# Ghost

Ghost is a free and open source blogging platform written in JavaScript and distributed under the MIT License, designed to simplify the process of online publishing for individual bloggers as well as online publications.

> [wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_(blogging_platform)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_%28blogging_platform%29)

%%LOGO%%

# How to use this image

This will start a Ghost development instance listening on the default Ghost port of 2368.

```console
$ docker run -d --name some-ghost -e NODE_ENV=development %%IMAGE%%
```

## Custom port

If you'd like to be able to access the instance from the host without the container's IP, standard port mappings can be used:

```console
$ docker run -d --name some-ghost -e NODE_ENV=development -e url=http://localhost:3001 -p 3001:2368 %%IMAGE%%
```

If all goes well, you'll be able to access your new site on `http://localhost:3001` and `http://localhost:3001/ghost` to access Ghost Admin (or `http://host-ip:3001` and `http://host-ip:3001/ghost`, respectively).

### Upgrading Ghost

You will want to ensure you are running the latest minor version of Ghost before upgrading major versions. Otherwise, you may run into database errors.

For upgrading your Ghost container you will want to mount your data to the appropriate path in the predecessor container (see below): import your content from the admin panel, stop the container, and then re-mount your content to the successor container you are upgrading into; you can then export your content from the admin panel.

## Stateful

Mount your existing content. In this example we also use the Alpine Linux based image.

```console
$ docker run -d \
	--name some-ghost \
	-e NODE_ENV=development \
	-e database__connection__filename='/var/lib/ghost/content/data/ghost.db' \
	-p 3001:2368 \
	-v /path/to/ghost/blog:/var/lib/ghost/content \
	%%IMAGE%%:alpine
```

Note: `database__connection__filename` is only valid in development mode and is the location for the SQLite database file. If using development mode, it should be set to a writeable path within a persistent folder (bind mount or volume). It is not available in production mode because an external MySQL server is required (see the `docker-compose` example below).

### Docker Volume

Alternatively you can use a named [docker volume](https://docs.docker.com/storage/volumes/) instead of a direct host path for `/var/lib/ghost/content`:

```console
$ docker run -d \
	--name some-ghost \
	-e NODE_ENV=development \
	-e database__connection__filename='/var/lib/ghost/content/data/ghost.db' \
	-p 3001:2368 \
	-v some-ghost-data:/var/lib/ghost/content \
	%%IMAGE%%
```

## Configuration

All Ghost configuration parameters (such as `url`) can be specified via environment variables. See [the Ghost documentation](https://ghost.org/docs/concepts/config/#running-ghost-with-config-env-variables) for details about what configuration is allowed and how to convert a nested configuration key into the appropriate environment variable name:

```console
$ docker run -d --name some-ghost -e NODE_ENV=development -e url=http://some-ghost.example.com %%IMAGE%%
```

(There are further configuration examples in the `stack.yml` listed below.)

## What is the Node.js version?

When opening a ticket at https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/issues it becomes necessary to know the version of Node.js in use:

```console
$ docker exec <container-id> node --version
[node version output]
```

## Note about Ghost-CLI

While the Docker images do have Ghost-CLI available and do use some of its commands to set up the base Ghost image, many of the other Ghost-CLI commands won't work correctly, and really aren't designed/intended to. For more info see [docker-library/ghost#156 (comment)](https://github.com/docker-library/ghost/issues/156#issuecomment-428159861)

## Production mode

To run Ghost for production you'll also need to be running with MySQL 8, https, and a reverse proxy configured with appropriate `X-Forwarded-For`, `X-Forwared-Host`, and `X-Forwarded-Proto` (`https`) headers.

The following example demonstrates some of the necessary configuration for running with MySQL. For more detail, see [Ghost's "Configuration options" documentation](https://ghost.org/docs/config/#configuration-options).

## %%STACK%%

Run `docker stack deploy -c stack.yml %%REPO%%` (or `docker-compose -f stack.yml up`), wait for it to initialize completely, and visit `http://swarm-ip:8080`, `http://localhost:8080`, or `http://host-ip:8080` (as appropriate).