By Ted LeRoy
I created a new Droplet from the Ghost Marketplace image. The description says it will be on Ubuntu 24.04, but when the droplet spins up, it’s running Ubuntu 22.04. It also says it will be running the latest vesion of Ghost, which it isn’t.
I expected my new Ghost Blog to be running on Ubuntu 24.04.
Steps to Taken
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Logged into Digital Ocean.
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Went to the Marketplace.
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Clicked on Blogs and Forums, then Ghost.
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Observed, near the top of the description, it says OS Ubuntu 24.04.
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Clicked on Create Ghost Droplet.
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Selected the appropriate settings for your droplet.
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Once created, checked the Ubuntu version by typing ‘cat /etc/issue’
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Observed that the version deployed is 22.04.5.
Either the description should be updated to reflect tat it installs 22.04 or the deployed droplet upgraded to 24.04.
The Ghost version is also very outdated and has to be updated from
ghost-mgr@nolongersmartest-u24-04:~$ gupd
Love open source? We’re hiring JavaScript Engineers to work on Ghost full-time.
https://careers.ghost.org
You are running an outdated version of Ghost-CLI.
It is recommended that you upgrade before continuing.
Run `npm install -g ghost-cli@latest` to upgrade.
+ sudo systemctl is-active ghost_nolongersmartest-org
✔ Checking system Node.js version - found v18.20.8
✔ Ensuring user is not logged in as ghost user
✔ Checking if logged in user is directory owner
✔ Checking current folder permissions
✔ Checking folder permissions
✔ Checking file permissions
✔ Checking content folder ownership
✔ Checking memory availability
✔ Checking free space
✔ Checking for available migrations
✖ Checking for latest Ghost version
A CliError occurred.
Message: Unable to update Ghost directly to v6.26.0. You must be on the latest v5.x to update across major versions.
Help: Run "ghost update v5" to get the latest v5.x version, then run "ghost update" to get to v6.
Debug Information:
OS: Ubuntu, v22.04.5 LTS
Node Version: v18.20.8
Ghost Version: 5.88.2
Ghost-CLI Version: 1.26.0
Environment: production
Command: 'ghost update'
Additional log info available in: /home/ghost-mgr/.ghost/logs/ghost-cli-debug-2026-04-04T20_59_17_365Z.log
Try running ghost doctor to check your system for known issues.
You can always refer to https://ghost.org/docs/ghost-cli/ for troubleshooting.
ghost-mgr@nolongersmartest-u24-04:/var/www/ghost$ ghost update v5
Love open source? We’re hiring JavaScript Engineers to work on Ghost full-time.
https://careers.ghost.org
You are running an outdated version of Ghost-CLI.
It is recommended that you upgrade before continuing.
Run `npm install -g ghost-cli@latest` to upgrade.
+ sudo systemctl is-active ghost_nolongersmartest-org
✔ Checking system Node.js version - found v18.20.8
✔ Ensuring user is not logged in as ghost user
✔ Checking if logged in user is directory owner
✔ Checking current folder permissions
✔ Checking folder permissions
✔ Checking file permissions
✔ Checking content folder ownership
✔ Checking memory availability
✔ Checking free space
✔ Checking for available migrations
✔ Checking for latest Ghost version
✔ Release notes were not found
✖ Downloading and updating Ghost to v5.130.6
A SystemError occurred.
Message: Ghost v5.130.6 is not compatible with this version of the CLI. Your CLI version is 1.26.0, but Ghost v5.130.6 requires ^1.27.0
Help: Run `npm install -g ghost-cli@latest` to upgrade the CLI, then try again.
Debug Information:
OS: Ubuntu, v22.04.5 LTS
Node Version: v18.20.8
Ghost Version: 5.88.2
Ghost-CLI Version: 1.26.0
Environment: production
Command: 'ghost update v5'
Try running ghost doctor to check your system for known issues.
You can always refer to https://ghost.org/docs/ghost-cli/ for troubleshooting.
Any idea when the image my be updated?
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Accepted Answer
Heya, @tedleroy
Yeah this one looks more like an outdated image than anything you did wrong.
Marketplace images on DigitalOcean don’t always get updated in sync with what the description says. So even if it mentions Ubuntu 24.04, the actual snapshot behind it can still be 22.04 until someone refreshes it.
Same thing with Ghost — those images are usually prebuilt at a certain point in time, so they tend to lag behind the latest version. What you’re seeing (old Ghost + old Ghost-CLI) is pretty typical.
I don’t think there’s any ETA publicly on when they update those images. In the meantime you’ve got two options:
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just upgrade in place (update ghost-cli first, then Ghost step-by-step like the error suggests)
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or spin up a clean Ubuntu 24.04 droplet and install Ghost manually, which is usually cleaner anyway
Honestly, most people end up doing the second option if they want full control and up-to-date versions.
Regards
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