How to install Ghost 4 on Plesk Obsidian

This has been superseded by the Ghost 5 install guide:

How to install Ghost 5 on Plesk Obsidian

Ghost 4 was released earlier today which brought some nice new features, mainly a way for you to easily create a subscription for your content.

Note: I am not an expert in Docker, npm, node.js or related technologies. What I am documenting here is what worked for myself.

Pre-requisites

Plesk Obsidian – (Version: 18.0.35 is the version I had installed when I did this)
Docker extension – (I believe this is already preinstalled, correct me on Twitter if I am wrong)

Installing Ghost!

Go to “Docker”
In the search box, type in “Ghost” and press enter.

You will see “ghost” with the [OFFICIAL] tag. Click on the highlighted arrow and choose the latest version (This may say 4.0.0 or similar. Do not choose latest or 4.x.x-alpine)
This will download the image and bring you to the next screen

Configuring Ghost Docker Container! (😨)

This is the probably the most important part, so please follow things to a T here!

Container Name: Call this whatever you want, ideally something relating to your site. For this example, we’re calling this padraig_is_awesome
Check the box for ✅ “Automatic start after system reboot”
Un-check the box for “Automatic port mapping”
- Manual mapping: 2368 to external 32778
Volume mapping:
- “Container“: /var/lib/ghost/content
- “Host”: /var/ghost/padraig_is_awesome/content (replace padraig_is_awesome with your container name at the top of the page!
Near the bottom of the page, click on “Add Variable”
In the blank boxes above, type url in the first box and your URL (eg: https://padraigs-blog.com in the second box (Make sure this domain is registered, and added to Plesk)

Your screen should look very similar to this:

Now, click “OK” and let it install.
Go back to “Websites & Domains” and find your site, click on “Docker Proxy Rules”

Click “Add Rule”
- URL: Leave this alone
- Container: Choose your container
- Port: This should say 2368 -> 32778
- Click “OK“
Give that a couple of minutes for it to work and you can access your site via https://padraigs-blog.com/ghost (Obviously replace padraigs-blog.com with your own domain name)

And you should be good to go!

Frequently Asked Questions!

What if I want to run a 2nd or 3rd Ghost blog on Plesk?

Repeat the steps above, the only things to change are:

The “Container Name”
The port, change it from 32778 to 32779.
- Keep incrementing this by 1 for each new blog your create!

What if I want it at `domain.com/blog`?

Indicate this in the url on the setup page.
And when you add in the rule on the “Docker Proxy Rules” page, add blog where it says “URL”.

I want to move this to/from a subdomain to a naked domain?

Go into the “Docker Proxy Rules” and remove the rule from here.
Go into “Docker” on the left-hand side, click on “Settings” beside the container and adjust the url in here. This will more than likely restart the container.
Re-add the “Docker Proxy Rules” to the new subdomain or naked domain.

How do I access the files if I want to import themes or other content?

Connect via SSH to your server (FTP will not work)
Navigate to /var/ghost/$containername/content

If there are any other questions, hit me up on Twitter and I will try to help where possible, but as mentioned, I am not an expert! Do not rely on me to resolve your issue. Try StackOverflow, Plesk’s forums, Ghost’s forums, Google, DuckDuckGo.