Strapi Headless CMS on DomainIndia VPS

# Strapi Headless CMS on DomainIndia VPS ## Headless vs traditional CMS Pick Strapi when: - You need the same content in web + mobile + email - You want developers to build custom frontends with React/Vue/Next/Flutter - Editorial team wants a friendly UI to manage content - You'll outgrow WordPress for content schema complexity ## Requirements - DomainIndia VPS (2+ GB RAM; 4 GB for production with Postgres) - Node.js 20+ - PostgreSQL (recommended) or MySQL/MariaDB - nginx for reverse proxy + SSL ## Step 1 — Create Strapi project On your laptop first (faster dev loop): ```bash npx create-strapi-app@latest my-cms --quickstart # Quickstart uses SQLite (fine for dev) ``` Visit `http://localhost:1337/admin` — create admin account. Create content types (e.g. "Article" with title, body, author, thumbnail). Strapi auto-generates the API endpoints. Test API: ```bash curl http://localhost:1337/api/articles ``` ## Step 2 — Prepare production config Edit `config/database.ts` for production: ```typescript export default ({ env }) => ({ connection: { client: 'postgres', connection: { host: env('DATABASE_HOST', 'localhost'), port: env.int('DATABASE_PORT', 5432), database: env('DATABASE_NAME', 'strapi'), user: env('DATABASE_USERNAME', 'strapi'), password: env('DATABASE_PASSWORD'), ssl: env.bool('DATABASE_SSL', false), }, pool: { min: 2, max: 10 }, }, }); ``` `config/server.ts`: ```typescript export default ({ env }) => ({ host: env('HOST', '0.0.0.0'), port: env.int('PORT', 1337), url: env('PUBLIC_URL', 'https://cms.yourcompany.com'), proxy: true, // behind nginx app: { keys: env.array('APP_KEYS'), }, }); ``` ## Step 3 — Setup VPS ```bash # On VPS as root sudo dnf install -y nodejs postgresql-server postgresql-contrib nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx git # or Ubuntu: # curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_20.x | sudo bash - # sudo apt install -y nodejs postgresql nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx git # PostgreSQL setup sudo postgresql-setup --initdb sudo systemctl enable --now postgresql sudo -u postgres psql < ({ upload: { config: { provider: 'aws-s3', providerOptions: { credentials: { accessKeyId: env('AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'), secretAccessKey: env('AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'), }, region: 'auto', endpoint: env('AWS_ENDPOINT'), // e.g. Cloudflare R2 endpoint params: { Bucket: env('AWS_BUCKET') }, }, }, }, }); ``` See our [Cloudflare R2 article](https://domainindia.com/support/kb/cloudflare-workers-r2-storage-domainindia) for zero-egress storage setup. ## Step 9 — Backups Daily Postgres + uploads backup: ```bash # /etc/cron.d/strapi-backup 0 3 * * * strapi /bin/bash -c ' pg_dump -h localhost -U strapi strapi | gzip > /home/strapi/backups/db-$(date +%Y%m%d).sql.gz && tar czf /home/strapi/backups/uploads-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz -C /home/strapi/my-cms/public/uploads . && find /home/strapi/backups -name "*.gz" -mtime +30 -delete ' ``` See [Automated Backups](https://domainindia.com/support/kb/automated-backups-cron-rclone-s3) for off-site copies. ## Plugins worth installing - **Internationalization (i18n)** — multi-language content - **Users & Permissions** — JWT auth for API - **Content Versioning** — track edits - **SEO plugin** — meta tags per entry - **GraphQL plugin** — GraphQL alongside REST - **Meilisearch / Algolia plugin** — search ## Common pitfalls ## FAQ