Concrete CMS Installation and Setup

Concrete CMS Installation and Setup

Concrete CMS requires PHP 7.4–8.2, MySQL 5.7+/MariaDB 10.2+ or PostgreSQL, Apache/Nginx. Official support is for Composer installation — the preferred method for projects.

Installation via Composer

composer create-project -n concrete5/composer mysite
cd mysite

# Web installer: open http://yourdomain.com/index.php/install
# Or CLI installation:
./vendor/bin/concrete5 c5:install \
  --db-server=localhost \
  --db-username=myuser \
  --db-password=secret \
  --db-database=mysite_db \
  --site="My Site" \
  [email protected] \
  --admin-password=StrongPass123 \
  --starting-point=elemental_blank

Starting points: elemental_blank (clean), elemental_full (with demo content).

Directory Structure

mysite/
  application/          # customizations (in git)
    config/
    files/
    single_pages/
    views/
  concrete/             # CMS core (don't touch, updated via composer)
  packages/             # installed packages (in git)
  public/               # web root (document root)
    application/
    packages/
    index.php
  vendor/               # composer dependencies (not in git)

Server document root must point to public/ directory.

Nginx Configuration

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name mysite.com;
    root /var/www/mysite/public;
    index index.php;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.1-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    # Close application/
    location ~* ^/application/ {
        deny all;
    }
}

Environment Configuration

// application/config/app.php
return [
    'debug'     => false,
    'url'       => 'https://mysite.com',
    'charset'   => 'UTF-8',
    'timezone'  => 'Europe/Minsk',
    'locale'    => 'ru_RU',
];

// application/config/database.php
return [
    'default-connection' => 'concrete',
    'connections'        => [
        'concrete' => [
            'driver'   => 'c5_pdo_mysql',
            'server'   => 'localhost',
            'database' => 'mysite_db',
            'username' => 'myuser',
            'password' => 'secret',
            'charset'  => 'utf8mb4',
        ],
    ],
];

Environment Variables (.env)

CONCRETE5_DB_SERVER=localhost
CONCRETE5_DB_DATABASE=mysite_db
CONCRETE5_DB_USERNAME=myuser
CONCRETE5_DB_PASSWORD=secret
CONCRETE5_URL=https://mysite.com

Core Update

composer update concrete5/core
./vendor/bin/concrete5 c5:update
./vendor/bin/concrete5 c5:cache:clear

CLI Administration Commands

# Clear cache
./vendor/bin/concrete5 c5:cache:clear

# Install package
./vendor/bin/concrete5 c5:package:install my-package

# Create user
./vendor/bin/concrete5 c5:user:add admin2 [email protected] Password123

# Rebuild search index
./vendor/bin/concrete5 c5:index:sites

Dashboard: Initial Setup

After installation via Dashboard → System & Settings:

• Cache & Speed — enable Full Page Caching in production
• SEO & Statistics — configure canonical URL, robots.txt
• Files — max upload size, allowed types
• Email — SMTP settings (required before forms launch)
• API — enable REST API if headless mode needed