Setting Up a Blog with Ghost, Caddy, and Docker

Setting up a blog with Ghost and using Caddy as a reverse proxy for automatic HTTPS is a super simple and secure way to get your blog online. With everything running in Docker.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, ensure you have:

A VPS or any server with Docker and Docker Compose installed.
- Check out the official Docker documentation for installation help.
A domain name pointed to your server's IP address.
Basic familiarity with terminal commands.

Setting Up

I don't know why, but usually I created the follow structure on server to keep the website in one place.

Add the following content, replacing myblogdomain.com with your domain name:

sudo mkdir -p /srv/myblogdomain.com/
cd /srv/myblogdomain.com/

Inside /srv/myblogdomain.com/, create a Caddyfile to set up the reverse proxy:

vim /srv/myblogdomain.com/Caddyfile

myblogdomain.com {
    reverse_proxy blog:2368
}

Caddyfile

In the same directory, create a docker-compose.yml file:

services:
  caddy:
    image: caddy:2-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 80:80
      - 443:443
    volumes:
      - ./caddy_data:/data
      - ./Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile

  blog:
    image: ghost:5
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - ./data/content:/var/lib/ghost/content
    environment:
      database__client: mysql
      database__connection__host: database
      database__connection__user: root
      database__connection__password: <strong-password>
      database__connection__database: ghost
      url: https://myblogdomain.com
      NODE_ENV: production
    depends_on:
      - database

  database:
    image: mysql:8.0
    restart: always
    volumes:
      - ./db:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: <strong-password>
      MYSQL_DATABASE: ghost
      MYSQL_USER: user
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: <strong-password>

Note: Replace <strong-password> with strong, secure passwords.

Additional Ghost Configuration
For more customization options, refer to the Ghost documentation.

1 - Start the Containers

Run the following command to start your blog:

docker compose up -d

2 - Check the logs:

Monitor logs to ensure everything is running good

docker compose logs -f

The -f means "follow" with this you will see the live logs.

3 - Verify Containers
Use the docker ps command to check if all containers are up:

docker ps

you will see a output like

534136fa6112   ghost:5          "docker-entrypoint.s…"   23 hours ago   Up 23 hours   2368/tcp                                                                                      myblogdomain-blog-1
43b3ce9bca1f   caddy:2-alpine   "caddy run --config …"   23 hours ago   Up 19 hours   0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp, :::80->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:443->443/tcp, :::443->443/tcp, 443/udp, 2019/tcp   myblogdomain-caddy-1
bf22abd3cb74   mysql:8.0        "docker-entrypoint.s…"   23 hours ago   Up 23 hours   3306/tcp                                                                                      myblogdomain-mysql-1

docker ps output

Visit https://myblogdomain.com/ghost in your browser to finalize the Ghost setup. Once you’ve created your admin account and configured the basics, your blog is ready to go!

Enjoy building your blog and sharing your ideas with the world!