I think I might like a place to publish content (photos, some longer-form writing) that doesn't feel like it belongs on my personal, tech-centric blog.
I chose Ghost, an open-source platform for publishers or content-creators. The first ever blog that I spun up during my postgrad studies was a Ghost blog, and for a variety of reasons it felt better than using WordPress or Substack .
I chose Coolify as a host-your-own Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that would let me deploy multiple containerised applications to a server that I owned (or rented).
Ghost offer a paid plan that starts at $9/mo, but its core technology is open-source, so I wanted to self-host.
Spin up a server
I spun up a Virtual Private Server (VPS) on Hetzner, I took their CX32 model: €7.56/mo gets me 4vCPUs, 8GB memory, and 80GB disk space along with daily backups.
After the server has spun up, I SSH'd in (using the keys that are generated during the creation process), and followed Coolify's own self-hosted instructions, which took no more than a couple of minutes.
Now when I go to my VPS's IP address, I see the Coolify UI. Cool !
Decide on your domain name
If you want your blog deployed to a domain (e.g. thomaswilson.xyz) or a subdomain (e.g. ghost.thomaswilson.xyz) then you should decide this up top. In all the examples below, I have used ghost.thomaswilson.xyz.
You will need to replace that with whatever you decide to use.
Create the Coolify Resource
Within a Project in Coolify, create a new Resource, and Select "Dockerfile"
Specify the Dockerfile
FROM ghost:alpine
ENV NODE_ENV=production \
url=https://ghost.thomaswilson.xyz \
database__client=sqlite3 \
database__connection__filename=/var/lib/ghost/content/data/ghost.db \
paths__contentPath=/var/lib/ghost/content
# Create a directory for Ghost content
RUN mkdir -p /var/lib/ghost/content && \
chown -R node:node /var/lib/ghost/content
USER node
VOLUME ["/var/lib/ghost/content"]
EXPOSE 2368
CMD ["node", "current/index.js"]
Expose the Network port
By default (and specified in the above Dockerfile), Ghost will run on port 2368. I don't see a need to change that.
In the Network tab of the Resource's Configuration, specify 2368 under the "Ports Exposes" field.
Specify volumes
In Configurations > Storages, mount a new volume where the directory on the host is /data/ghost/content, and the path on the container is /var/lib/ghost/content (the directory specified in the container above).
This will mean that your content (managed in a SQLite database, specified in the Dockerfile) will persist between deploys, so you won't lose all of your content just because you re-deploy your resource.
It should also allow you to export the directory content from your VPS, should you wish to jump ship to another server.
Set Domain Name Records
This might take a couple hours to filter through the pipes of the internet.
In your domain registrar, create an A record that points your desired (sub)domain towards the static IP of your VPS.
In my instance, I pointed ghost towards the IP, so that https://ghost.thomaswilon.xyz would point towards my .
Within the Configurations page of your Ghost blog Resource on Coolify, set the Domains field to that same URL, so for me: https://ghost.thomaswilson.xyz
(Re-)Deploy that Resource
Now that you've set up your resources, and domain names, you'll be able to deploy that resource !
Wait
It might take a minute for the domain name to filter through - I've used Hover and Netlify (which normally take a few hours), and Cloudflare, which has always been notably faster.
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