Puck CMS - ASP.NET Core, Open Source, Cross Platform CMS

# introduction
There are a few settings you will need to configure in the PuckWeb project appSettings.json file.

1. **connection string**

you will need to point the provider specific connection string property to your database. SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQLite are supported.

2. **setting initial user email and password**

you will need to modify the `InitialUserEmail` and `InitialUserPassword` AppSettings. this will be used to setup the initial admin user for Puck.

# creating the database
you will need to add your provider specific database connection string in your `appsettings.json`. there are connection string placeholder properties in the `appsettings.json` for `SQLServer`, `PostgreSQL`, `MySQL` and `SQLite` - set the appropriate property. there is also a boolean flag you set to specify which database you are using, so if you're using SQL Server, set `UseSQLServer` to `true` and make sure that `UsePostgreSQL`,`UseMySQL` and `UseSQLite` properties are set to false. you can then run the application and it will run an entity framework migration on app start to create the database.

if you want to migrate manually, you will need to run `update-database -Context <Context>` (where Context is either PuckContextSQLServer, PuckContextPostgreSQL, PuckContextMySQL or PuckContextSQLite) in the package manager console targeting the `core` project to create the database. there is a seed task that will run on app startup using the `InitialUserEmail` and `InitialUserPassword` settings you configured to create the initial user and add all CMS roles to the user.

# Logging in to the backoffice
once you have the site running, you can go to the admin section. the admin path is `/puck/` and you will need to log in using the `InitialUserEmail` and `InitialUserPassword` you configured in the `appsettings.json`. you can then set your languages and start creating content.

# additional configuration
1. if you want to enable **content notifications** (ie edit, publish, delete, move) then you need to enter all the Smtp settings, here is an example:

```
  "SmtpHost": "smtp.sendgrid.net",
  "SmtpPort": 587,
  "SmtpUserName": "apikey",
  "SmtpPassword": "<password>",
  "SmtpUseSsl": false,
  "SmtpFrom": "puck@localhost"
```

2. if you plan on **storing your images in azure**, set the `AzureImageTransformer_AccountName` and `AzureImageTransformer_AccessKey` AppSettings. to minimise customisation, you can leave `AzureImageTransformer_ContainerName` set as "azure".

# Lucene index location
there are several lucene related app settings, let's start with the default setup:
```
"LuceneIndexPath": "~/App_Data/Lucene{machinename}",
"LuceneAzureIndexPath": "D:\\local\\Temp\\Lucene",
"UseAzureLucenePath": false,
  ```
the `LuceneIndexPath` app setting determines the location of the Lucene index. you can add the token "{machinename}" - for example: `~/App_Data/Lucene{machinename}` to your path and this will be replaced with a server specific identifier. this is useful for environments with shared file system where multiple servers/workers are sharing the same disk - each worker will get a different lucene index and this will prevent file lock issues.

azure is one such environment and you can set the `UseAzureLucenePath` app setting to "true" when working in azure to use a temporary file location local to each worker instance. because azure temp file is local to each worker and not shared, you should not add the "{machinename}" token to `LuceneAzureIndexPath`.

# using Azure Directory

if you don't use Azure Directory and instead set `UseAzureLucenePath` to true, the lucene indexes will be rebuilt every time the app restarts which will cause a delay when starting up.
to prevent the need to re-index every time the app starts, you can use Azure Directory by setting `UseAzureDirectory` to `true` and then setting `AzureDirectoryConnectionString` to a valid Azure Blob Storage connection string.

Configuration and getting started