How to Install Wagtail on Arch Linux

Wagtail is a powerful and popular CMS (content management system) that is built on top of Django framework. In this tutorial, we will cover how to install Wagtail on Arch Linux.

Prerequisites

Before you proceed with the installation, make sure that you have the following prerequisites installed on your system:

• Arch Linux with root privileges.
• Python 3 (version 3.6 or higher).
• pip (Python package manager).
• PostgreSQL (optional, but highly recommended)

Step 1: Update the System

Before starting, update all system packages to the latest version.

sudo pacman -Syu

Step 2: Install Python 3

To install Python 3 on Arch Linux, run the following command:

sudo pacman -S python

Once the installation is complete, check the Python version by running the following command:

python --version

Step 3: Install pip

To install pip, run the following command:

sudo pacman -S python-pip

Once the installation is complete, check the pip version by running the following command:

pip --version

Step 4: Install Wagtail

To install Wagtail, open your terminal and run the following command:

pip install wagtail

This will install Wagtail and all its dependencies.

Step 5: Install and Configure PostgreSQL

If you want to use PostgreSQL as your database, you need to install it and configure it.

To install PostgreSQL, run the following command:

sudo pacman -S postgresql

To initialize PostgreSQL, run the following command:

sudo postgresql-setup --initdb

To start PostgreSQL, run the following command:

sudo systemctl start postgresql

Create a new PostgreSQL user for Wagtail:

sudo -u postgres createuser --interactive --pwprompt

For the database:

sudo -u postgres createdb wagtail

Finally, grant all permissions to the wagtail user on the wagtail database.

sudo -u postgres psql -c "GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE wagtail TO wagtail;"

Step 6: Initialize the Wagtail Project

To create a new Wagtail project, run the following command:

wagtail start mysite

This command will create a new directory named mysite in the current directory. This directory will contain the project files.

Step 7: Configure Wagtail

Navigate to the project directory and open the settings.py file.

cd mysite && nano mysite/settings.py

Make the following changes to the file:

1. Add 'wagtail.core', 'wagtail.admin', 'wagtail.documents', 'wagtail.images', 'wagtail.snippets', 'wagtail.users', to INSTALLED_APPS section.
2. Set the DATABASES section to:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'wagtail',
        'USER': 'wagtail',
        'PASSWORD': 'password',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '',
    }
}

Replace the default password with your preferred password, which you have created for the user while creating the database in step 5.

Save and close the file.

Step 8: Migrate the Database

To migrate the database, run the following command:

python manage.py migrate

Step 9: Create a Superuser

To create a superuser, run the following command:

python manage.py createsuperuser

Provide the necessary details for the superuser account.

Step 10: Launch the Server

To launch the server, run the following command:

python manage.py runserver

Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8000/admin/. You should be able to see the Wagtail admin login page. Enter the superuser credentials to log in.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed and configured Wagtail on Arch Linux.