Fragmented, dated starter instructions

Plone Support
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I am new to Plone but have experience with other CMS, Linux hosting, etc going back quite a few years. I am the go-to guy for a couple small cPanel hosting operations, I get called when scary command line activity is required. One of the systems uses nginx as a reverse proxy. I sometimes have to doctor SSL cert troubles.

I have a domain, it's configured for Cloudflare, and I have a 4 core/4GB VPS running Ubuntu 24.04.1 and Docker 27.5.0. I picked the nginx-volto-plone install. This is the Docker Compose file I am using.

gist github com/watchbynight/e710c27e4bf8d300f0da5469d3e9b35d

I have a couple user ids set up and they can log in, the problem I'm having is how to remove the default, and otherwise how to bring this thing up to production ready. There is no email service for this domain and I would prefer to avoid providing it at all. The user base will be a handful of people who edit things, the visitors do not need the ability to create accounts for themselves.

I am using a mix of Google and ChatGPT to try to wade through the initial setup and it's been fairly torturous. I keep finding procedures that do not work on the management related URLs I can reach, I keep seeing mention of management URLs that do not exist on my system, and trying to locate the procedure for removing/resetting the default user has been an exercise in futility.

Overall the documentation reads as if the intended audience are people who are already very familiar with Plone. Normally for something complex like this I would buy a book, but the few I can find are for versions of Plone more than ten years old.

Is there a write up available that covers a minimal setup I describe above, without being full of digressions to dated material, or decision points with little information as to what the choices mean? I understand the OpenBSD "ain't on unless ya turn it on" reasoning behind how things are being done, but the world gets a little more dangerous with each passing day. I think Plone is missing would-be new users given the way things are documented now.

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This makes me think that you referred to this guide:

Please verify.

As an aside, It's always helpful to refer to documentation by their URLs to make it easier for others to see what you're talking about. Only because I am lead cat herder for documentation was I able to make this guess.

There is also the recent Plone Deployment training from PloneConf, which was held in November 2024.

The authors of the Plone Docker container material and training might be able to guide your further. @davisagli @ericof can you provide an assist?

All that said, you might not want to install the Docker container after all. With Plone 6.1, we introduced distributions. These might serve you better, as they include a few batteries that you would otherwise have to manually install.

And, yes, the installation and deployment documentation is not as good as it could be. We're aware of a few problems, but don't yet have a clear path forward or sufficient volunteer labor.

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@watchbynight thank you for sharing your experience here with us. This is really valuable. Please consider providing more information as @stevepiercy suggested, so that we can improve the situation.

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I just came back to this after much day job grief.

I am going to check both of the provided links and take good notes on my progress. I'll report back here once I am done.