Switch to Production
Eventually, you will want to move Ghostwriter from a development server to a production server.
Even though Ghostwriter could be run in developer mode forever, it is much better to use HTTPS and take some of the workload off of Django when it comes to hosting files.
Start your move to production by opening .envs/.production/.django. The SECRET_KEY variable is set to changeme. Generate a new value and drop in the new key. It is usually something like:
cg#p$g+j9tax!#[email protected]$8obt2_+&k3q+pmu)5%asj6yjpkag.
The default configuration will host Ghostwriter on 0.0.0.0:443 with HTTPS.
If you would like to modify the listening port or anything else within the Nginx configuration, open compose/production/nginx/nginx.conf. You can make changes to this configuration file like you would for any Nginx configuration.
Production deployments use separate settings from local deployments, so make changes to .envs/.production/.django and .../.postgres as desired.
You can keep separate settings for your local/development and production deployments.
You may wish to use a domain name instead of an IP address once you move Ghostwriter into production. By default, Ghostwriter's production deployment only allows the server to be accessed using ghostwriter.local and localhost.
Open your .envs/.production/.django file and uncomment the ALLOWED_HOSTS line to make modifications.
If you see 400 BAD REQUEST errors in your web browser, check the Ghostwriter console output. Chances are good you will see mention of your domain name not matching anything in ALLOWED_HOSTS.
Before running in production, it is necessary to set up an SSL certificate. A self-signed certificate can be created using the following commands. Other options include purchasing a certificate or using LetsEncrypt for a free certificate.
Certificates should be placed in the ssl/ folder. The files referenced in compose/production/nginx/nginx.conf use the following files names:
ghostwriter.crt
ghostwriter.key
dhparam.pem
If different filenames are used, update the nginx.conf to reflect the correct filenames.
With Prompts
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:4096 -days 365 -nodes -x509 -keyout ghostwriter.key -out ghostwriter.crt
Without Prompts
openssl req -new -newkey rsa:4096 -days 365 -nodes -x509 -subj "/C=/ST=/L=/O=Ghostwriter/CN=ghostwriter.local" -keyout ghostwriter.key -out ghostwriter.crt
Creating the dhparam.pem
openssl dhparam -out dhparam.pem 4096
Deploy Ghostwriter in production mode using Docker Compose and the production.yml file.
docker-compose -f production.yml stop; docker-compose -f production.yml rm -f; docker-compose -f production.yml build; docker-compose -f production.yml up -d
