How to Install Ghost CMS via Ghost-CLI

Guide on how to install Ghost CMS locally or on your server using the command line tool (CLI). Configuration options for Ghost.

Norbert
Norbert3 min read

To install Ghost CMS you need a supported version of Node.js. Check the supported Node versions by Ghost.

With Node.js installed we get npm which is a package manager. So, let's start.

Install Ghost-CLI

Ghost CLI is a commandline tool provided by the Ghost team to help with installing and configuring Ghost. To install the CLI run the following command:

npm install ghost-cli@latest -g

Now we can use ghost command. Some ghost commands that are available:

  • ghost install
  • ghost update
  • ghost setup
  • ghost config
  • ghost start
  • ghost stop

You can run ghost help to see all available commands.

Install Ghost locally

To install Ghost locally just create a new directory and navigate to it. Then run the following command:

ghost install local

This will setup a Ghost instance in development mode (which is good for developing or changing a theme as it uses less caching)

When the install is finished the Ghost instance should automatically be started. You can access it by this url: http://localhost:2368 To access the ghost admin go to this url http://localhost:2368/ghost

Useful commands to manage your local ghost instance

  • ghost start - To start Ghost
  • ghost stop - To stop Ghost
  • ghost restart - To restart Ghost

The database is automatically setup during the install and can be found in the content/data folder. While themes are in the content/themes folder.

Install Ghost on server

To install Ghost on a server there is a recommended way to do it. You should create a directory for it:

# create directory
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/ghost_site

Your user has to own this directory and have the correct permissions for it. Run these commands and replace <user> with your actual user:

#set ownership
sudo chown <user>:<user> /var/www/ghost_site

#set permissions
sudo chmod 775 /var/www/ghost_site

Now you can install Ghost:

# move to the directory
cd /var/www/ghost_site

# run the install command
ghost install

Install Configuration

During the install you will be prompted to complete some information needed by the CLI to configure your site:

  • Blog URL - your site url
  • MySQL hostname - localhost by default
  • MySQL user & password
  • Database name - how you want to name the db
  • Ghost MySQL user - yes/no (recommended)
  • nginx setup - yes/no (recommended)
  • SSL setup - yes/no (recommended) to have https
  • email
  • systemd setup - yes/no (recommended)

That's it, all done.

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