How to Install Concrete CMS on a VPS

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Concrete CMS (formerly concrete5) is known for its intuitive in-context editing experience — editors can click directly on page elements to modify them, without navigating a separate admin interface for basic content changes.

Prerequisites

Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 VPS: 2 vCPU, 2-4 GB RAM
Nginx or Apache, PHP 8.1+, MySQL/MariaDB

Step 1 — Install Required PHP Extensions

sudo apt install php8.2-gd php8.2-curl php8.2-mbstring php8.2-xml php8.2-zip php8.2-mysql -y

Step 2 — Create the Database

sudo mysql

CREATE DATABASE concretecms;
CREATE USER 'concrete'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'CHANGE_ME_STRONG_PASSWORD';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON concretecms.* TO 'concrete'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Step 3 — Download Concrete CMS

cd /var/www
sudo wget https://www.concretecms.org/download_file/-/view/VERSION
sudo unzip concrete5-*.zip -d concrete
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data concrete

Step 4 — Configure Nginx

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com;
    root /var/www/concrete;
    index index.php;

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

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
    }
}

Step 5 — Run the Web Installer

http://yourdomain.com

Follow the setup wizard: database configuration and admin account creation.

Step 6 — Add HTTPS

sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com

Using In-Context Editing

Once logged in as an editor, browsing the live site itself presents editing controls directly on page elements — a genuinely different editing paradigm compared to most CMS platforms' separate admin-panel-only editing.

Installing Add-Ons

Through the dashboard's Extend Concrete CMS section, browse and install add-ons from the official marketplace to extend functionality.

Setting File Permissions for the Application Cache

sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/concrete/application/files
sudo chmod -R 775 /var/www/concrete/application/config

Common Errors

"Unable to write to the file" errors — verify the web server user has write access to the application/files and related cache directories.

In-context editing controls don't appear — verify you're logged in with an account that has editing permissions, and that JavaScript isn't being blocked by any browser extension or CSP misconfiguration.

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