Install Mezzanine CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 | 18.10

Mezzanine CMS, a free, fast, elegant, open source content management system (CMS) built on top of the popular web-development framework Django. It is a powerful and modern content management system for developing modern websites.

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to get Mezzanine CMS installed on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 and 18.10.

If you’re a developer who is going to be developing apps in Django, it may be a good thing to use Mezzanine to make the process seemless with rapid development and clean pragmatic design.

For more about Mezzanine, please visit its homepage.

There are multiple ways to install Mezzanine on Ubuntu, however, the quickest way is go use Python and PIP to get it installed. Below, we’ll show you how to do that.When you’re ready to get Mezzanine on Ubuntu, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Install Prerequisites

By default, Ubuntu comes with some packages but not everything that allows you to install Mezzanine web framework. For example, Python might not come standard with Ubuntu so you may have to install it. Run the commands below to install Python and Python-pip.

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install python python-pip virtualenv

That should install what you need to get Mezzanine installed on Ubuntu.

To verify what version of Python is installed, run the commands below

python -V

and for PIP, run the commands below

pip -V

Step 2: Install Mezzanine

Now that the basic requirements to get Mezzanine on Ubuntu are installed, run the commands below to download and install Mezzanine packages.

Mezzanine has its source code on Github that you can use to download and use. however, the quickest way is to use Python PIP.

Run the commands below to download and install Mezzanine using Python virtual environment (virtualenv).

virtualenv mezzanine_env
cd mezzanine_env
source bin/activate
pip install mezzanine

That should get Mezzanine installed and ready to use.

Step 3: Create Mezzanine App

Now that Mezzanine is installed, go and create your first app. You can create it in your home directory or anywhere on the system. For this tutorial, we’re going to create the app in home directory.

cd ~/mezzanine_env
mezzanine-project mezzanine_app
cd mezzanine_app
pip install -r requirements.txt
python manage.py createdb

After that you’ll be prompted to access the default hostname or create your site URL.

 Applying pages.0001_initial. OK
  Applying forms.0001_initial. OK
  Applying forms.0002_auto_20141227_0224. OK
  Applying forms.0003_emailfield. OK
  Applying forms.0004_auto_20150517_0510. OK
  Applying forms.0005_auto_20151026_1600. OK
  Applying forms.0006_auto_20170425_2225. OK
  Applying galleries.0001_initial. OK
  Applying galleries.0002_auto_20141227_0224. OK
  Applying generic.0001_initial. OK
  Applying generic.0002_auto_20141227_0224. OK
  Applying generic.0003_auto_20170411_0504. OK
  Applying pages.0002_auto_20141227_0224. OK
  Applying pages.0003_auto_20150527_1555. OK
  Applying pages.0004_auto_20170411_0504. OK
  Applying redirects.0001_initial. OK
  Applying sessions.0001_initial. OK
  Applying sites.0002_alter_domain_unique. OK
  Applying twitter.0001_initial. OK

A site record is required.
Please enter the domain and optional port in the format 'domain:port'.
For example 'localhost:8000' or 'www.example.com'. 
Hit enter to use the default (127.0.0.1:8000): localhost:8000

That should setup Mezzanine environment. you will also be prompted to create the default admin account to logon to the backend. this account will be used to access Mezzanine backend portal.

Creating default account .

Username (leave blank to use 'richard'): admin
Email address: [email protected]
Password: 
Password (again): 
Superuser created successfully.
Installed 2 object(s) from 1 fixture(s)

Would you like to install some initial demo pages?
Please enter either 'yes' or 'no': yes

Creating demo pages: About us, Contact form, Gallery .

Installed 16 object(s) from 3 fixture(s)

When you’re done, run the commands below to start up and run Mezzanine server.

python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

Now, open your browser and go to the server hostname or IP address followed by port 8000

You should see Mezzanine welcome page similar to the one below

To go to the admin backend portal, type

That should prompt you for the superuser account and password… and allow you to logon to the backend…

That’s it!

Although that are many other settings you must configure to suit your environment, the steps above is the bare minimum to get Mezzanine installed…

To get external access to Mezzanine server, open its settings.py page and add the IPs

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