Chapter 16: Publishing Through Oracle Cloud Load Balancer

Now that your Ghost app (or any Docker service) is up and running, let’s publish it through Oracle Cloud's Load Balancer!

OCI Load Balancer gives you:

• HTTP/HTTPS traffic redirection
• SSL certificate support
• High availability
• Health checks and monitoring

Step 1: Create the Load Balancer in OCI Console

1. In the OCI Console, go to:
   Networking > Load Balancers > Create Load Balancer
2. Enter a name (e.g., ghost-lb)
3. Choose a shape: On the Add Details screen, enter a name for your Load Balancer. Select Public visibility and Ephemeral IP Address. Choose your desired Load Balancer shape.
4. • For Free Tier: select Flexible shape → 10 Mbps (Always Free) ✅
4. Select the VCN (Virtual Cloud Network) where your instance is located
5. Pick a public subnet for the load balancer

Step 2: Create a Backend Set

After the Load Balancer is created, configure the backend set, this defines the destination port and health checks.

1. Go to Backend Sets > Create Backend Set
2. Configure:
   • Name: ghost-backend
   • Protocol: HTTP
   • Port: 2368 (Ghost's default port)
   • Policy: Round Robin
3. Set up the Health Check:
   • Protocol: HTTP
   • Port: 2368
   • Path: /
   • Interval: 10s / Timeout: 3s / Unhealthy threshold: 3

Step 3: Add Your Instance as a Backend

1. Open your backend set
2. Click Add Backend
3. Choose your Ghost instance
4. Set port to 2368

Step 4: Create the Listener

1. Go to Listeners > Create Listener
2. Set:
   • Name: ghost-listener
   • Protocol: HTTP (or HTTPS if using SSL)
   • Port: 80 (or 443 for HTTPS)
   • Backend Set: ghost-backend

If using HTTPS, you can:

• Use an existing SSL certificate
• Or create a self-signed cert directly in OCI