Pulse Signage

Pulse Signage is a digital signage system that lets you manage screens, playlists, slides, templates, and uploaded media from one admin interface.

It runs as two connected services:

• the web admin app for managing content and screens
• the player app that shows the current signage on each screen and listens for live updates

What You Can Do

• Sign in to the admin dashboard
• Create and organize playlists and slides
• Design reusable templates and canvas sizes
• Register screens and assign playlists to them
• Upload images and other media for use in slides and templates
• View live screen connections and send player commands

What You Need

• Docker and Docker Compose
• A MySQL database

First-Time Setup

When the app starts for the first time, it creates the database tables it needs and adds a default admin account if no users exist yet.

• Username: admin
• Password: admin

You can change the initial admin credentials with these optional environment variables:

• DEFAULT_ADMIN_USERNAME
• DEFAULT_ADMIN_NAME
• DEFAULT_ADMIN_PASSWORD

Configuration

The app reads its settings from environment variables.

Database Connection

• DB_HOST - MySQL host, default 127.0.0.1
• DB_PORT - MySQL port, default 3306
• DB_NAME - database name, default signage
• DB_USER - database user, default signage_user
• DB_PASSWORD - database password, default signage_password

Web Admin App

• WEB_PORT - admin app port, default 3000
• PLAYER_INTERNAL_BASE_URL - player address used by the server, default http://player:3001
• PLAYER_PUBLIC_BASE_URL - player address shown in browser links, default http://localhost:3001
• UPLOAD_DIR - storage location for uploaded files, default ./uploads

Player App

• PLAYER_PORT - player port, default 3001

Using Docker

The recommended way to run the project is with Docker Compose.

docker-compose up --build

This starts:

• the web admin app on port 3000
• the player app on port 3001
• MySQL on port 3306

The web app and player app share the same uploaded media volume, so files uploaded in the admin UI are available to the player.

Important Notes

• The web app must be able to reach the player through PLAYER_INTERNAL_BASE_URL.
• When running in Docker, that value should point to the Docker service name, not localhost.
• Uploaded media is stored separately from the application source, so make sure it is backed up if you are not using Docker volumes.