Installing Nano CMS in Five Minutes

Getting Started

Nano CMS ships as two zips - a permanent frontend and a portable admin - and installs without a database or a build step.

The five steps

  1. Upload the frontend zip to /blog/ in your site's webroot.
  2. Create the config by opening /blog/install.php in your browser. It makes a config folder outside the webroot and writes bootstrap.php for you. (Prefer to do it by hand? Copy bootstrap.example.php to bootstrap.php and set the two paths.)
  3. Upload the admin zip to /blog/admin/.
  4. Run the setup wizard at /blog/admin/setup.php. Set your password; it writes config.json and hands you to the dashboard.
  5. Delete install.php when the dashboard offers to - it has done its job.

Why config lives outside the webroot

config.json holds your password hash and licence key, and rate-limit.json tracks failed logins. Keeping them above the webroot means they can never be downloaded over HTTP, even if PHP stops running.

With that done, you're ready to publish your first post.