WonderCMS on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS by cloudimg

WonderCMS is a tiny, fast, flat file content management system for building and running a simple website. You edit pages by clicking directly on them in the browser, the frontend is themeable, and administration sits behind a single password login. This image is built and maintained by cloudimg on a hardened, fully patched Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base, with WonderCMS 3.6 served by nginx and PHP 8.3, so the appliance is complete and useful on its own within minutes of launch.

There is no database server to run or maintain: all content and configuration live in one JSON file on the local filesystem, so the whole site is easy to back up and move. The nginx configuration denies web access to that content file, keeping your site private, while uploaded files stay served. The well known default login never ships. On the first boot of every VM a fresh administrator password is generated and written as a secure hash, and the admin login is moved to a random, unguessable address, with both recorded in a root only file, so no shared or default credential ships in the image.

The image is host agnostic: it derives its runtime URL from the request host, so the site renders on the VM public IP, on 127.0.0.1, or on any domain you point at it, with no URL rewrite needed. The public site is fully self contained; the in browser editing interface loads a small set of static admin assets from a content delivery network. nginx serves the site on port 80; for production, front it with your own domain and TLS.

WonderCMS is free and open source software distributed under the MIT License. This image is an independent packaging of the open source WonderCMS software by cloudimg and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the WonderCMS project. Backed by 24/7 cloudimg support.