How to Set Up and Configure the Mainsail CMS on Your Raspberry Pi in a Breeze

This step-by-step guide will help you install Mainsail, a powerful content management system (CMS), on your Raspberry Pi. Learn how to set up Mainsail on your Raspberry Pi and start publishing your co …

Updated August 9, 2023

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What is Mainsail?

Mainsail is an open-source CMS designed for small teams, individuals, and hobbyists. It provides a simple way to create and manage content without any coding knowledge required. With Mainsail, you can build blogs, portfolios, and documentation sites with ease. This CMS is built using Python and Flask, and it’s perfect for anyone looking to run their own website or web application on a Raspberry Pi.

Prerequisites

Before we begin installing Mainsail, make sure you have the following set up:

A Raspberry Pi (with Raspbian installed)
An internet connection
Python 3 and pip installed on your Raspberry Pi

To check if Python 3 is already installed, open a terminal window and type python3 --version. If you don’t have Python 3, you can install it by running:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3

Next, make sure pip is also installed. Run pip --version to check. If not, install it using the following command:

sudo apt install python3-pip

Step 1: Install Mainsail

Now that we have our prerequisites ready, let’s get started with installing Mainsail on our Raspberry Pi. Open a terminal window and run the following command to install Mainsail using pip:

sudo pip3 install mainsail-cms

Step 2: Create a New Mainsail Project

After installation, navigate to your desired directory and create a new Mainsail project by running:

mainsail init myproject

Replace myproject with the name of your choice. This command will create a new folder in your current working directory with all the necessary files for your Mainsail site. Navigate into this folder:

cd myproject

Step 3: Configure Mainsail

Mainsail uses a configuration file to store important settings like database credentials and other options. Open the config.py file in your favorite text editor and modify it according to your needs. The following settings are recommended:

DEBUG: Set this to False for production use.
SECRET_KEY: Generate a random secret key using Python’s secrets module by running python3 -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe())" and pasting the output here.
SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI: This should point to your database location, such as SQLite for small projects (sqlite:///mainsail.db).
MAIL_SERVER, MAIL_PORT, MAIL_USERNAME, MAIL_PASSWORD, and MAIL_USE_TLS: Configure these settings if you want Mainsail to send emails (e.g., for password resets).

Step 4: Set Up the Database

Mainsail uses SQLAlchemy to handle database operations. To create the necessary tables, run the following command:

mainsail db init

Step 5: Create an Admin User

Before we can access our Mainsail site, we need to create an admin user account. Run the following command and follow the prompts:

mainsail user create

Step 6: Start the Development Server

Now that everything is set up, let’s start the development server by running:

mainsail run

Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:50000 or http://<your-raspberry-pi-ip>:50000 to see your Mainsail site. You should be presented with the admin login screen, where you can log in using the credentials you created earlier.

Step 7: Create Your First Post

After logging in, click on “New” under “Posts” in the sidebar to create your first post. Enter a title and content, then hit “Save.” You should now see your new post on the main page of your Mainsail site.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Mainsail on your Raspberry Pi and created your first blog post. From here, you can continue to explore Mainsail’s features by adding more content, customizing your site’s appearance, and setting up additional functionality like user registration and commenting. For more advanced configuration options, refer to the official Mainsail documentation.