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NovaVMS Manual

Set up your first site

By the end of this tutorial, you will have an organisation, an Admin account, and a first site on a new self-hosted NovaVMS deployment.

What you will need

  • The URL of your NovaVMS deployment. A local Docker Compose install usually uses http://localhost:8090.
  • An email address, display name, and password for the first Admin account.
  • A name for your organisation and first site.
  • The non-secret storage details you want to record, such as an endpoint, bucket, or region.

Step 1 — Admin Account

  1. Open your deployment URL. NovaVMS redirects a new installation to /setup.
  2. Under Create Admin Account, enter Organization Name, Email, Display Name, Password, and Confirm Password. The password must contain at least eight characters.
  3. Click Create Admin & Continue.

NovaVMS creates the organisation and first user, signs that user in, and moves to Storage. The first user has the database role admin; the setup flow does not create an Owner account.

Step 2 — Storage

Under Configure Storage, choose the setting that matches your deployment:

OptionFields shown by the current interface
MinIO (Self-hosted)Endpoint URL, Access Key, Secret Key, Bucket Name
Amazon S3Region, Access Key, Secret Key, Bucket Name
Google Cloud StorageBucket Name
Local FilesystemNo additional fields
  1. Select the Storage Provider.
  2. Enter only the endpoint, bucket, or region that you need to record.
  3. Click Save & Continue.

The current server persists only provider, endpoint, bucket, and region. It discards the Access Key and Secret Key fields, so do not enter long-lived credentials here. Configure working storage credentials through your deployment configuration.

The screen also shows Test Connection, but the current server ignores its test flag and performs no object-store request. A success message confirms only that the configuration request was accepted; it does not prove connectivity.

Step 3 — First Site

  1. Under Create First Site, enter the Site Name.
  2. Enter the Address (optional) if you want it stored with the site.
  3. Check Timezone. NovaVMS starts with your browser’s timezone.
  4. Click Create Site & Continue.

Step 4 — Health Check

The Health Summary screen displays Database, Storage, and Server. Database is a live database ping. Storage reports whether the setup setting was saved, not whether NovaVMS can reach the selected store. The current setup service always reports Server as OK. Its response retains an ai status based on configuration state, but there is no AI setup step and the current screen does not display it.

  1. Click Refresh if you want to reload the summary.
  2. Wait until Database and Server show OK. Those are the two checks that enable the finish action; Storage is not part of that gate.
  3. Click Finish Setup.

NovaVMS records completed_at, clears the temporary setup organisation context, refreshes your authentication state, and opens the dashboard.

You have finished

Your organisation has an Admin account and a site, and the first-run guard no longer blocks the application. Next, you may want to: