Moonglade

The blog system for https://edi.wang. Written in C# on .NET Core and runs on Microsoft Azure.

Features

Basic: Post, Comment, Category, Archive, Tag, Page, Friendlink

Misc: Pingback, RSS/Atom/OPML, Open Search, Reader View

Build and Run

Tools	Alternative
.NET Core 3.1 SDK	N/A
Visual Studio 2019	Visual Studio Code
Azure SQL Database	SQL Server 2019 / LocalDB (Dev Only)

If you would like to deploy Moonglade to Azure and use Azure services as much as possible just like my blog, you can use the automation deployment script /Azure-Deployment/Deploy.ps1 to prepare a full Azure environment before deploying code.

Setup Database

1. Create Database

Development

Create an SQL Server 2019 LocalDB database. e.g. moonglade-dev

Production

Create an Azure SQL Database or a SQL Server 2019 database. e.g. moonglade-production

2. Set Connection String

Via configuration file

Update the connection string "MoongladeDatabase" in appsettings.[env].json according to your database configuration.

Example:

"ConnectionStrings": {
  "MoongladeDatabase": "Server=(localdb)\\MSSQLLocalDB;Database=moonglade-dev;Trusted_Connection=True;"
}

Via environment variable (Recommend for production)

Set environment variable: ConnectionStrings__MoongladeDatabase to your connection string. If you are deploying to Azure App Service, you can set the connection string in the Configuration blade.

Build Source

Quick Start

Build and run Moonglade.sln

• Default Admin Username: admin
• Default Admin Password: admin123

For Development:

Create an "appsettings.Development.json" under "src\Moonglade.Web", this file defines development time settings such as accounts, db connections, keys, etc. It is by default ignored by git, so you will need to manange it on your own.

Configuration

Below section discuss system settings in appsettings.[env].json. For blog settings, please use "/admin/settings" UI.

Authentication

Configure how to sign in to admin portal.

Preferred: Azure Active Directory

Register an App in Azure Active Directory

• Set Redirection URI to "https://yourdomain/signin-oidc"
  • For local debugging, add URL to https://localhost:1055/signin-oidc
• Check ID Tokens checkbox under 'Advanced settings'.
• Copy "appId" to set as AzureAd:ClientId in appsettings.[env].json file

"Authentication": {
  "Provider": "AzureAD",
  "AzureAd": {
    "Domain": "{YOUR-VALUE}",
    "TenantId": "{YOUR-VALUE}",
    "ClientId": "{YOUR-VALUE}",
  }
}

Alternative: Local Account

Set Authentication:Provider to "Local" and assign a pair of username and password.

Currently password is not encrypted, use it at your own risk.

"Authentication": {
  "Provider": "Local",
  "Local": {
    "Username": "{YOUR-VALUE}",
    "Password": "{YOUR-VALUE}",
  }
}

Image Storage

AppSettings:ImageStorage controls how blog post images are stored. There are 2 built-in options:

Azure Blob Storage (Preferred)

You need to create an Azure Blob Storage with container level permission.

"Provider": "azurestorage"
"AzureStorageSettings": {
  "ConnectionString": "YOUR CONNECTION STRING",
  "ContainerName": "YOUR CONTAINER NAME"
}

File System (Alternative)

"Provider": "filesystem",
"FileSystemSettings": {
  "Path": "${basedir}\\UploadedImages"
}

The Path can be relative or absolute. "${basedir}" represents the website's current directory. Storing images files under website directory is NOT recommended.

CDN

If GetImageByCDNRedirect is set to true, the blog will get images from client browser using a 302 redirect, not by fetching images in backend and put into memory cache. This is especially useful when you have a CDN for your image resources, like what I did on Azure.

Note: Azure CDN is extremely slow under China Telecom and China Mobile network, if you are operating in China, please use a local CDN provider.

"CDNSettings": {
    "GetImageByCDNRedirect": true,
    "CDNEndpoint": "https://ews.azureedge.net/ediwang-images"
}

Email Notification

If you need email notification for new comments, new replies and pingbacks, you have to setup the Moonglade.Notification API first.

Setup Moonglade.Notification API

See https://github.com/EdiWang/Moonglade.Notification for instructions

Configure Moonglade

Set values in AppSettings:

"Notification": {
  "Enabled": true,
  "ApiEndpoint": "{PROD-ENV-VARIABLE}",
  "ApiKey": "{PROD-ENV-VARIABLE}"
}

Others

Key	Description
Editor	HTML / Markdown
CaptchaSettings:ImageWidth	Pixel Width of Captcha Image
CaptchaSettings.ImageHeight	Pixel Height of Captcha Image
PostAbstractWords	How may words to show in post list abstract
ImageCacheSlidingExpirationMinutes	Time for cached images to expire
EnforceHttps	Force website use HTTPS
AllowScriptsInCustomPage	Allow JavaScript in Page content or not
EnableAudit	Enable Audit Log or not

FAQ

Does this blog support upgrade from a lower version?

It depends. If the database schema is same for a higer version, then the system can be deployed and override old files without problem.

Does this blog coupled with Microsoft Azure?

No, the system design does not couple with Azure, but the blog works best on Azure. Every part of the system, like Authentication and Image Storage, can be configured to use non-Azure options.

Related Projects

Below open source projects are reusable components (NuGet packages) used in my blog, and they can be used in other websites as well.

Repository	Nuget
Edi.Blog.Pingback
Edi.Blog.OpmlFileWriter
Edi.Captcha.AspNetCore
Edi.ImageWatermark
Edi.Net.AesEncryption
Edi.Practice.RequestResponseModel
Edi.SyndicationFeedGenerator
Edi.TemplateEmail
Edi.WordFilter