How to install Ghost CMS on your VPS?

Updated: 11 October 2026 · Applies to: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with Ghost-CLI

Ghost is a publishing platform for blogs and newsletters. The Ghost-CLI tool installs it with Nginx, MySQL and HTTPS on Ubuntu.

Requirements

• Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04 with at least 1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended).
• Node.js 22 or 24 LTS (Ghost 6 supports both), Nginx and MySQL 8 (Ghost does not support MariaDB in production).
• A non-root user with sudo, and a domain pointing to the server.

Install

apt install nginx mysql-server
# install Node.js LTS as described in "How to install NodeJS on Ubuntu 18.04?"
npm install ghost-cli@latest -g
mkdir -p /var/www/ghost && chown youruser:youruser /var/www/ghost && chmod 775 /var/www/ghost
cd /var/www/ghost && ghost install

Ghost-CLI asks for your URL and database details, configures Nginx and Let's Encrypt, and creates a systemd service. Then open https://example.com/ghost to create the admin account.

Manage Ghost

cd /var/www/ghost
ghost ls          # installed sites and their status
ghost log         # recent log lines
ghost restart
ghost update      # update Ghost (take a backup first)

Email

Ghost sends sign-in links and member emails, so set up email early: add your SMTP details to config.production.json for transactional mail. Bulk newsletters use Mailgun, configured in Settings in the Ghost admin.

Common problems

• Ghost-CLI refuses to run as root: create a normal user with sudo and run ghost install as that user.
• Node.js version error: install a Node.js version Ghost supports (22 or 24) and run the command again.
• SSL step fails: the domain must point to the server and port 80 must be open; you can rerun it with ghost setup ssl.