Installing Magnolia through npm CLI
This page explains how you can use npm CLI to install the Community Edition of Magnolia.
Prerequisites
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.
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 exampleC:\Program Files\Java\jdk-10.0.xx
. -
Optional step: Add the Magnolia
bin
directory to thePATH
variable, for example,C:\Program Files\magnolia\apache-tomcat-x.y\bin
. Setting thePATH
allows you to issue the Magnoliastart
andstop
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 addCATALINA_HOME
to environment variables. Set the value ofCATALINA_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/
.
Get nodejs and npm
Magnolia CLI runs on Node.js and npm, the Node.js package manager. Use the following two shell commands to check that you have both of them installed:
node -v npm -v
If you do not have Node.js installed, go to Node.js, download and install the latest LTS version.
For installation instructions of npm, see https://docs.npmjs.com/downloading-and-installing-node-js-and-npm.
Get Magnolia CLI
Run the following command in a shell to install Magnolia CLI:
1 | Depending on your permissions and the location where you have installed
Node.js, you may have to execute the command above with root
permissions. Without installation permissions you will notice messages
such as npm ERR! in the shell. |
Once you have installed Magnolia CLI, test the installation by running the following command in the shell:
mgnl help
Downloading Magnolia
Let’s assume that the directory where you intend to download and install
Magnolia is called magnolia
.
-
Change to this directory and open a shell.
-
Enter the following command, where with
<version>
you may specify the Magnolia release you wish to download.
(If you don’t specify the version and run the command without the-m
switch, CLI will download version6.2.40
, the latest release of the most recent Magnolia branch.mgnl jumpstart -m <version>
-
When prompted to choose a Magnolia bundle, enter
3
for themagnolia-community-demo-webapp
.
The jumpstart
command:
-
Downloads the Magnolia bundle specified into the
magnolia
directory. -
Creates a
light-modules
folder in the directory. -
Changes the default value of the
magnolia.resources.dir
configuration property from${magnolia.home}/modules
to/magnolia/light-modules
for both the Author and the Public instances of Magnolia.
Once the setup operation is complete, you should see a message similar to this one:
info Magnolia has been successfully setup for light development!
info You can now open a new terminal tab or window and start it up with the CLI command 'mgnl start'
info Magnolia will be ready after a few seconds at localhost:8080/magnoliaAuthor. Username and password is superuser
Starting Magnolia
In the parent directory of light-modules
, enter:
mgnl start
The command installs and starts Magnolia. This is complete when you see
a message like Server startup in 112737 ms
. You can then access the UI
of the Author instance.
Logging into the Author instance
Go to
http://localhost:8080/magnoliaAuthor
and log in to the Author instance with:
-
Username:
superuser
-
Password:
superuser
When you log in, the first page you see is the App Launcher
, in which you can see groups of apps:
Congratulations. Magnolia is now installed and running.