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Develop in Linux

Getting Started

Setting up a Nikola site is really easy. You will need a few minutes’ time and a Python 3 interpreter.

Step 1. Install Nikola

Nikola is free open-source software, under the MIT license.

Any OS/general instructions

The best way to install Nikola is to use pip in a virtualenv. We recommend installing the "Nikola[extras]" distribution to access some extra features, but you can drop the [extras] specifier if you don’t want them. Follow instructions on the right/below.

Hint: don’t use Pipenv. It makes stuff harder than it should be and won’t be a pleasant experience.

Windows support

Nikola supports Windows! Keep in mind, though, that there are some caveats:

  1. You need to install Python first. You also need to install virtualenv if you want to use it: py -m pip install virtualenv
  2. Windows has some differences over POSIX, which may cause some features to work incorrectly under Windows. If any problems occur, please do not hesitate to report them. Some of the differences that can cause problems include:
    • \ as path separator (instead of /)
    • the concept of HDD partitions and letters (instead of seamless mounting under one root)
    • some characters in paths are disallowed
    • CR+LF (aka \r\n) as the line separator (instead of LF \n)
    • Certain OS and Python features being unavailable under Windows
  3. Most of our developers don’t run Windows on a daily basis and may not have the full knowledge required to resolve issues relating to Windows. That said, we do run the test suite on Linux, macOS and Windows on a regular basis.

Installing on macOS

Installing Nikola on macOS is easy. You can use Homebrew, MacPorts or Fink. The system Python interpreter is not supported (as it is Python 2)

With Homebrew (recommended)
  1. Install Homebrew.
  2. Install Python (and pip) with brew install python3
  3. Install virtualenv with sudo pip3 install virtualenv
  4. Follow the instructions on the right/below. The command is virtualenv. Virtualenvs require fixing, reconfiguration or recreating if you update Python.

Other package/port managers, such as MacPorts (py36-pip, py36-virtualenv) or Fink (pip-py36, virtualenv-py36) may be used if you prefer them and have those installed. Make sure to use only one manager to avoid conflicts.

Linux packages

Nikola is packaged for some Linux distributions, you may get that instead of installing via pip (which is the recommended way). Keep in mind that those packages might be outdated and that we don’t support versions that are too old. Proceed with care!

  • Arch Linux (AUR): nikola for the latest stable release or nikola-git for the GitHub master. (official Nikola-supported packages)
  • Gentoo: www-apps/nikola
  • The Ubuntu package is broken and outdated. The Nikola developers strongly discourage using it and do not support this method of install — please install via pip instead.

GitHub (bleeding edge) installs

You can also install Nikola from GitHub. This will get you the code that is still under development. It probably has bugs, but there are often new features or bugfixes. Start by creating and activating a virtualenv.

$ pip install "git+https://github.com/getnikola/nikola#egg=Nikola[extras]"

For development work, or if you otherwise want a local clone of the repository, use this:

$ git clone https://github.com/getnikola/nikola  # wherever you store your projects; you may also use a ssh remote address
$ cd nikola
$ pip install -e ".[extras]"

Issues with compiling C extensions (Python.h, lxml, Pillow)

You should not need to compile any C extension modules to run Nikola. Both lxml and Pillow have pre-compiled wheels available for Windows, macOS and Linux (compatible with all distributions).

However, if pip still attempts to compile those packages, you may need to do the following:

  1. Upgrade pip, setuptools, and wheel: pip install -U pip setuptools wheel (on Windows, use py -m pip)
  2. Wait a few days or try installing an older version of lxml/Pillow (wheels are not always available at the time of release)
  3. Install manually. Do this only if all other things fail. Here are some tips:
    • If you are getting errors about missing Python.h, you need to install development packages for Python (eg. python3-dev or python3-devel).
    • Install libxml2, libxslt, zlib and their development headers.
    • Use your package manager’s option to install build dependencies for their lxml and Pillow packages.
    • If you run out of RAM during the install (gcc/cc1 are killed), use a swap file.

Docker (unofficial)

There are unofficial Docker images by Stefano Marinelli (available in Debian, Alpine, bleeding-edge and ARM flavors)

$ docker pull dragas/nikola:alpine  # recommended
$ docker pull dragas/nikola:dev     # bleeding-edge (GitHub master)
$ docker pull dragas/nikola         # Debian version
$ docker pull dragas/rpi-nikola     # RPi/ARM version

and also, a Dockerfile by Rob Brewer, based on Arch Linux and official Arch packages.

Other options

There are also Snapcraft packages (snap install nikola --edge), but those inherit many limitations of the platform and are not recommended for daily use.

First, make sure Python 3 and virtualenv are installed.
$ virtualenv3 nikola
Note:
  The command might be different in some environments.
  You might need to use one of the following instead:
    virtualenv
    virtualenv-3.x (where x is your Python version)
    virtualenv -p /usr/bin/python3

Using base prefix '/usr'
New python executable in nikola/bin/python3
Also creating executable in nikola/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.
$ cd nikola
$ source bin/activate
$ pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
Note:
  Updating pip, setuptools, and wheel is recommended.
  On Windows, use py -m pip install for both steps.
$ pip install --upgrade "Nikola[extras]"
...snip...
Successfully installed Nikola

Step 2. Initialize a site

After installing Nikola, you should create a site. A site is a collection of all assets needed to create your site: configuration, posts, pages, images, and all other files and customizations. This is the important data, so put it where you put that kind of things.

