Ghost Blog

Overview

Ghost is a modern, open-source publishing platform ideal for bloggers and content creators. This guide will walk you through the process of deploying a Ghost blog on Clever Cloud using Node.js.

Prerequisites

Node.js 20
MySQL
Cellar S3
Ghost-CLI
Clever Tools CLI (documentation)
Git

Installation and Configuration

Initialize Your Project

Create a project folder and install Ghost locally:

# Create the project file
mkdir myblog && cd myblog
# Install Ghost-CLI
npm install -g ghost-cli@latest
nvm use 20 #to use node 20
# Install Ghost
ghost install local
ghost stop

Remove the default theme and add custom theme submodules:

rm -r content/themes/casper
cp -r current/content/themes/casper/ content/themes/
git init
cd content/themes/
git submodule add https://github.com/curiositry/mnml-ghost-theme
git submodule add https://github.com/zutrinken/attila/
wget https://github.com/TryGhost/Source/archive/refs/tags/<last-version>.zip -O source.zip #check and use the lastest version https://github.com/TryGhost/Source/releases
rm -R source
unzip source.zip -d temp
mkdir source
mv temp/*/* source/
rm -R temp source.zip

Add the S3 module:

npm install ghost-storage-adapter-s3
mkdir -p ./content/adapters/storage
cp -r ./node_modules/ghost-storage-adapter-s3 ./content/adapters/storage/s3

Create and Configure Node Application and MySQL

Use the Clever Tools CLI:

Create the Node.js app and a MySQL add-on on Clever Cloud:

# Create the Node.js app
clever create --type node myblog

# Create MySQL add-on
clever addon create mysql-addon --plan s_sml myblogsql
clever service link-addon myblogsql

The Ghost configuration file can’t use direct environment variables. Set the following environment variables to connect your app to the database:

clever env set database__connection__host <ADDON_HOST>
clever env set database__connection__user <ADDON_USER>
clever env set database__connection__password <ADDON_PASSWORD>
clever env set database__connection__database <ADDON_DATABASE>
clever env set database__connection__port <ADDON_PORT>
clever env set url https://<domain_URL_blog>

Install and Configure Cellar S3

Create the Cellar S3 add-on on Clever Cloud:

# Create and link Cellar add-on
clever addon create cellar-addon --plan s_sml <cellar-app>
clever service link-addon <cellar-app>

In your Cellar S3 add-on console, create a bucket for your blog.

Add the environment variables to configure Ghost with Cellar:

clever env set storage__s3__accessKeyId <CELLAR_ACCESS_KEY>
clever env set storage__s3__secretAccessKey <CELLAR_SECRET_KEY>
clever ens set storage__s3__assetHost <CELLAR_ADDON_HOST>
clever env set storage__s3__bucket <your-bucket>
clever env set storage__s3__region fr

Make sure to configure public read access in your Cellar bucket:

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "VisualEditor0",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "s3:ListBucket",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucket>"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "VisualEditor1",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:PutObject",
                "s3:GetObject",
                "s3:PutObjectVersionAcl",
                "s3:DeleteObject",
                "s3:PutObjectAcl"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucket>/*"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "PublicReadAccess",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": "s3:GetObject",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucket>/*",
            "Principal": "*"
        }
    ]
}

Create a Pre-Run Hook

In the root folder of your project, create the file .clevercloud-pre-run-hook.sh:

#!/bin/sh
npm install -g ghost-cli 
mkdir ghost 
cd ghost
ghost install local 
ghost stop
cp ../config.production.json .
npm install ghost-storage-adapter-s3
mkdir -p ./content/adapters/storage
cp -r ../content/adapters/storage/s3 content/adapters/storage/s3
rm -R content/themes/source
cp -r ../content/themes/source content/themes/

Grant execution permissions to the script:

sudo chmod +x clevercloud.sh

Configure Ghost

Create the file config.production.json in the root folder of your project:

{
  "url": "https://<your-url-app>/",
  "server": {
    "port": 8080,
    "host": "0.0.0.0"
  },
  "database": {
    "client": "mysql"
  },
  "storage": {
    "active": "s3"
  },
  "mail": {
    "transport": "SMTP"
  },
  "process": "local",
  "logging": {
    "level": "debug",
    "transports": ["stdout"]
  },
  "paths": {
    "contentPath": "../../../content/"
  }
}

Create `package.json` and `.gitignore`

Create the file package.json:

{
    "name": "ghost",
    "version": "0.1.0",
    "description": "",
    "scripts": {
        "start": "ghost run --dir ghost"
    },
    "devDependencies": {},
    "dependencies": {}
}

Create the file .gitignore:

.ghost-cli
config.development.json
current
versions
node_modules

Set Other Environment Variables for Your Application

Before deploying your application on Clever Cloud, make sure to set the following environment variables:

clever env set CC_NODE_BUILD_TOOL yarn2
clever env set CC_NODE_VERSION 20
clever env set CC_PRE_RUN_HOOK "./.clevercloud-pre-run-build.sh"
clever env set NODE_ENV production

Optional: Configure Email Service

Ghost allows you to configure an SMTP service for sending emails (such as invitations, password resets, etc.). You can set it up using the following environment variables:

clever env set mail__from "your-email@example.com"
clever env set mail__options__service "your-mail-service" # e.g. Mailgun, Gmail, etc.
clever env set mail__options__host "smtp.yourmail.com"
clever env set mail__options__port "587"
clever env set mail__options__secureConnection "false"
clever env set mail__options__auth__user "your-smtp-username"
clever env set mail__options__auth__pass "your-smtp-password"

💡 > [!NOTE] Setup email service These environment variables allow Ghost to connect to your email service automatically, see the official Ghost SMTP configuration docs for more information.

Deploy on Clever Cloud

Initialize git, add files, and push:

git add clevercloud.sh package.json config.production.json content
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git remote add clever <CLEVER_GIT_URL>
git push clever <branch>:master

More Information

For a small blog, you can use the XS or S Node.js plan.

Last updated on August 6, 2025

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