Getting Started

Automad is a PHP application and therefore requires a web server to run. However, the list of system requirements is rather short. You can choose between three installation options: Composer, Docker or manual download. In case all this is new for you and you just want to get started on your local Mac or Windows computer, please follow the local installation guide instead.

Please take a closer look at the system requirements before proceeding with the installation.

☀ Version 2

Note that Automad version 2 is around the corner. You can try already an early development version in order to start your new project ready for the future. If you prefer to use the stable version 1 instead, follow the intructions below.

More about version 2 Try a demo

Composer

The fastest way to get Automad running on your machine is using Composer.

1. Run the following command to install Automad in the current working directory:

   composer create-project automad/automad . 1.10.9
   

   A temporary user account for the Dashboard will be created automatically, which can be changed later.

2. Verify the permissions of the installation directory.
3. In case you are running an Nginx server, edit the nginx.conf as described here.

Finally log in to http://yoursite.com/dashboard using your temporary account created by Composer.

Docker

It is also possible to run Automad in a Docker container including Nginx and PHP 8.

docker run -dp 80:80 -v ./app:/app --name mysite automad/automad:v1

This will essentially make your site available at port 80 and mount a directory called app in the current working directory for data persistence. The first time you run the image, a new user account for the Automad dashboard will be created automatically. The account details will be logged by the running container. You can show these logs using the following command:

docker logs mysite

Your can now navigate to localhost to view your new site.

Manual Installation

Alternatively you can always manually install Automad following these steps:

1. Download and extract a zip file with the latest release within the public directory of your site.
2. Verify the permissions of the installation directory.
3. In case you are running an Nginx server, edit the nginx.conf as described here.
4. As a last step, create an user account in order to use the browser-based user interface called the Dashboard. Therefore navigate to https://yoursite.com/dashboard and follow the instructions.

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Getting Themes

In case you want to try out some fresh designs for your site, take a look at the collection of free themes in the package browser. Themes can be easily installed with the Dashboard or by using Composer.

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Directory Permissions

Automad requires PHP to have full write access to the installation directory. Since most servers nowadays run PHP as Fast-CGI, changes to the standard permissions should not be neccassary. However, in case you are running PHP as Apache module on a Mac or Linux machine instead, you will have to set permissions accordingly. Take a look at this Stack Overflow post for detailed instructions.

To change permission on a remote server of your hosting company, you can use a free tool called Cyberduck. You can find instructions on changing permissions with Cyberduck here.

Nginx Configuration

Automad ships with a pre-configured .htaccess file to handle URL rewriting on Apache servers. If you want to install Automad on an Nginx server instead, please edit the nginx.conf file and add something like this to the http block to enable URL rewriting:

server {
    root    /path/to/automad;
    index   index.php index.html;
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php$is_args$args;
    }
    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_index  index.php;
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        include        fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Note that the above configuration is just an example and may vary depending on your environment!