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Backend configuration#

kitconcept.volto#

In order to fully support all Volto features, the Plone backend, needs to be prepared for Volto. This involves configuration, add-ons installation and some patches to the core. The add'on kitconcept.volto does all the heavy lifting for you and it's ready to use in your own projects. We used it in our Getting Started section.

However, this package is oppinionated and might not fit your needs, so if you want to use your own integration package instead, just take a look at the features it provides, copy the ones you need for your project and create your own integration package.

https://github.com/kitconcept/kitconcept.volto

Tip

From Volto 5.1 and above, Volto features an internal proxy to your API server. So you don't have to deal with CORS. It's enabled by default, pointing to the server specified in the devProxyToApiPath Volto settings (http://localhost:8080/Plone). See here for more details.

Install a Plone backend locally without Docker#

If you have some experience with Python development, you can also install a Plone backend from source. The Volto source repository contains an example Plone backend configuration using zc.buildout. 

https://github.com/plone/volto/tree/master/api

From this folder you only need to copy the buildout.cfg and requirements.txt files to a folder on your development system. As with the Docker container setup of Plone, setting up the backend works fully independent of the frontend.

You also need a working python3.8 environment (at the time of writing the newest supported Python 3 version).

In a nutshell, cd to the directory where you have stored the two config files, and install Plone locally on your system. 

   > cd <backend dir>
   > ls
     buildout.cfg  requirements.txt

   > python3.8 -mvenv .
   > bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
   > bin/buildout -c buildout.cfg
   > bin/instance fg

These steps will:

  • Install a Python3.8 virtualenv using the built-in venv module
  • Install zc.buildout and setuptools using pip.
  • Run buildout to install the Plone backend server
  • Start the Plone backend server in the foreground (fg).

With this setup, any changes you make in your site will be persisted on filesystem in the Plone Database directories.

  • /var/filestorage and
  • /var/blobstorage

As long as you backup these directories and your buildout.cfg/requirements.txt, you can rebuild/recreate your backend service on any machine.