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AlexCMS 🚀

A lightweight, multilingual, self-hosted CMS built with Node.js, Express, and PostgreSQL. Designed for simplicity, speed, and easy deployment with Docker.

Screenshot

AlexCMS provides a clean admin interface for managing:

  • 📄 Articles
  • 📂 Downloads
  • 🖼️ Galleries
  • 📝 Guestbook messages
  • 🌍 Automatic translations
  • 🔐 Secure admin authentication
  • 📊 Visitor statistics
  • 🧾 SEO settings

✨ Features

🌍 Multilingual Content

  • Hungarian + English support out of the box
  • Automatic translation using Google Translate API
  • Language switching via session handling

📄 Article System

  • Rich HTML content support
  • Sanitized HTML for security
  • Image embedding support
  • Full CRUD operations for articles

📂 Download Manager

  • File upload support
  • Download counter
  • Automatic file size detection
  • Local file hosting or external links

🖼️ Gallery System

  • Image uploads
  • Gallery categories via menus
  • Automatic multilingual titles

📝 Guestbook

  • Public guestbook system
  • Admin moderation & deletion

🔐 Authentication & Security

  • bcrypt password hashing
  • SVG CAPTCHA login protection
  • Session-based authentication
  • Content Security Policy (CSP)
  • HTML sanitization
  • Login attempt limiting

📊 Visitor Statistics

  • Unique daily visit tracking
  • Total visitor count
  • Daily averages
  • Cached statistics system for better performance

🧾 SEO Ready

  • Dynamic meta description
  • Meta keywords
  • robots.txt support
  • Configurable site title

📦 Logging System

  • Winston logger
  • Daily rotating logs
  • Separate error logs
  • Automatic compression
  • Console logging support

🐳 Docker Ready

  • PostgreSQL container
  • Caddy reverse proxy
  • HTTPS support
  • Persistent volumes

🛠️ Tech Stack

Technology Purpose
Node.js Backend runtime
Express.js Web framework
PostgreSQL Database
Quill Text editor
EJS Templating
Docker Containerization
Caddy Reverse proxy & HTTPS
Winston Logging
Multer File uploads
bcrypt Password hashing
svg-captcha Login captcha
sanitize-html XSS protection
google-translate-api Translation system
http-proxy-agent Proxy support

📁 Project Structure

AlexCMS/
├── .env                      # Credentials, please delete this file later.
├── .session                  # User session key for middleware
├── docker-compose.yml        # Multi-container setup (app + db + caddy)
├── Dockerfile                # Node.js container build
├── Caddyfile                 # Reverse proxy + HTTPS config
├── package.json              # Dependencies & scripts
│
├── data/                     # Persistent user content
│   ├── uploads/              # Uploaded files (downloads)
│   └── pictures/             # Uploaded images (gallery/articles)
│
├── logs/                     # Application logs (Winston rotation)
│
├── web/                      # Main application source
│   │
│   ├── routes/               # Backend routing layer (Express)
│   │   ├── admin.js          # Admin panel (CMS core)
│   │   ├── auth.js           # Authentication & login system
│   │   ├── guestbook.js      # Guestbook functionality
│   │   └── main.js           # Public-facing routes
│   │
│   ├── views/                # EJS template engine views
│   │   ├── admin.ejs
│   │   ├── article.ejs
│   │   ├── downloads.ejs
│   │   ├── gallery.ejs
│   │   ├── guestbook.ejs
│   │   ├── index.ejs
│   │   ├── layout.ejs
│   │   ├── login.ejs
│   │   ├── menu_edit.ejs
│   │   └── privacy.ejs
│   │
│   ├── public/               # Static frontend assets
│   │   ├── js/               # Client-side scripts
│   │   │  ├── admin.js
│   │   │  ├── captcha.js
│   │   │  ├── delete.js
│   │   │  ├── gallery.js
│   │   │  └── menu_edit.js
│   │   │
│   │   ├── favicon.png
│   │   ├── robots.txt
│   │   └── style.css
│   │
│   ├── db.js                 # PostgreSQL connection layer
│   ├── logger.js             # Winston logging configuration
│   └── server.js             # Application entry point

🚀 Installation

🐳 Option 1 — Docker Deployment (Local / VPS / Simple Setup)

The simplest way to run AlexCMS is using Docker Compose.

