What is Ghost?

Ghost is a simple, powerful publishing platform that allows you to share your stories with the world

TL;DR;

Docker Compose

$ curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-ghost/master/docker-compose.yml > docker-compose.yml
$ docker-compose up -d

Why use Bitnami Images?

Bitnami closely tracks upstream source changes and promptly publishes new versions of this image using our automated systems.
With Bitnami images the latest bug fixes and features are available as soon as possible.
Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
All our images are based on minideb a minimalist Debian based container image which gives you a small base container image and the familiarity of a leading linux distribution.
All Bitnami images available in Docker Hub are signed with Docker Content Trust (DTC). You can use DOCKER_CONTENT_TRUST=1 to verify the integrity of the images.
Bitnami container images are released daily with the latest distribution packages available.

This CVE scan report contains a security report with all open CVEs. To get the list of actionable security issues, find the "latest" tag, click the vulnerability report link under the corresponding "Security scan" field and then select the "Only show fixable" filter on the next page.

How to deploy Ghost in Kubernetes?

Deploying Bitnami applications as Helm Charts is the easiest way to get started with our applications on Kubernetes. Read more about the installation in the Bitnami Ghost Chart GitHub repository.

Bitnami containers can be used with Kubeapps for deployment and management of Helm Charts in clusters.

Prerequisites

To run this application you need Docker Engine 1.10.0. Docker Compose is recomended with a version 1.6.0 or later.

Supported tags and respective `Dockerfile` links

NOTE: Debian 8 images have been deprecated in favor of Debian 9 images. Bitnami will not longer publish new Docker images based on Debian 8.

Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.

Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/ghost GitHub repo.

How to use this image

Run the application using Docker Compose

The main folder of this repository contains a functional docker-compose.yml file. Run the application using it as shown below:

$ curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-ghost/master/docker-compose.yml > docker-compose.yml
$ docker-compose up -d

Run the application manually

If you want to run the application manually instead of using docker-compose, these are the basic steps you need to run:

Create a new network for the application and the database:

$ docker network create ghost-tier

Create a volume for MariaDB persistence and create a MariaDB container

$ docker volume create --name mariadb_data
$ docker run -d --name mariadb \
  -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  -e MARIADB_USER=bn_ghost \
  -e MARIADB_DATABASE=bitnami_ghost \
  --net ghost-tier \
  --volume mariadb_data:/bitnami \
  bitnami/mariadb:latest

Note: You need to give the container a name in order to Ghost to resolve the host

Create volumes for Ghost persistence and launch the container

$ docker volume create --name ghost_data
$ docker run -d --name ghost -p 80:80 -p 443:443 \
  -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  -e GHOST_DATABASE_USER=bn_ghost \
  -e GHOST_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_ghost \
  --net ghost-tier \
  --volume ghost_data:/bitnami \
  bitnami/ghost:latest

Access your application at http://your-ip/

Note! If you want to access your application from a public IP or hostname you need to properly configured Ghost . You can handle it adjusting the configuration of the instance by setting the environment variable GHOST_HOST to your public IP or hostname.

Persisting your application

If you remove the container all your data and configurations will be lost, and the next time you run the image the database will be reinitialized. To avoid this loss of data, you should mount a volume that will persist even after the container is removed.

For persistence you should mount a volume at the /bitnami path. Additionally you should mount a volume for persistence of the MariaDB data.

The above examples define docker volumes namely mariadb_data and ghost_data. The Ghost application state will persist as long as these volumes are not removed.

To avoid inadvertent removal of these volumes you can mount host directories as data volumes. Alternatively you can make use of volume plugins to host the volume data.

Mount host directories as data volumes with Docker Compose

This requires a minor change to the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

services:
  mariadb:
  ...
    volumes:
      - /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami
  ...
  ghost:
  ...
    volumes:
      - '/path/to/ghost-persistence:/bitnami'
  ...

Mount host directories as data volumes using the Docker command line

In this case you need to specify the directories to mount on the run command. The process is the same than the one previously shown:

Create a network (if it does not exist):

$ docker network create ghost-tier

Create a MariaDB container with host volume:

$ docker run -d --name mariadb --net ghost-tier \
  -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  -e MARIADB_USER=bn_ghost \
  -e MARIADB_DATABASE=bitnami_ghost \
  --volume /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami \
  bitnami/mariadb:latest

Note: You need to give the container a name in order to Ghost to resolve the host

Create the Ghost container with host volumes:

$ docker run -d --name ghost -p 80:2368 \
  -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  -e GHOST_DATABASE_USER=bn_ghost \
  -e GHOST_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_ghost \
  -e GHOST_HOST=localhost \
  --net ghost-tier \
  --volume /path/to/ghost-persistence:/bitnami \
  bitnami/ghost:latest

Upgrade this application

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of MariaDB and Ghost, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container. We will cover here the upgrade of the Ghost container. For the MariaDB upgrade see https://github.com/bitnami/bitnami-docker-mariadb/blob/master/README.md#upgrade-this-image

Get the updated images:

$ docker pull bitnami/ghost:latest

Stop your container

For docker-compose: $ docker-compose stop ghost
For manual execution: $ docker stop ghost

Take a snapshot of the application state

$ rsync -a /path/to/ghost-persistence /path/to/ghost-persistence.bkp.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H.%M.%S)

Additionally, snapshot the MariaDB data

You can use these snapshots to restore the application state should the upgrade fail.

