How To Install Ghost On Windows Azure Portal

If you’re new to Azure, I recommend reading Introduction to Microsoft Azure, to learn from this article.

If you don’t have an Azure account, click here to get an account free of cost.

What is a Ghost?

Are you a developer and planning to build a blog? You can just create a blog by using third party blogging tools, like Blogger, WordPress, Ghost, and so on. In this article, we are going to create a Ghost blog account.

Ghost is an open source platform for developers and engineers to create their own blog. Ghost is a community where developers are able to create their own blogs and publish them online. By using Ghost, developers are able to share codes and knowledge with the world.

Why are we going for Ghost?

Ghost is an open source platform used for publishing posts and magazines containing images, codes, videos etc. Ghost is a platform where developers are able to post their content in their own style. It is a simple tool which has no constraints on publishing content. Compared to other blogging platforms, Ghost is very simple and easy to use.

Features of Ghost

Easy Content Management

Ghost is a powerful platform in which we are able to create a new post by only a single click. Compared to other blogging platforms, the performance of Ghost is very high and it is scalable.

Work With a Team

Teamwork is very important. Ghost provides a platform where multiple users can publish articles by using a single account.

Easy Site Changes 

Customization of the site is very easy. Ghost provides a platform for creating menus, customizing your own logo, and injecting APIs to make your site more powerful.

Advanced Technology

Ghost uses advanced technologies like Node.js, Ember.js, and Handlebars to configure your site.

To run a Ghost blog, we need to configure the blog by using Node.js that powers the Ghost blog.

Ember.js is a client-side application which is used for administering Ghost, like customizing templates, adding third party APIs.

 The handlebar is a semantic language that powers Ghost for configuring the templates. It is very easy to learn.

 

Ghost (Pro) Services

The following are some of the data centers of Ghost.org.

Distribution hub

• Los Angeles
• Johannesburg
• Singapore
• Melbourne

Core data center

• Amsterdam

Ghost Performance Report

Here, I have attached a screenshot of the performance report of Ghost..

 

Requirements

Only one thing is required to create a Ghost account. 

• Azure Account 

Let’s get started

Now, it’s time to create a Ghost account using Azure. Follow the steps one by one to create a Ghost blog, using Microsoft Azure.

Log into Microsoft Azure Account.

Now, click “+” (New) and search for Ghost from the marketplace.

You will be navigated to the marketplace. Here, select Ghost, whose Publisher must be Ghost.

 

Carefully read the Ghost description and click “Create”.



You will land on the Ghost app creation wizard. Fill in all the mandatory fields, such as App Name, Subscription, Resource Group, and so on.

 

• App Name - Name of your Ghost web app which you are going to create. This app name should be your web app URL.
  
  
• Subscription - Select your subscription level. It may vary based on your usage. Some of the subscription levels are Azure Pass, Free Trial, DreamSpark, Visual Studio Enterprise, and so on.
  
  
• Resource Group - In which data center or location you are going to deploy your web app.

If you need Application Insights, then click Yes to activate the Application Insights option. Then, finally tick "Pin to dashboard" to pin your app to Azure Start page, for easy access.

Everything is done! Click  the "Create" button to create your Ghost web app. It may take some time to create your web app on the specified location.

 

It might take a minute to create the web app. So, don’t go anywhere. Stick to Azure dashboard.

Congrats! Our Ghost web app is deployed successfully. Now, you will be navigated to the Settings page of your web app.

Click the URL of the web app and you will be navigated to the Ghost Blog.

 

Your Ghost Web app 

 

 

Setup Ghost Administration

Now, our Ghost web app is working as expected. It’s time to setup administrator of our created Ghost Web app.

To setup admin rights to our web app for uploading blog post, just type "/admin" at the end of ....azurewebsites.net and press Enter.

The actual path is https://<<your appname>>.azurewebsites.net/admin

You will land on the Ghost account setup page. Once there, click “Create your account” to create the Ghost account.

Provide your valid email ID, full name, blog name, and password. Then, click “Last step: Invite your team”.



If you are interested in creating a team, enter your partner's mail id and click one by one and click “Invite some users” to invite users. If you don’t, just click “I will do it later. Take me to my blog” link to navigate to your blog.


Congratulations! Everything is completed.

Creating a New Post

Now, on Admin page, click “New Post” to create a new post in Ghost Blogger.

 

Provide Post Title and Post content. Preview window is cascaded to display final appearance of your post once it is published.



The post content is updated. Now, it’s time to publish the post globally.

So, click the dropdown next to “Save Draft”. Just change “Save Draft” to “Publish Post”.

 

Finally, click "Publish Now" button to publish your created post.

 
Once your post is published, you will be able to find “Update Post” option.
 
Then, navigate to your Web app URL. Now, you will be able to find published post.

 

Summary

 

In this article, we learned about setting up a Ghost blog in Windows Azure.

I hope, you enjoyed reading this article. Thanks for reading.