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CI4MS

CI4MS is a CodeIgniter 4-based CMS skeleton that delivers a production-ready, modular architecture with RBAC authorization and theme support. It combines CMS workflows, developer-focused CLI commands, an extensible module system, and customizable front-end themes in a single package.

Key Features

• Authentication & RBAC: Modules\Auth handles user login, lockouts, and password resets via CodeIgniter Shield. Permissions map to auth_permissions_pages records.
• Modular backend: Each feature ships as an independent module (Blog, Pages, Menu, Media, Users, Settings, Theme, etc.) under modules/*.
• Flexible content management: Page and blog entries include SEO metadata, categories, tags, and full comment workflows.
• Media & files: Includes elFinder-powered media management, a built-in file editor, and an in-panel log viewer.
• Automatic Updates: Modernized UpdateService provides a "One-Click Update" system with atomic file operations, automated GitHub version discovery (bypassing 300-file limits), and secure rollback management.
• Signed Updates (fail-closed): Every file an update writes must appear in a manifest.json carrying a detached Ed25519 signature from a key your installation already trusts, with a per-file SHA-256 check on top. A compromise of the GitHub account, the release, or the CDN is not enough to push code — the publisher's offline private key is required. There is no "continue anyway" option, downgrades through the updater are refused, and the shipped keyring is empty on purpose, so auto-update stays off until you add a key you have verified. See Release Signing & Trusted Keys.
• Security Architecture: Global CSRF protection across all AJAX endpoints, strict HTTP security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options), executable file upload blacklists, and HTMLPurifier sanitization to prevent XSS and RCE attacks.
• Migration & seed runner: Modules\MigrationManager lists every migration namespace with its applied/pending state and runs migrations or WebRunnableSeeder seeds from the backend. Superadmin-only behind three independent layers, namespaces matched against a server-side allowlist built from disk, concurrent runs serialised with a flock() lock, and every run recorded in migration_runs and announced to superadmins over ci4ms.audit.
• Backup Support: Updates automatically trigger a full backup of modified files before applying patches, with a dedicated management interface for restores.
• Theme system: The public/templates/* structure and the Modules\Theme module enable installing or upgrading themes from ZIP packages.
• Setup & automation: Offers a web-based installer (/install) plus a single CLI command (php spark ci4ms:setup) for automated installation, default data seeding, and route generation. Module scaffolding is available via php spark make:module.
• Docker support: Ships with a production-ready Dockerfile, docker-compose.yml, and a GitHub Actions CI workflow out of the box.
• SEO helpers: ci4seopro builds meta tags and JSON-LD, while CommonLibrary centralizes email, breadcrumbs, and inline shortcode utilities.

Requirements

• PHP 8.2 or newer (intl, json, mbstring, gd, curl, openssl extensions required)
• Composer 2.5+
• MySQL / MariaDB (or any CodeIgniter 4-supported driver)
• Writable directories: writable/, public/uploads/, optionally public/templates/
• Optional: Redis + ext-redis (phpredis) — only for realtime notifications, which are off by default. The extension must be built for the PHP version that serves the site; on a multi-version setup pecl install redis easily targets the wrong one, and the feature then degrades silently to 60 s polling. See the Notifications module README.

See composer.json for the full dependency list (e.g. bertugfahriozer/ci4commonmodel, bertugfahriozer/sql2migration, ci4-cms-erp/ext_module_generator, claviska/simpleimage, gregwar/captcha, studio-42/elfinder).

🪴 Project Activity

Installation

Fresh Project (recommended)

Clone Existing Repository

Docker (recommended for development & CI)

Refer to DOCKER_SETUP.md for full Docker configuration details.

Environment & Configuration

1. Create your .env from the template:

2. Update these core settings in .env:

   • app.baseURL
   • database.default.*
   • Optional: cookie.*, honeypot.*, security.*

3. Prepare the routes file:

4. If you prefer the web installer, open /install in the browser and follow the wizard. Use the CLI step below to skip the wizard.

One-Command Setup (CLI)

This single command runs all migrations, seeds default data (modules, permissions, sample content), and creates the initial administrator account. No separate migrate or seed commands are needed.

Run the Dev Server

Access the backend via: https://<domain>/backend

Directory Layout

Key files:

• app/Commands/ — CLI tooling (make:a*, create:route, ci4ms:setup).
• app/Filters/Ci4ms.php — Install guard, maintenance mode redirect, menu cache.
• app/Config/DefaultRoutes.php — Routes template; copy to Routes.php on setup.
• modules/* — Each module includes its own Config/Routes.php, Controllers, Models, Views, Language, Libraries, Filters.
• public/templates/ — Theme assets; each theme requires info.xml and screenshot.png.
• writable/ — Cache, logs, temporary files.

Modules

See docs/architecture.md for deeper architectural notes.

CLI Commands

Standard CodeIgniter commands (php spark db:seed, php spark key:generate, etc.) are also available.

