How to install Ghost inside an existing node.js application on Azure? - node.js

Question

Can you install Ghost (http://ghost.org) so that it runs inside an existing node.js express application (like this: {my domain}/blog)?
I'm using Azure Websites to host the site.
Please note: I would prefer a generic solution that can run on any platform... however I thought I would mention that it's on Azure in case it provides a simple way to do this.

Answer 1

Yes you can do that.
You will need to:
1. Add a new blog application
Basically go to portal -> CONFIGURE tab -> scroll all the way to the bottom and add something like this
2. Configure Ghost to run on a sub folder
publish Ghost to whichever folder you mapped to your application in the step above.
You can use FTP, webdeploy or SCM (https://<YouSiteName>.scm.azurewebsites.net/DebugConsole
that's what I choose and my folder layout looks like this
igonre the deployments folder, it's not related to this
in your config.js for Ghost, under the Production environment node make sure you have the url as
production: {
url: 'http://<YourSiteName>.azurewebsites.net/blog',
mail: {
......
}
}
3. Fix the main site's web.config
go to your main sites web.config and wrap the whole <system.webServer> element in a <location path="." inheritInChildApplications="false">
basically your web.config should have looked like this
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<handlers>
<add name="iisnode" path="server.js" verb="*" modules="iisnode"/>
</handlers>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<!-- Some rewrite rules -->
</rules>
</rewrite>
....
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
and now it should look like this
<configuration>
<location path="." inheritInChildApplications="false">
<system.webServer>
<handlers>
<add name="iisnode" path="server.js" verb="*" modules="iisnode"/>
</handlers>
<rewrite>
<rules>
<!-- Some rewrite rules -->
</rules>
</rewrite>
....
</system.webServer>
</location>
</configuration>
notice this is for the main site that is the Express.js in your case not the Ghost site
that should be all you need to do.

Answer 2

Not sure if you can install it as an addition to your existing site, but Ghost exists as a deployable template in the Azure Web Sites gallery, under Blogs:

Answer 3

This is not the complete answer you were looking for, but these instructions on how to manually install Ghost on Azure Websites might help guide you in the right direction:
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/HowToInstallTheNodejsGhostBloggingSoftwareOnAzureWebsites.aspx