This guide will cover the steps I have followed to create this blog in Azure.

  • Azure Installation of Ghost using One click deployment button
  • Domain name configuration
  • New theme installation
  • More resources

Background

After lots of consideration I have chosen Ghost, as opposed to Blogger, Wordpress or even Orchard (Asp.net blogs) as it is simple, have nice templates, and is easy to modify.

Azure Installation of Ghost using the One click deployment button

  • Go to the Ghost Azure branch in Github
  • Click the deploy to Azure button Azure Deploy button
  • Enter your site details
  • Click next and after a few minutes your site will be installed and deployed.
  • Finally go to your yoursitename.azurewebsites.net/admin to configure your site.

Domain name configuration

If your website SKU is at least Shared allows you to point your domain to it.

  • In your domain register you will need to add a CNAME record pointing to yourwebsitename.azurewebsites.net, for example this is how you do it in 1&1.

Adding a CNAME record will allow you to verify with Azure that you own your domain, and create a redirection.

  • Afterwards on the new portal, go to settings and select custom domains and SSL Select custom domains in azure
  • Select bring external domains
  • Finally add your domain.

New theme installation

This will demonstrate how add the Ghostium theme from Github to your Ghost blog, there are plenty other free themes in Github, so if you prefer another theme, the installation will be the same.

  • Open the console in Azure portal
  • Navigate to themes 
        cd content/themes

  • Clone the theme from github 

        git clone https://github.com/oswaldoacauan/ghostium/ "ghostium"
    Using the console to clone a github repository

    Configure the theme

    To configure the options of Ghostium as per Github, you can use use Visual Studio online.

  • First enable visual studio in the configuration options in the classic portal Enable Visual Studio online in Azure Portal

  • Then from the dashboard in the classic launch it to edit the files.

    More resources

    Ghost for beginners is a great place to get started on Markdown syntax to write your posts, and other general information on how to manage your ghost blog / site.