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Get a licence key and the download

Every self-hosted site needs a licence key, even the free Community edition, and the software itself comes as one download from your account. This page is for whoever is setting the site up. You do the steps once, before you install.

Get a Community edition key​

The free Community edition comes without support, and updates are offered as we release them but are not guaranteed. It is licensed for one website. The Community and Standard editions page lists the differences.

  1. Go to https://account.choirmastercms.com and sign in. The first time, you are sent a link by email, you are asked to tick a box to agree to the terms, and an account is made for you. See Sign in to your account and Sign up.
  2. On the Your account page, find the card headed Self-hosted.
  3. In The website it is for, type the address of the site, such as choir.example.org.
  4. Select Get the Community edition.

What counts as one website​

A licence key is for one website. That means:

  • one domain name, with or without www., so choir.example.org and www.choir.example.org are the same website;
  • plus the copies you build and test on your own machine or on a private network;
  • a subdomain is a separate website: members.choir.example.org needs its own key.

You can type the address with or without https:// or www.; it is reduced to the plain name. A name that can only be on your own machine or a private network, such as localhost, a name with no dot, one ending in .local or .test, or a private address such as 192.168.1.20, is refused with this message:

Enter the address of the website the licence key is for, such as yourchoir.org. Each key is for one website.

There is one licence per account. If you already have one, the page says You already have a licence.

Once the site is running, its update check tells our server which website it is on. If the same key is used on a different public website, the check is refused with "This licence key is registered to another website." and you must write to us to move it (see below).

Copy the key​

The next page shows your key once, in a box headed Your licence key that says Copy it now: it is not shown again. Copy it into a password manager or into your server's settings straight away. A key starts with cmk_.

Only a fingerprint of the key is kept on our side, so a lost key cannot be looked up. It is replaced, not recovered: write to support@choirmastercms.com and we will issue a new one.

You will set the key as LICENSE_KEY on your server. See Your licence key.

To move a key to a different website, write to support@choirmastercms.com too.

Download the software​

Once you have a key, the Self-hosted card says which edition and website it is for, and shows a button Download version 1.6.12 (the number is the newest release). Select it and your browser saves a file named like this:

choirmaster-cms-1.6.12.tar.gz

The download is always the newest stable release. If no release has been published yet, the card says "No release is available to download yet."

Below the button the card has an Installing it section with the short version of the steps. This guide has the full version, starting at What is in the download.

Download from a server with curl​

You can fetch the same file straight onto your server, using your licence key. Replace 1.6.12 with the version you want, as shown on the portal button or on your site's Updates page:

export LICENSE_KEY=cmk_your_key_here
curl -fL -H "Authorization: Bearer $LICENSE_KEY" \
  -o choirmaster-cms-1.6.12.tar.gz \
  https://updates.choirmastercms.com/v1/releases/1.6.12/bundle

This is the same command the Updates page in the admin panel shows for an update by hand. The address is the release server, UPDATE_URL, whose default is https://updates.choirmastercms.com.

The Standard edition​

The Standard edition is a one-time purchase that removes the "Powered by Choir Master CMS" link and lets you modify the software for your own website. It is arranged with us rather than through the portal: write to sales@choirmastercms.com. See Community and Standard editions.

Next​

What is in the download.