[Ghost](https://ghost.org) is open source blogging platform written in [Node.js](https://nodejs.org) that offers self hosting and hosted service.
We are going to self host Ghost on a Raspberry Pi.
This guide will take you through the steps of setting up a self hosted Ghost production environment.
I am working on this setup with a clean install of Raspbian and headless setup, you can lean how to enable SSH from here.
You can SSH into your Raspberry Pi(Mac/Linux). If you are a Windows user you need to use Putty
ssh pi@the-ip-address-of-the-pi
“`
The default username and password of the Raspbian install is.
user: pi
password: raspberry
Installing Node.js
Downloading Node.js(NPM ships with it)
wget http://node-arm.herokuapp.com/node_latest_armhf.deb
“`
Installing Node.js(required by Ghost)
sudo dpkg -i node_latest_armhf.deb
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Installing Sqlite required by Ghost.
sudo apt-get install sqlite3
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Installing NGINX(used to reverse proxy Ghost)
sudo apt-get install nginx-full
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Installing Supervisor(to manage Ghost)
sudo apt-get install supervisor
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#### Ghost setup
This will download the latest version of Ghost.
wget https://ghost.org/zip/ghost-latest.zip
“`
Unzipping the folder we just downloaded.
unzip ghost-latest.zip -d Ghost
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Set “Ghost/` as the current directory`
cd Ghost/
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Installing dependencies used by Ghost using “NPM`.`
npm install –production
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Run the command below to see everything works fine.
npm start –production
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Time to setup turn Ghost into a service.
Creating the <code class="highlighter-rouge">ghost.conf file for Supervisor to manage Ghost.
touch /etc/supervisor/conf.d/ghost.conf
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Editing the file, you can choose any editor you like.
nano /etc/supervisor/conf.d/ghost.conf
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Add these lines to the “ghost.conf` file.`
[program:ghost]
command = npm start –production
directory = /home/pi/Ghost/
user = pi
autostart = true
autorestart = true
stdout_logfile = /var/log/supervisor/ghost.log
stderr_logfile = /var/log/supervisor/ghost_err.log
environment = NODE_ENV=”production”
“`
Now save the file, in nano CTRL + X + Y.
You can start Supervisor, if it did not start after installing.
service supervisord start
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Now set Supervisor to run on startup.
sudo update-rc.d supervisord defaults
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Starting Ghost service we just created.
sudo supervisord start ghost
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Ghost will be running in production in port 2368.
Reverse proxying Ghost with NGINX.
Editing the <code class="highlighter-rouge">default file.
nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
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Add these lines
server {
listen 80;
server_name yourdomain.com; # Change this to your hostname“`
location / {
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:2368;
proxy_set_header Host $host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
}
}
Save the file
Now restart NGINX.
service nginx restart
“`
Now visit your Raspberry Pi ip address. You will be presented with a beautiful setup screen.
You can edit the Ghost hostname and other settings by editing the <code class="highlighter-rouge">config.js stored in the Ghost folder.
Services like DynDNS can be used to manage hostname, if you want your Ghost blog to be public and use a domain name instead of the ip address.
If you have any questions or problem, leave a comment below.
