How to install Ghost 4 on Plesk Obsidian

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This has been superseded by the Ghost 5 install guide: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.

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