ./magnolia_control.sh start launches Magnolia. The appended part tail -f ../logs/catalina.out displays log messages written to /apache-tomcat/logs/catalina.out log file. This makes it easier to troubleshoot startup errors.

Magnolia reports startup information. If startup fails, look for the reason in the report. In a successful startup the last line reads:
INFO: Server startup in 12345 ms

To stop Magnolia, type CTRL + C, then ./magnolia_control.sh stop and press ENTER.

Solaris

Open a terminal window.
Go to the Magnolia installation directory:
cd /home/userAccount/magnolia-x.y/apache-tomcat/bin
Your path may be different.
Start Magnolia:
./magnolia_control.sh start && tail -f ../logs/catalina.out

Magnolia reports startup information. If startup fails, look for the reason in the report. In a successful startup the last line reads:
INFO: Server startup in 12345 ms

To stop Magnolia, type CTRL + C, then ./magnolia_control.sh stop and press ENTER.

Web update

To install Magnolia:

Open a browser and go to http://localhost:8080.
Click Run the Web update on the author instance, then Start installation.
Click Run the Web update on the public instance, then Start installation.

Welcome to Magnolia page

Magnolia installation

Magnolia installs its modules. When the installation is complete on the author and public instances, click Start up Magnolia on both.

Start up Magnolia

Login

Go to http://localhost:8080/magnoliaAuthor and sign in as:

Username: superuser
Password: superuser

Magnolia is ready to use and gives you a list of suggestions to get started.

A superuser is a system administrator account that has permissions to do everything. It is useful for testing.

Troubleshooting

Having problems? See Known issues for help.

Installing Magnolia