Issue using Ghost with Google Cloud SQL - node.js

Question

I'm following the instructions here to use Ghost as an NPM module, and attempting to setup Ghost for production.
I'm running Google cloud sql proxy locally. When I run NODE_ENV=production knex-migrator init --mgpath node_modules/ghost I get this error message:
NAME: RollbackError
CODE: ER_ACCESS_DENIED_ERROR
MESSAGE: ER_ACCESS_DENIED_ERROR: Access denied for user 'root'#'cloudsqlproxy~[SOME_IP_ADDRESS]' (using password: NO)
Running knex-migrator init --mgpath node_modules/ghost works just fine, and I can launch the app locally with no problems. It's only the I try to setup the app for production that I get problems.
EDIT: I can connect to the db via MySQL Workbench, using the same credentials I'm using in the config below
Here's my config.production.json (with private data removed):
{
"production": {
"url": "https://MY_PROJECT_ID.appspot.com",
"fileStorage": false,
"mail": {},
"database": {
"client": "mysql",
"connection": {
"socketPath": "/cloudsql/MY_INSTANCE_CONNECTION_NAME",
"user": "USER",
"password": "PASSWORD",
"database": "DATABASE_NAME",
"charset": "utf8"
},
"debug": false
},
"server": {
"host": "0.0.0.0",
"port": "2368"
},
"paths": {
"contentPath": "content/"
}
}
}
And app.yaml:
runtime: nodejs
env: flex
manual_scaling:
instances: 1
env_variables:
MYSQL_USER: ******
MYSQL_PASSWORD: ******
MYSQL_DATABASE: ******
# e.g. my-awesome-project:us-central1:my-cloud-sql-instance-name
INSTANCE_CONNECTION_NAME: ******
beta_settings:
# The connection name of your instance on its Overview page in the Google
# Cloud Platform Console, or use `YOUR_PROJECT_ID:YOUR_REGION:YOUR_INSTANCE_NAME`
cloud_sql_instances: ******
# Setting to keep gcloud from uploading not required files for deployment
skip_files:
- ^(.*/)?#.*#$
- ^(.*/)?.*~$
- ^(.*/)?.*\.py[co]$
- ^(.*/)?.*/RCS/.*$
- ^(.*/)?\..*$
- ^(.*/)?.*\.ts$
- ^(.*/)?config\.development\.json$

Answer 1

The file ghost.prod.config.js isn't something Ghost recognises - I'm not sure where that file name came from, but Ghost < 1.0 used config.js with all environments in one file, and Ghost >= 1.0 uses config.<env>.json with each environment in its own file.
Your config.production.json file doesn't contain your MySQL connection info, and therefore the knex-migrator tool is not able to connect to your DB.
If you merge the contents of ghost.prod.config.js into config.producton.json this should work fine.
Your config.production.json should look something like this:
{
"url": "https://something.appspot.com",
"database": {
"client": "mysql",
"connection": {
"socketPath": "path",
"user": "user",
"password": "password",
"database": "dbname",
"charset": "utf8"
}
}
}
The caveat here is that the new JSON format cannot contain code or logic, only explicit values, e.g. process.env.PORT || "2368" is no longer permitted.
Instead, you'll need to use either arguments or environment variables to provide dynamic configuration. Documentation for how to use environment variables is here: https://docs.ghost.org/docs/config#section-running-ghost-with-config-env-variables
E.g. NODE_ENV=production port=[your port] database__connection__user=[your user] ...etc... knex-migrator init --mgpath node_modules/ghost
You'd need to add an environment variable for every dynamic variable in the config.

Answer 2

I figured out the problem.
My config file shouldn't have the "production" property. My config should look like this:
{
"url": "https://MY_PROJECT_ID.appspot.com",
"fileStorage": false,
"mail": {},
"database": {
"client": "mysql",
"connection": {
"socketPath": "/cloudsql/MY_INSTANCE_CONNECTION_NAME",
"user": "USER",
"password": "PASSWORD",
"database": "DATABASE_NAME",
"charset": "utf8"
},
"debug": false
},
"server": {
"host": "0.0.0.0",
"port": "8080"
},
"paths": {
"contentPath": "content/"
}
}
It now overrides the default config.
The only issue is that you can't use knex-migrator with the "socketPath" property set, but this is needed to run the app in the cloud.