Ghost Lite

Introduction

A lightweight Ghost deployment using SQLite instead of MySQL. Ideal for personal blogs, small publications, or servers with limited resources (e.g. 2GB RAM). Uses significantly less memory than the standard Ghost template.

Ghost is a powerful app for professional publishers to create, share, and grow a business around their content. It comes with modern tools to build a website, publish content, send newsletters & offer paid subscriptions to members.

Usage

1. Deploy this template, and this template will hint you to bind your domain.
2. After starting the service, you can access the admin panel at https://<your-domain>/ghost.
3. After setting up your Ghost instance, your audience can access your Ghost instance at https://<your-domain>.

Configuration

Updating the Ghost domain

Run the following command in your Ghost service (for how to run commands, see this documentation):

ghost config url https://your-new-domain

Then, restart your Ghost service.

Setting up email

To enable email functionality for member invitations and notifications, configure the mail environment variables in your Ghost service:

1. Go to your Ghost service in Zeabur
2. Navigate to Variables
3. Add the following environment variables based on your email service provider:
   • mail__transport: Email service (e.g., SMTP, Mailgun, SendGrid)
   • mail__options__service: Service name (e.g., Gmail, Mailgun)
   • mail__options__auth__user: Your email username
   • mail__options__auth__pass: Your email password or API key
4. For detailed mail configuration options, see Ghost email configuration docs

Setting up newsletters

To configure newsletter delivery:

1. Access the admin panel at https://<your-domain>/ghost
2. Navigate to Settings → Email newsletter → Mailgun Settings
3. Configure your Mailgun settings:
   • Mailgun region: Select your region (US or EU)
   • Mailgun domain: Enter your Mailgun domain
   • Mailgun private API key: Enter your private API key
4. Save the settings
5. Learn more at Ghost newsletters documentation

Forgot your password?

If you forgot your Ghost admin password, you can reset it by running the following command in your Ghost service:

cd /var/lib/ghost && sqlite3 content/data/ghost-local.db "UPDATE users SET password='\$2a\$12\$1hiHKBSMnfHOjS0BQ227sO38Y9JpxnNMKutH573F8zMvkRljPFyGe' WHERE email = 'your-email@example.com';"

Replace your-email@example.com with the email address you use to log in. The password will be reset to password123.

If you want to use a different password, you can generate a bcrypt hash using this tool: Bcrypt Generator.