Running Ghost in development environment with forever in order to watch for changes and restart

Dockerfile

@@ -7,14 +7,15 @@
 # Pull base image.
 FROM dockerfile/nodejs
 
-# Install Ghost
+# Install Ghost & forever
 RUN \
   cd /tmp && \
   wget https://ghost.org/zip/ghost-latest.zip && \
   unzip ghost-latest.zip -d /ghost && \
   rm -f ghost-latest.zip && \
   cd /ghost && \
   npm install --production && \
+  npm install forever -g && \
   sed 's/127.0.0.1/0.0.0.0/' /ghost/config.example.js > /ghost/config.js && \
   useradd ghost --home /ghost
 
@@ -34,4 +35,4 @@ WORKDIR /ghost
 CMD ["bash", "/ghost-start"]
 
 # Expose ports.
-EXPOSE 2368
+EXPOSE 2368

README.md

@@ -34,3 +34,24 @@ where `<override-dir>` is an absolute path of a directory that could contain:
   - `content/themes/`: more themes
 
 After few seconds, open `http://<host>` for blog or `http://<host>/ghost` for admin page.
+
+
+#### Running Ghost in development environment with forever
+
+    docker run -d -p 80:2368 -e NODE_ENV=development -e WATCH_DIRECTORY=<dir-to-watch> -v <override-dir>:/ghost-override dockerfile/ghost
+
+where `<dir-to-watch>` is a relative path to /ghost
+
+##### Why forever
+When Ghost starts with the help of forever https://www.npmjs.com/package/forever and its watchDirectory option.
+Then we can develop on a shared `ghost-override` volume and forever will watch for file changes in `watchDirectory`.
+When we change a file inside `watchDirectory` forever, after a few seconds, restarts the Ghost process without stoping docker.
+
+e.g.
+
+    docker run -d -p 80:2368 -e NODE_ENV=development -e WATCH_DIRECTORY=content/themes/my_theme -v /home/my_localhost_ghost:/ghost-override dockerfile/ghost
+
+or in this case better interactive to see when our process restarts
+
+    docker run -p 80:2368 -e NODE_ENV=development -e WATCH_DIRECTORY=content/themes/my_theme -v /home/my_localhost_ghost:/ghost-override dockerfile/ghost
+

start.bash

@@ -8,7 +8,8 @@ DATA="content/data"
 IMAGES="content/images"
 THEMES="content/themes"
 
-cd "$GHOST"
+NODE_ENV=${NODE_ENV:-production}
+WATCH_DIRECTORY=${WATCH_DIRECTORY:-$THEMES}
 
 # Symlink data directory.
 mkdir -p "$OVERRIDE/$DATA"
@@ -37,7 +38,12 @@ fi
 
 # Start Ghost
 chown -R ghost:ghost /data /ghost /ghost-override
-su ghost << EOF
-cd "$GHOST"
-NODE_ENV=${NODE_ENV:-production} npm start
-EOF
+su ghost
+
+if [[ "$NODE_ENV" == "development" ]]; then
+  COMMAND="NODE_ENV=$NODE_ENV forever --watchDirectory=$WATCH_DIRECTORY -w index.js"
+else
+  COMMAND="NODE_ENV=$NODE_ENV npm start"
+fi
+
+echo "$COMMAND" ; eval $COMMAND