Start a blog with Ghost

Ghost is a publishing platform for blogs and magazines, with a clean editor and a fast site. This guide covers ordering it in the panel, creating your owner account, writing your first post, choosing a theme, using your own domain, and the email features that do not work on the panel yet.

What you get

The panel sets up Ghost together with its own database and storage for your images and themes, and gives it an address with HTTPS. Unlike most apps, it does not create an account for you: you create the owner account yourself the first time you open the site.

1. Order the app

1. Sign in to the panel, open Apps in the sidebar and click Create App.
2. Under Template, choose Ghost. You find it under CMS.
3. Under Package, pick a package and set the resources with the sliders. You can change the resources later.
4. Under Details, fill in Display name. If a Version field is shown, leave it on Latest (recommended).
5. Tick the confirmation box, click Deploy app and pay.

Ghost sets itself up on the first start. If the page does not load right after the status shows Running, wait a moment and try again.

2. Create your owner account

Do this right after the app is running. Until you finish this step, anyone who opens the address of your site can create the owner account instead of you.

1. In the Access card, wait for HTTPS active. Note the address.
2. Open that address and add /ghost to it, for example https://your-address/ghost.
3. Ghost asks for a site title, your name, your email address and a password. Use a long, unique password, Ghost refuses weak ones.
4. Save the login in a password manager. There is no password reset by email (see section 6).

From now on the admin area of your site is always at /ghost.

3. Write your first post

1. In the admin area, open Posts and click New post.
2. Write your text, add images, and click Publish when it is ready.

Pages such as an About page work the same way under Pages.

4. Pick a theme

In the admin area, open Settings, go to Design & branding and choose Change theme. You can pick one of the themes that come with Ghost or upload a theme as a .zip file.

5. Backups

The Backups card lists the backups of your Ghost. The panel makes them automatically on a schedule that depends on your package, and each backup holds your content and the database.

Click Create backup before you update Ghost or change something big. With Restore you put a backup back. That overwrites everything that changed since the backup, and Ghost is offline until the restore is done.

All details are in Back up and restore your app.

6. What does not work yet

The panel does not connect a mail server to Ghost. Everything that needs Ghost to send an email therefore does not work:

• password reset by email
• inviting other staff members
• member sign-up and sign-in links
• newsletters

Writing, publishing and reading your site work fully. If you need members or newsletters, contact us first.

7. Your own domain

1. On the app page, go to the Custom Domains card and click Add domain.
2. Enter your domain and follow the DNS instructions the panel shows.
3. Wait until the domain shows as verified. HTTPS is set up for you.

The app then restarts briefly, and your first verified domain becomes the address of your site.

The full steps, including the DNS records, are in Connect your own domain to an app. No domain yet? See Register a domain.

Keeping Ghost up to date

When a new version is ready, the app page shows Update available with an Update button. Make a backup first, then update.