How to Install Ghost CMS on Digital Ocean

How to Install Ghost CMS on Digital Ocean

If you’re looking to install Ghost CMS, Digital Ocean provides a straightforward and efficient platform for this process. This guide will walk you through each step, ensuring you can get your Ghost CMS up and running on Digital Ocean without any hassle. Let’s dive in!

Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure you have the following:

  1. A DigitalOcean account. If you don’t have one yet, you can sign up and grab some free credits.
  2. A registered domain name. This is mandatory for SSL configuration during the installation process.

Setting Up the Marketplace App

Digital Ocean is the official hosting partner of the Ghost open source project. They’ve made installing Ghost on Digital Ocean VPS droplets as easy as possible for developers, with officially supported 1-click marketplace apps.

To get started, head over to the official Ghost app in the Digital Ocean marketplace, and click on the “Create Ghost Droplet” button. For most Ghost installs, the $5 base option is sufficient to run the app. If you’re running a high traffic site or one with lots of members, then you may want to choose an option with more resources.

Server Setup

Once the Droplet has been created, you will have an IP address to log into. Open your terminal and login to your new server as the root user, with SSH:

# Login via SSH
ssh root@your_server_ip

At the first login, Ghost-CLI will automatically perform an update check for all available packages, and make sure that the environment is ready for use. When finished, you’ll see a prompt to let you know what’s next:

Ghost will prompt you for two details:

1. Your domain
 - Add an A Record -> xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx & ensure the DNS has fully propagated
 - Or alternatively enter http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
2. Your email address (only used for SSL)

Press enter when you're ready to get started!

Configuring Your Domain

It’s best to set up your domain and DNS at this point so that SSL certificates can be automatically provisioned during the install process. Create an A-Record from your domain, pointing at your server’s IP address, then press Enter in terminal when you’re ready.

Setting Up Ghost

Ghost-CLI will now install and configure Ghost for you. It will prompt you with some questions about how you’d like things to be set up:

  1. Blog URL: Enter the exact URL (the domain you pointed at your droplet’s IP address) that your publication will use, and include the protocol for HTTP or HTTPS. For example, https://example.com. If you use HTTPS, Ghost-CLI will offer to set up SSL for you.

Once the install is finished, you’ll be able to access your new site on https://yourdomain.com and https://yourdomain.com/ghost to access Ghost Admin.

And that’s it! You’ve successfully installed Ghost CMS on Digital Ocean. Happy blogging!