To create a site, you need to run nikola init --demo <directory_name>. A friendly wizard will be launched, letting you configure your site easily. The --demo option is used to fill your site with some demo content. (If you do not want the wizard, use the --quiet argument.)

$ nikola init --demo my_first_site
Creating Nikola Site
====================

This is Nikola.  We will now ask you a few easy questions about your new site.
If you do not want to answer and want to go with the defaults instead, simply restart with the `-q` parameter.
--- Questions about the site ---
Site title [My Nikola Site]: My First Nikola Site
...a couple more questions...

That's it, Nikola is now configured.  Make sure to edit conf.py to your liking.
If you are looking for themes and addons, check out https://themes.getnikola.com/ and https://plugins.getnikola.com/.
Have fun!
INFO: init: A new site with example data has been created at my_first_site.
INFO: init: See README.txt in that folder for more information.

Step 3. Build your site

You can now build the site you created. Just run nikola build. The output directory will then be filled with the contents of your site, which is now ready to deploy.

$ cd my_first_site
$ nikola build
Scanning posts....done!
.  render_galleries:output/galleries
.  render_galleries:output/galleries/demo
.  render_galleries:output/galleries/index.html
.  render_galleries:output/galleries/rss.xml
.  render_galleries:output/galleries/demo/tesla4_lg.thumbnail.jpg
...and many more files in between...
.  render_tags:output/categories/cat_nikola.xml
.  render_pages:output/stories/social_buttons/index.html
.  render_pages:output/stories/quickref/index.html
.  render_tags:output/categories/python.xml
.  generate_rss:output/rss.xml
.  render_pages:output/stories/a-study-in-scarlet/index.html
.  sitemap:output/sitemap.xml
.  sitemap:output/sitemapindex.xml
.  robots_file:output/robots.txt

Step 4. Write your first post

Your site currently contains demo content — that is, some Nikola documentation, a demo gallery and listing, and a blog post welcoming you.

You should make it more interesting and personal. Write your own post!

To do that, you can just use nikola new_post -e. (The -e option will open the post in your text editor of choice; many more options are available)

The command will create the file for you in the right place, with the metadata headers and a writing prompt.

By default, Nikola creates posts in reStructuredText. You can read the reStructuredText Primer to get accustomed to the syntax. You can also use many other input formats; to do this, your site needs some special configuration.

What if I don’t want a blog?

If you want a static site that does not have any blog-related elements, see our Creating a Site (Not a Blog) with Nikola guide. 

$ nikola new_post -e
Creating New Post
-----------------

Title: My First Blog Post!
Scanning posts....done!
INFO: new_post: Your post's text is at: posts/my-first-blog-post.rst

Step 5. Rebuild your site

When you’re done writing your post, you must rebuild your site to make it visible on your site. Run nikola build again.

Note that the list of files is much shorter now: Nikola does fast, incremental rebuilds (courtesy of doit). Nikola built only the pages for this post, the indexes, the feeds, and the previous post (to add a Next post navigation button). All the demo pages and assets were left untouched, saving you time and resources (it does not have to work on building some larger things, and rsync will not have to upload everything)

$ nikola build
Scanning posts....done!
.  render_posts:timeline_changes
.  render_posts:cache/posts/my-first-blog-post.html
.  render_sources:output/posts/my-first-blog-post/index.rst
.  render_archive:output/2018/index.html
.  render_archive:output/archive.html
.  render_indexes:output/index.html
.  render_pages:output/posts/welcome-to-nikola/index.html
.  generate_rss:output/rss.xml
.  render_pages:output/posts/my-first-blog-post/index.html
.  sitemap:output/sitemap.xml
.  sitemap:output/sitemapindex.xml

Step 6. Start the development server

You’re done! You just created a Nikola site, wrote your first post and built your site. Congratulations!

Run nikola serve --browser to start the development server and open your site in a web browser. Press Ctrl+C to stop the server.

You can also use a server with automatic rebuilds by running nikola auto --browser. Note that both servers should be used for development only; use other deployment solutions instead.

$ nikola serve --browser
INFO: serve: Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000...
INFO: serve: Opening http://0.0.0.0:8000/ in the default web browser...

Next steps

Explore!

  • Check out the demo content installed with the site to see what Nikola can do — and that’s not all it has to offer!
  • Find out what other commands are available by using nikola help.
  • Read the Nikola Handbook to learn more about Nikola.
  • Edit the conf.py file to your liking.
  • Check out themes and plugins for Nikola, or write your own.

Configuring other markup formats

Input formats other than reStructuredText need some configuration, which has been described in The Nikola Handbook.

Removing demo content

When you’re done exploring, you should remove the demo content before deploying it to your server. Remove the demo stories, welcome post, demo gallery and listing manually. Run nikola build to make them disappear from the archives. Note that this is not enough; you need to delete the now orphaned files. Nikola can do it for you — run nikola check --clean-files. Note that this command will delete all files in the output directory it does not know about, which can be dangerous — please back up your files or find out what will be deleted by using nikola orphans.

Hint: files in the files/ directory are copied to the output directory as-is.

Deployment

The development server (nikola serve) should not be used outside of your local network. Instead, you should use a more serious web server. Nikola sites work on any web server which can host html files. You can use shared hosting, your own server (VPS/dedicated), GitHub Pages, or any other service that lets you host a website. For more details on deployment and related configuration, see the Deployment section in the Handbook.