MODX Revolution CMS Installation and Setup

MODX Revolution CMS Installation and Setup

MODX Revolution 3.x is installed via web installer or CLI. Production installation requires Nginx setup, caching, .htaccess/nginx rules configuration for SEF URLs.

Installation via Composer

# MODX 3.x supports Composer
composer create-project modx/modx my-site
cd my-site

# Or traditional installation
wget https://modx.com/download/current/ -O modx.zip
unzip modx.zip

Nginx Configuration

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    server_name yourdomain.com;
    root /var/www/yourdomain.com;
    index index.php;

    # SEF URLs for MODX
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ @modx-rewrite;
    }

    location @modx-rewrite {
        rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php?q=$1 last;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    # Deny access to system files
    location ~ /\.(ht|git) { deny all; }
    location ~ /(core|config\.core\.php) { deny all; }
    location ~* /connectors/.*\.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php8.3-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Web Installer

Open https://yourdomain.com/setup/. Steps:

1. Permission check (must be writable: core/cache/, core/export/, assets/)
2. Database parameters
3. Admin creation
4. Context configuration (http/https, base URL)
5. Delete setup/ folder after installation

Security: Moving Core

By default core/ is in web-root. Recommended to move above:

mv /var/www/yourdomain.com/core /var/core-yourdomain

# config.core.php (in web-root)
<?php
define('MODX_CORE_PATH', '/var/core-yourdomain/');
define('MODX_CONFIG_KEY', 'config');

This hides main CMS files from direct web access.

Key System Settings

System → Settings → System:

friendly_urls: Yes
friendly_alias_urls: Yes
use_alias_path: Yes        # hierarchical URLs /about/team/
cache_resource: Yes
cache_context_settings: Yes
session_cookie_secure: Yes  # HTTPS only
session_cookie_httponly: Yes

Installing Extras via Package Manager

System → Package Management → Package Search:

Essential for most projects:
- pdoTools (basis for pdoResources, pdoMenu, pdoPage)
- FastTab (organize TV in tabs)
- Ace (code editor with highlighting)
- Seosuite or seo (SEO meta-tags)

For forms:
- FormIt

For search:
- SimpleSearch or mSearch2

Package Manager via Console

// Installation via API
$modx->runSnippet('pdoTools');  // check

// Or via transport package
$pkg = $modx->newObject('transport.modTransportPackage');
$pkg->fromXML('path/to/package.transport.zip');
$pkg->install();

Basic Setup After Installation

1. Create Default template (empty HTML to start development)
2. Configure web context: System → Contexts → web → URL
3. Create root resource (Homepage) with Default template
4. Configure Error Page (404): System → Settings → error_page → resource ID

Timeline

MODX installation on VPS with core moved above web-root, Nginx setup and basic Extras — 3–5 hours.