Installation

Installation is included with Respond 7. But, if you are the DIY type or you just want to see how it works, you can learn how to install Respond on a traditional LAMP deployment. Before we get started, read about the server requirements. If you are an experience developer, you might also want to checkout out our documentation on installing the app from Github. This requires a little more work but gives you a number of long-term benefits.

1. Create the directory structure for Respond

You create your directory structure by navigating to your web root and creating folders for Respond. You can also do this using a graphical tool (such as sFTP). Below we are creating the following structure: var/www/html/respond/app. The zip will go in the app folder.

// go to your HTML root
cd var/www/html

// create the install directory
mkdir respond

// switch directories
cd respond

// create a directory to hold the app and sites
mkdir app

2. Copy ZIP to app folder

Copy the provided zip to your respond directory. You can use an sFTP client or the command line.

// install unzip (if not already installed). The command below uses apt-get.  Your package manager may vary.
sudo apt-get install unzip

// unzip it into the app directory
unzip release.zip -d app

3. Make the two sites directories

We are also adding a var/www/html/respond/app/public/sites folder that will hold the sites and a var/www/html/respond/app/resources/sites folder that will hold private data about your sites. We are then giving the app permission to write to these directoriesThis is typically done by making Apache the owner of the directory. You can also set read-write permissions (e.g. 755) on the folder. Contact your hosting provider about the correct permissions for writeable directories.

// make sites directory in app (app/public/sites)
mkdir app/public/sites

// make sites directory in app (app/resources/sites)
mkdir app/resources/sites

// make the directories writeable
chown -R www-data app/public/sites
chown -R www-data app/resources/sites

4. Setup env

Copy the env file. You can set this up later to specify email and other settings.

// switch to app directory
cp app/.env.example app/.env

5. Map domains

We recommend you setup a domain for your application and a sub-domain (or domain) for each of your sites. This allows you to secure your application using https and provide nice URLs for sites created using the CMS. Domains are typically setup using DNS and your htdocs file. Refer to your hosting provider's documentation on setting up domains. For installs that will host multiple sites, we have created a guide for installing wildcard DNS based on our Digital Ocean setup.

.../respond
.../respond/app/public   ->  https://app.myrespond.com
.../respond/app/public/sites/mysite  ->  https://mysite.myrespond.com or https://app.myrespond.com/sites/my-site

6. Test installation and Create your first site.

Navigate to https://app.myrespond.com/install (where app.myrespond.com is your installation URL) to test your installation. Then create your first site at https://app.myrespond.com/create. Note: the default passcode is "iloverespond". This can be changed in your .env file or removed if you set it to blank.