⚙️ Requirements

  • Docker
  • Docker Compose

1. Clone Repository

git clone https://github.com/Pucur/AlexCMS.git
cd AlexCMS

2. Create Environment File

Create a .session file:

SESSION_SECRET=super_secret_key

Create a .env file:

DB_PASSWORD=your_db_password
ADMIN_USER=Admin_name
ADMIN_PASSWORD=strong_password

3. (Optional) Caddy HTTPS

Create a Caddyfile file if you wish HTTPS redirect:

example.com {
   reverse_proxy app:80
}

4. Start Containers

docker compose up -d

🌐 Access

After startup:

http://localhost

or your server IP:

http://YOUR_SERVER_IP

📁 What it starts

  • Node.js CMS (app)
  • PostgreSQL database (db)
  • Caddy reverse proxy (optional HTTPS support)

💡 Notes

  • Database is automatically initialized
  • Admin user is created on first run
  • All uploads are persisted in /data
  • Logs are stored in /logs

☁️ Option 2 — Full Automated Cloud Deployment (OCI + GitHub Actions)

This version uses CI/CD automation and provisions a full server on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

It includes:

  • Terraform infrastructure provisioning
  • Automatic server setup
  • Docker installation
  • GitHub Actions deployment pipeline
  • Auto Caddy HTTPS reverse proxy
  • First-run bootstrapping system

⚙️ Requirements

You must configure these GitHub Secrets:

Secret name Description
ADMIN_USER Username of the website administrator
COMPARTMENT OCI Compartment ID
CREDENTIAL OCI API credential name
DOMAIN Your domain name
FINGERPRINT OCI API key fingerprint
KEY_FILE OCI private API key content
REPO_VARIABLES_PAT GitHub Personal Access Token (for repository variables API)
SSH_PRIVATE_KEY SSH private key for server access
SUBNET OCI subnet ID
TENANCY OCI tenancy OCID
USER OCI user OCID

and also those Github variables:

Variable name Description
INSTALLED Indicates whether the instance has already been initialized (true / false)
INSTANCE_NAME Name of your OCI virtual machine
PUBLIC_SSH Your public SSH key used for instance access
REGION OCI region where the resources will be deployed
SERVER_IP The public IP address of your server (set automatically after deployment)
SOURCE OCI image source ID (see: https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/images/)

🚀 Deployment Flow

Once you push to main branch:

1. Infrastructure provisioning

  • OCI instance created via Terraform
  • Public IP automatically fetched

2. Server bootstrap

  • Docker installed automatically
  • System dependencies installed
  • MOTD cleaned + Fastfetch enabled (because why not 😅)
  • Git configured

3. Application deployment

  • Repository cloned via GitHub token
  • .env generated automatically
  • .session secret created
  • Caddy reverse proxy configured

4. Auto start

docker compose up -d --build

🌐 Result

Your site becomes available at:

http://SERVER_IP

or (if DOMAIN is configured):

https://example.com

🔁 Automatic Updates

Every push to main:

  • Pulls latest code
  • Rebuilds Docker containers
  • Restarts services
  • Cleans unused images

🧠 First-time setup behavior

On first deployment:

  • System packages are installed
  • Docker is configured
  • Secure passwords are generated automatically
  • GitHub variable INSTALLED=true is set
  • Server becomes fully production-ready

🔐 Security highlights

  • SSH key-based login only
  • No hardcoded secrets
  • Randomized admin + DB passwords
  • Secure session generation
  • Firewall-ready architecture (OCI default rules)

🆚 Comparison

Feature Docker OCI Auto Deploy
Setup speed ⚡ Fast ⏳ Medium
Infrastructure Local/VPS Cloud (OCI)
CI/CD ❌ Manual ✅ Fully automated
HTTPS Optional Auto (Caddy)
Scaling Manual Cloud-ready

💡 Recommendation

  • Use Docker for local development
  • Use OCI deployment for production

⚙️ Automatic Initialization

On first startup AlexCMS automatically:

  • Creates all database tables
  • Seeds default menu entries
  • Creates admin credentials
  • Initializes settings
  • Creates upload directories

📊 Database Tables

Table Purpose
menu Dynamic navigation
articles Article storage
downloads Downloadable files
gallery Image galleries
guestbook Visitor messages
settings Site configuration
visits Visitor statistics

🐳 Docker Services

Service Description
app Node.js CMS
db PostgreSQL database
caddy Reverse proxy + HTTPS

🔄 Changelog

  • Version 1.0

    I think I fixed all the bugs 🤞

📄 License

MIT License

❤️ Author

Built by Alex — use it as you wish.

If you like the project, feel free to ⭐ the repository.

About

A lightweight, multilingual, self-hosted CMS built with Node.js, Express, and PostgreSQL. Designed for simplicity, speed, and easy deployment with Docker.

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nodejs docker cms npm postgres terraform postgresql english hungarian github-actions

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