Installing Ghost Blogging Platform on Ubuntu 24.04

Ghost is an open-source publishing platform with built-in newsletters, memberships, subscriptions, ActivityPub federation, and Tinybird-powered web analytics. This guide covers two install paths on Ubuntu 24.04: Ghost-CLI for a traditional host install, and Docker Compose for a containerized deployment with analytics. Prerequisites: an Ubuntu 24.04 server, non-root sudo user, a domain A record (e.g. ghost.example.com ). Option A: Install with Ghost-CLI Install Node.js Ghost requires Node v22 LTS — check compatible versions before installing elsewhere. $ curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_22.x -o nodesource_setup.sh $ sudo -E bash nodesource_setup.sh $ sudo apt install -y nodejs $ node -v Install and Configure MySQL $ sudo apt install -y mysql-server $ mysql --version $ sudo mysql_secure_installation Walk through the prompts: enable password validation ( y ), pick strong policy ( 2 ), remove anonymous users ( y ), restrict root to localhost ( y ), drop the test database ( y ), reload privileges ( y ). $ sudo mysql mysql > CREATE DATABASE ghost_db ; mysql > CREATE USER 'ghostuser' @ 'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Your_password2!' ; mysql > GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON ghost_db . * TO 'ghostuser' @ 'localhost' ; mysql > FLUSH PRIVILEGES ; mysql > EXIT ; Install Nginx $ sudo apt install -y nginx $ sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full' $ sudo systemctl status nginx Install Ghost $ sudo npm install ghost-cli@latest -g $ sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/ghost $ sudo chown $USER : $USER /var/www/html/ghost $ sudo chmod 775 /var/www/html/ghost $ cd /var/www/html/ghost $ ghost install The installer prompts for: Blog URL : https://ghost.example.com MySQL hostname : localhost MySQL username/password/database : from the setup above Set up Nginx? : y Set up SSL? : y (installs acme.sh ) Email for SSL : your address Set up Systemd? : y Start Ghost? : y Manage the Config $ nano /var/www/html/ghost/config.production.json $ cd /var/www/html/ghost $ ghost restart Or via systemd (replace ghost-example