CMS Post Installation Set up

Additional setup required to enable all functionality and to keep things running smoothly.

Xibo Cloud hosting includes the pre-configuration of some features with minimal additional set up.

If you are running with Docker, please ensure that you have uploaded a test file (such as an image) to your CMS, and ensured that the same image then appears in the shared/cms/library directory on your local filesystem. If not, please do not proceed as your changes may not be saved.

Setting the correct Time

Xibo Cloud

This is configured as part of the service.

Docker

It’s very important that the time is correct on your CMS, and that the CMS Timezone setting is set correctly for the timezone you’re working in.

You may want to consider setting up your Operating System to sync time automatically from the Internet so that the time is always correct.

ntp.org provide free access to time servers you can use to synchronise your CMS clock.

Instructions for configuring access to their servers are provided here http://www.pool.ntp.org/en/use.html

Setting the Timezone

The installer attempts to make an intelligent guess from the timezone that your OS has been set up to use, but it’s not always able to make the best choice.

From the CMS:

• Go to the Settings page under the Administration section of the main menu
• Click the Regional tab
• Use the drop-down menu to select the nearest major city in your timezone
• Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Setting up Email Alerts

Optionally configure Email Alerts to be sent when Players stop connecting properly, and when they come back online after a period of downtime.

Xibo Cloud hosting customers will have some settings pre-populated with some available to change, with others locked for editing.

From the Settings page, click on the Maintenance tab:

• Tick to Enable Email Alerts. MAINTENANCE_EMAIL_ALERTS
• Max Display Timeout MAINTENANCE_ALERT_TOUT - enter a time in minutes for a Player to be considered as gone "offline" from the last time you saw the Player connect to the CMS. This can be overridden on a per Player basis should you need that. Do not set this value lower than your normal Player collection interval. If in doubt, set it higher. The default is 30 minutes.
• Send repeat Display Timeouts MAINTENANCE_ALWAYS_ALERT - if this is set to On, for each offline Display you’ll receive an email every time the maintenance.php routine is run. Most people will want this set to Off which means that you’ll be notified only once per downtime period.
• Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Information needs to be provided in order to send emails from the CMS.

From the Settings page, click on the Network tab:

• Admin email address mail_to - enter the email address that should receive an email when a Display goes offline or comes back online.
• Sending email address mail_from - enter the email address alerts from the CMS should come from. (Please note: This field needs to be completed before configuring any email notifications).
• Click Save at the bottom of the page.

In some cases, it’s also useful to alert Users/User Groups if a Display goes offline.

• Go to Users under the Administration section
• Use the row menu for a User record
• Click Edit
• Click on the Notifications tab
• Tick the box to Receive Display Notifications
• Click to Save

This can also be set for User Groups!

Next, select which Displays should receive alerts:

• Go to Displays from the CMS menu
• Use the row menu for a Display
• Click Edit
• Click on the Maintenance tab
• Ensure that Email Alerts is set to Yes
• Click to Save

If you are not using Display Setting Profiles, ensure that you tick Use Global Timeout? so that the value set earlier, for the time a Display needs to be offline, before being alerted is used.

If you are using Display Settings Profiles, then if that box is unticked, the Collect Interval from the Display Profile will be used instead.

With Email Alerts configured, if you turn off one of your Displays, you should be notified by email. The email will be sent once the Global Timeout or Display Profile Collection Interval has elapsed since the Player last connected, on the subsequent run of the maintenance script.

Example: If the Global Timeout is 10 minutes and your maintenance script is set to run every 5 minutes, then you may not be notified for up to 15 minutes after the Player last connects.

When the Player comes back online, you will be notified instantly via email.

Multiple recovery emails are sent if the Player in use makes multiple simultaneous calls to the CMS when it starts up.

Further Reading

Display Setting Profiles

Important Note On Collection Intervals

Xibo comes with XMR (Xibo Message Relay) push technology, which means that by default when you make changes to content assigned to Displays in the CMS, the Players are notified to connect and download that update straight away. It’s therefore strongly advisable to set relatively long Collection Intervals for your Display since those only really serve as a failsafe for any missed push messages.

You do not want CMS and Displays with 1-minute collection intervals. 5 minutes is the absolute minimum for normal operation, and we strongly advise setting this value to 30 minutes or longer.

Log and Statistic Retention

Xibo Cloud

These settings are pre-configured and cannot be modified

Docker

The CMS generates log output when it’s running, and also receives log output from the Players connected to it for the purposes of debugging and checking the system’s state. It can also collect Proof of Play Statistics.

All these records are held in the database and should be purged periodically to keep the size of the database manageable and to prevent system performance problems. The maintenance script performs that function.

From the Settings page, click on the Maintenance tab:

• Max Log Age (MAINTENANCE_LOG_MAXAGE) controls how many days logs should be retained in the CMS database before being automatically deleted. A setting of 5 would keep logs for 5 days which is reasonable for most debugging purposes.
• Max Statistics Age (MAINTENANCE_STAT_MAXAGE) controls how many days proof of play statistics are retained in the CMS database before being automatically deleted. A setting of 30 would keep statistics for 30 days. If you need to keep them for audit purposes, they can be exported from the Statistics page in the CMS and archived for later use.

Language Detection

By default, the CMS will use the language preferences set in your web browser to auto-detect which language to display the CMS interface in. In some instances, where only small parts of the CMS have been translated into a particular language, for example, it may be desirable to disable language detection and enforce a specific language instead.

From the Settings page, click on the Regional tab:

• Untick Detect Language (DETECT_LANGUAGE)
• Select a suitable Default Language
• Click to Save

Default Language

If you disable language detection, the CMS will need to know which language file to take its translations from.

From the Regional tab:

• The Default Language is en_GB which will give you English (British) translations. You can select a different code using the drop-down menu, for example for Spanish select es

Regionalised Date Formats

By default the Xibo CMS shows dates in Y-m-d H:i format (eg 2026-03-29 10:00:00)

• The date format used throughout the CMS can be adjusted using the Date Format setting on the Regional tab.

Proxy Settings

Xibo Cloud

N/A

Docker

The CMS will need to be able to contact external servers to pull in RSS feeds from outside your local network, or for certain integrations.

If your network uses a proxy server then you’ll need to tell the Xibo CMS about it so it knows where to look.

Complete the proxy server details for your network. Your network administrator will help you if you are not sure what these are.

From the Settings page click on the Network tab:

• Proxy URL (PROXY_HOST) should be the http URL of your proxy server (eg http://proxy.example.com or http://192.168.1.8)
• Proxy Port (PROXY_PORT) should be the port number that your proxy server is listening on (eg 3128 or 8080)
• Proxy Credentials (PROXY_AUTH) should be any username and password required to use the proxy server, in the format username:password eg jdoe:secretPassword. Leave this blank if your proxy does not require authenticated access.
• Proxy Exceptions (PROXY_EXCEPTIONS) are any host or keyword that should be excluded from being sent to the proxy server. For example, if you have an intranet server then you could exclude it by entering intranet.example.com. Multiple entries can be included by separating them with commas.

  • In order for XMR to work add cms-xmr,cms-quickchart
  • Leave this blank if you don't require any proxy exceptions.
• Click to Save.