Ghost + Nginx blog

A batteries-included blog platform running completely in Docker.

Uses Ghost as the blogging platform, Nginx reverse proxy, and MySQL 8 as the database backend.

This additionally improves on the base Ghost docker image by including:

• Complete database + proxy + blog setup with a single Docker Compose file
• Automatic Nginx configuration with jwilder/nginx-proxy
• Automatic SSL certificate generation using docker-letsencrypt-nginx-proxy-companion and LetsEncrypt
• Image storage backend with Backblaze B2 or Cloudflare R2

Prerequisites

• Docker - v20+
• Docker compose - v2.17+
• A domain name

Installation

1. Install Docker + Docker Compose

Make sure you have a recent version of Docker installed, and Docker Compose.

Installation of these is beyond the scope of this project, but there are some resources below to get started.

2. Clone the repository to your project directory

Note: This repository has sub-repositories for the related storage engines.

git clone --recurse-submodules [REPO URL]

3. Configure environment variables

• Copy the configuration file from example.env to .env
• Change your configuration settings, including site name, email, site URL, and backend storage option.

4. Build the Docker images

• Pull the required Docker images: docker-compose pull
• Check your config is correct: docker-compose config

5. Domain name and ports

• Point your domain name to your server's IP address
• Ensure your server has ports 80 and 443 open to allow HTTP traffic

Usage

Clone the repo, configure it, and build the Docker images, as described above.

Notes:

• Make sure you change your blog name and settings in .env.
• If you want to serve this to the public web, you'll need to open ports 80 and 443 on your server's firewall

Start the app:

docker-compose start

• Give it a couple minutes to run, initialize the database and generate the SSL certificates
• Watch the logs to ensure no errors in the SSL certs or database setup

It should now be running at your specified domain name.

Resources

Ghost, Nginx, and Docker

• Ghost - https://ghost.org/
• Docker - https://docker.com/
• Nginx - https://nginx.org/en/docs/

Docker installation:

• Installing Docker Compose - https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/
• Installing Docker Desktop - https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/

Nginx config:

• Nginx configuration files - https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/basic-functionality/managing-configuration-files/

Opening ports:

• Opening ports on Linux - https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-iptables-firewall-open-port-80/

Credits

• Inspiration for Nginx/Certbot Docker configuration - Gabriel Berthier - https://github.com/gabrielberthier/docker-compose-ghost-setup

Maintainer

• 👋🏻 Matt Fields - [email protected]

License

• MIT License