Question

Setting up Ghost CMS on a subdomain of domain managed by Vercel nameserver

Posted on September 5, 2021
Next.js Ghost
Asked by jmilldotdev

Hello, I am currently running a Next.js frontend deployed to Vercel, and I am using the Vercel nameservers to manage the domain.

Now, I want to deploy Ghost CMS to a DigitalOcean droplet on a subdomain, and thus have the admin interface at https://cms.domain.com/ghost

My A DNS records in Vercel look as follows:

Name	Value
@	[vercelIP]
cms	[DO droplet IP]

when i attempt to install the https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/ghost droplet and set it up, it fails to generate a SSL certificate, and it seems like it cannot use the root domain’s certificate from Vercel if i just provide the IP to the setup script

I am very green with DNS stuff so if anyone knows how i can achieve this setup that would be great.

I am trying to do this because I would not like a user to be able to go to https://domain.com/ghost and be able to see the CMS login. Additionally, if the user goes to https://domain.com first, then to https://domain.com/ghost, a 404 will be returned until the cache is cleared. This is why i am trying to put the ghost CMS on a subdomain.

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Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• September 7, 2021

Accepted Answer

Hello,

I believe that it is important to do the process in a specific order, what I could suggest is doing is:

First create the Ghost Droplet and note down the IP address
Then go to your Vercel’s DNS zone and add the A record for your cms subdomain to point to that new Droplet’s IP address
Then after that add a CNAME record for www.cms.domain.com to point to cms.domain.com, that way you would have the www version also covered
After that SSH to the new Ghost Droplet and finish the installation process

Let me know how it goes. Regards, Bobby