Remove the currently running container

For docker-compose: $ docker-compose rm ghost
For manual execution: $ docker rm ghost

Run the new image

For docker-compose: $ docker-compose up ghost
For manual execution (mount the directories if needed): docker run --name ghost bitnami/ghost:latest

Configuration

Environment variables

When you start the ghost image, you can adjust the configuration of the instance by passing one or more environment variables either on the docker-compose file or on the docker run command line. If you want to add a new environment variable:

For Docker Compose, add the variable name and value under the application section:

ghost:
  ...
  environment:
    - GHOST_HOST=my_host
  ...

For manual execution add a -e option with each variable and value:

 $ docker run -d -p 80:2368 --name ghost --network=ghost-tier \
    -e GHOST_PASSWORD=my_password \
    -v /your/local/path/bitnami/ghost:/bitnami \
    bitnami/ghost

Available variables:

User and Site configuration

GHOST_HOST: Hostname for Ghost.
GHOST_PORT_NUMBER: Port number used in the generated application URLs. Default: 80
GHOST_PROTOCOL: Protocol to use in the application URLs. Valid values are "http" and "https". Default: http
GHOST_USERNAME: Ghost application username. Default: user
GHOST_PASSWORD: Ghost application password. Minimum length is 10 characters. Default: bitnami123
GHOST_EMAIL: Ghost application email. Default: user@example.com
BLOG_TITLE: Ghost blog title. Default: User's Blog

Use an existing database

MARIADB_HOST: Hostname for MariaDB server. Default: mariadb
MARIADB_PORT_NUMBER: Port used by MariaDB server. Default: 3306
GHOST_DATABASE_NAME: Database name that Ghost will use to connect with the database. Default: bitnami_ghost
GHOST_DATABASE_USER: Database user that Ghost will use to connect with the database. Default: bn_ghost
GHOST_DATABASE_PASSWORD: Database password that Ghost will use to connect with the database. No defaults.
ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: It can be used to allow blank passwords. Default: no

Create a database for Ghost using mysql-client

MARIADB_HOST: Hostname for MariaDB server. Default: mariadb
MARIADB_PORT_NUMBER: Port used by MariaDB server. Default: 3306
MARIADB_ROOT_USER: Database admin user. Default: root
MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD: Database password for the MARIADB_ROOT_USER user. No defaults.
MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_NAME: New database to be created by the mysql client module. No defaults.
MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_USER: New database user to be created by the mysql client module. No defaults.
MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_PASSWORD: Database password for the MYSQL_CLIENT_CREATE_DATABASE_USER user. No defaults.
ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: It can be used to allow blank passwords. Default: no

SMTP Configuration

To configure Ghost to send email using SMTP you can set the following environment variables:

SMTP_HOST: SMTP host.
SMTP_PORT: SMTP port.
SMTP_USER: SMTP account user.
SMTP_PASSWORD: SMTP account password.
SMTP_FROM_ADDRESS: SMTP from address.
SMTP_SERVICE: SMTP service to use.

This would be an example of SMTP configuration using a GMail account:

Change the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

ghost:
  ...
  environment:
    - SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
    - SMTP_USER=your_email@gmail.com
    - SMTP_PASSWORD=your_password
    - SMTP_FROM_ADDRESS="'Custom Name' <myemail@address.com>"
    - SMTP_SERVICE=GMail
  ...

For manual execution:

 $ docker run -d -p 80:2368 --name ghost --network=ghost-tier \
    -e GHOST_HOST=localhost \
    -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
    -e GHOST_DATABASE_USER=bn_ghost \
    -e GHOST_DATABASE_NAME=bitnami_ghost \
    -e SMTP_HOST=smtp.gmail.com \
    -e SMTP_SERVICE=GMail \
    -e SMTP_USER=your_email@gmail.com \
    -e SMTP_PASSWORD=your_password \
    -v /your/local/path/bitnami/ghost:/bitnami \
    bitnami/ghost

Notable Changes

0.11.10-r2

The ghost container has been migrated to a non-root container approach. Previously the container run as root user and the ghost daemon was started as ghost user. From now own, both the container and the ghost daemon run as user 1001. As a consequence, the configuration files are writable by the user running the ghost process.

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue, or submit a pull request with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to include the following information in your issue:

Host OS and version
Docker version (docker version)
Output of docker info
Version of this container (echo $BITNAMI_IMAGE_VERSION inside the container)
The command you used to run the container, and any relevant output you saw (masking any sensitive information)

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

alexwelcing/bitnami-docker-ghost