Self-hosting Ghost

Ghost runs as a handful of containers: the web app, the API, the docs, a delivery worker for webhooks and email, a code search node, Postgres, and S3 storage, plus an optional importer for GitHub repositories. One script asks a few questions, writes the configuration, and starts all of them.

What you needCopy Anchor Link

• Docker with Compose v2 (Docker Desktop on macOS and Windows).
• About 4 GB of memory free while the images build for the first time.
• An SMTP server or an HTTP email relay. Ghost uses it for email verification, password resets and notifications.
• For a public instance: a domain, and ports 80 and 443 open. HTTPS certificates are issued automatically.

InstallCopy Anchor Link

git clone https://github.com/PhantomKnight287/ghost.git
cd ghost
./docker/setup.sh

The script asks:

1. Domain or IP. Enter a domain such as git.example.com to serve Ghost over HTTPS. Enter localhost or an IP address to serve plain HTTP on ports 3000, 3001 and 3003.
2. SSH port. The port for git clone ssh://…. The default is 1031.
3. Email. Pick SMTP or an HTTP relay, then enter its details. One of them is required.
4. Storage. Use the bundled S3 storage, or point Ghost at an existing bucket on Cloudflare R2, Tigris, MinIO or another S3-compatible service.
5. GitHub imports. Optional, off by default. Say yes to let people import a GitHub repository with its code, releases, issues and pull requests, then enter the client ID and secret of a GitHub OAuth app. The script prints the callback URL the app needs. See GitHub imports.
6. Secrets. Press enter at each one and the script generates it: the auth secret, the webhook encryption key, the SSH host key, the commit signing key, and the database and storage passwords.

The first build takes several minutes. When it is done, the script prints the addresses:

Web   https://git.example.com
API   https://api.git.example.com   (git clone https://api.git.example.com/<user>/<repo>)
Docs  https://docs.git.example.com
SSH   ssh://git@git.example.com:1031/<user>/<repo>.git

Open the web address and sign up. The first account is an ordinary account; there is no separate admin.

With a domainCopy Anchor Link

Before you run the script, create DNS records that point three names at the server:

The web app and the API share a sign-in cookie, so they have to be subdomains of one name. A Caddy container takes ports 80 and 443 and gets a certificate for each name on its first request.

UpgradingCopy Anchor Link

git pull
./docker/setup.sh     # answer Y to start with the existing configuration

On Windows, run setup.ps1 the same way. The images are rebuilt, and database migrations run before the API starts.

Back upCopy Anchor Link

Everything that matters is in two places:

• docker/.env: every secret. Without it, sign-ins, webhook secrets, the SSH host key and the commit signing key are lost.
• The ghost-server_postgres volume, and the bucket (ghost-server_rustfs when you use the bundled storage).

A database dump:

cd docker
docker compose exec postgres pg_dump -U ghost ghost > ghost.sql

Next: Self-hosting configuration covers every setting, running without the script, and troubleshooting.