Developer Notes

• Cache keys: settings (24h), menus_{locale} (per-locale, 24h), sidebar_menu (24h), and the two the authorization filter reads — shield_auth_dynamic_config (24h, Shield's group/permission matrix) and backend_page_info_* (1h, per-route page rows). Clear with php spark cache:clear or cache()->delete(). After any RBAC write, call rbac_cache_flush() (app/Common.php) rather than deleting either key on its own: Ci4MsAuthFilter reads both, so clearing one leaves the other stale for up to its TTL.
• Base controller: Extend Modules\Backend\Controllers\BaseController for new backend controllers; it prepares session user, navigation, mail settings, and shared data.
• Permissions: Register new secured routes in Modules\Methods (or via the database) so the permission filter recognizes them.
• Slug generation: seflink() handles transliteration (including Turkish characters).
• Form security: Global CSRF is enabled; backend AJAX endpoints opt out via BackendConfig::$csrfExcept.
• Comment moderation: CommonLibrary::commentBadwordFiltering handles bad word filtering and moderation rules.
• Theme uploads: Each theme must include info.xml and screenshot.png; missing files trigger a backend warning.

Testing & Maintenance

• composer test — runs PHPUnit.
• The GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/docker-test.yml) automatically builds the Docker image and runs migrations on every push to master.
• Maintenance mode: When settings.maintenanceMode.scalar == 1, the Ci4ms filter redirects visitors to maintenance-mode.
• Security: Fileeditor enforces realpath guards and a dangerous extension blacklist (.php, .phtml, .phar, .htaccess) to prevent RCE; destructive operations (deleteFileOrFolder, renameFile) additionally validate against an extension allowlist to block renaming or deleting critical application files. Backup restore uses SQL statement whitelist to block malicious queries (LOAD_FILE, GRANT, etc.). HTMLPurifier config is hardened against XSS bypass (data: URIs blocked, CSS.Trusted disabled) and CustomRules::getClean() output is persisted on every create and update flow in Blog and Pages controllers to prevent Stored XSS. All $_SERVER reads replaced with CI4 base_url()/site_url() helpers. Configure App.php::$proxyIPs if behind Cloudflare/Nginx.

Release Signing & Trusted Keys

The auto-updater verifies a detached Ed25519 signature over the release manifest before it writes a single file, and then checks every downloaded file against its SHA-256 entry in that manifest. Because the trust decision is made against a key list stored inside your installation, an attacker who takes over the GitHub account, the release, or the CDN still cannot push code to you.

Auto-update is off until you configure trust. The repository ships with an empty keyring (Modules\Settings\Config\UpdateKeys::$keys = []), which is deliberate: a key shipped in the same repository it is supposed to protect proves nothing. Until you add a public key, the updater refuses every update and reports Settings.updateNoTrustedKeys.

Published signing key fingerprints

Before adding a key to your keyring, confirm its key_id and full hex SHA-256 fingerprint against the table below and against at least one channel that is not this repository (release announcement, project website, maintainer's own key publication). If the two do not match, do not add the key and open a security report.

Publisher: replace the placeholder row with the real key_id and fingerprint printed by php spark ci4ms:release:keygen. Publish the full hex fingerprint, never a truncated one, and add a new row (rather than editing the old one) when rotating — during a rotation window both keys are listed, the old one moving to revoked once the transition is complete. A revoked key causes the entire manifest to be rejected, even if a valid active signature is present alongside it.

Checking what your own installation trusts

The backend Settings page lists the release signing keys your installation currently trusts, with each entry's key_id, fingerprint, and status (active / revoked). Compare that list against the published fingerprints above; anything present there that is not published here did not come from the publisher. The keyring itself is a plain PHP config file — modules/Settings/Config/UpdateKeys.php — so it can also be reviewed directly and kept under your own change control.

Private keys are never held by the application, never committed, and never present in CI: signing happens offline via php spark ci4ms:release:keygen / ci4ms:release:manifest against a password-sealed keyfile stored outside ROOTPATH and public/. Anyone can independently verify a published release with php spark ci4ms:release:verify --remote --tag v<x.y.z.w>. The full pipeline, gates, and release ritual are documented in docs/architecture.md.

Third-Party Data Attribution

• Session geo lookup (optional, disabled by default) uses the free DB-IP City Lite database. If you enable it (Settings → Session Location Tracking, or the installer checkbox) and run php spark ci4ms:geoip-update, you must comply with the database license: IP Geolocation by DB-IP, distributed under CC BY 4.0. Keep this attribution visible in your deployment. No IP data leaves your server — lookups are performed locally against the downloaded database.

Additional Docs

• docs/architecture.md — Architecture, flow, permissions, and extension guidance.
• docs/developer-handbook.md — Environment setup, coding standards, deployment checklist.
• docs/theme_development.md — Theme folder structure, routing, and base.php variables.
• docs/web-server-hardening.md — Apache/nginx rules that stop uploaded files from executing. Read this if you deploy on anything other than Apache — .htaccess is ignored by nginx, Caddy and FrankenPHP.
• DOCKER_SETUP.md — Docker environment configuration and usage.
• CHANGELOG.md — Full release history.
• Wiki — EN/TR operator guide (install, configure, harden, upgrade, troubleshoot). Source lives in wiki/ and is published by .github/workflows/publish-wiki.yml.

Questions or contributions? Open an issue or pull request.

🏆 Acknowledgments

• Security researchers who reported vulnerabilities → SECURITY_HALL_OF_FAME.md
• Community bug reporters who caught functional regressions → BUG_REPORTERS.md

Found a security vulnerability? See the open an issue with reproduction steps.