Bludit on Ubuntu 24.04 on Azure User Guide

Overview

Bludit is a fast, simple content management system and blogging platform that needs no database - every post, page and setting is a plain file on disk. It is a popular choice for lightweight blogs, documentation sites and small business sites where a full database driven CMS is more than is needed. The cloudimg image installs the current stable Bludit release served by nginx and PHP 8.3 FPM on a hardened, fully patched Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base. The Bludit installer is completed automatically at build time so every VM boots straight to the admin sign in page, never the setup wizard, and a unique administrator password is generated on the first boot of every VM. Backed by 24/7 cloudimg support.

What is included:

• Bludit 3.22.0 served by nginx and PHP 8.3 FPM, managed by systemd
• The Bludit public site and admin panel on :80, with the setup wizard already completed and removed
• A per VM admin account generated on first boot and recorded in a root only file
• A dedicated Azure data disk at /var/lib/bludit-content for posts, pages, uploads and plugin/theme configuration
• nginx.service and php8.3-fpm.service as systemd units, enabled and active
• An unauthenticated /healthz endpoint for Azure Load Balancer health probes
• 24/7 cloudimg support

Prerequisites

An active Azure subscription, an SSH key pair, and a VNet plus subnet in the target region. Standard_B2s (2 vCPU / 4 GiB RAM) is a sensible starting point; size up for busier sites or large media libraries. NSG inbound: allow 22/tcp from your management network and 80/tcp for the site. Bludit serves plain HTTP on port 80; for production, terminate TLS in front of it with your own domain.

Step 1 - Deploy from the Azure Marketplace

Sign in to the Azure Portal, choose Create a resource, search the Marketplace for Bludit by cloudimg, and select Create. On Basics pick your subscription, resource group, region and size; under Administrator account choose SSH public key and paste your key; under Inbound port rules allow SSH (22) and HTTP (80). Review the dedicated data disk on the Disks tab, then Review + create then Create.

Step 2 - Deploy from the Azure CLI

az vm create \
  --resource-group <your-rg> \
  --name bludit \
  --image <marketplace-image-urn> \
  --size Standard_B2s \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --ssh-key-values ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub \
  --vnet-name <your-vnet> --subnet <your-subnet> \
  --public-ip-sku Standard

az vm open-port --resource-group <your-rg> --name bludit --port 80 --priority 1010

Step 3 - Connect to your VM

ssh azureuser@<vm-public-ip>

Step 4 - Confirm the services are running

Bludit is served by nginx on port 80, which forwards PHP requests to PHP 8.3 FPM over a local socket. Confirm both services are active and nginx is listening on port 80:

systemctl is-active nginx php8.3-fpm bludit-firstboot
ss -tlnp | grep ':80 '

Step 5 - Retrieve your admin password

On the first boot of every VM the bludit-firstboot.service generates a unique administrator password, seeds the Bludit admin account with it, and writes the details to a root only file. Read it with:

sudo cat /root/bludit-credentials.txt

Step 6 - Confirm the stack and health endpoint

nginx serves an unauthenticated /healthz endpoint for load balancer probes. Confirm the Bludit release, the PHP version, and that the setup wizard is gone and the site responds:

grep "BLUDIT_VERSION" /var/www/bludit/bl-kernel/boot/init.php
php -v | head -1
curl -sI http://127.0.0.1/healthz | head -1
curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/install.php

Step 7 - Open the site in your browser

Browse to http://<vm-public-ip>/. The public site is served to anonymous visitors with the example content shipped by the image. This is the starting point for your own posts and pages.

Step 8 - Sign in as admin

Browse to http://<vm-public-ip>/admin, then enter admin and the password from Step 5. Because the installer is completed at build time, this is always the sign in page - a fresh VM never shows Bludit's setup wizard.

Once signed in, the dashboard shows your content overview, quick links to create a new page or post, and recent activity.

Step 9 - Write posts and pages

From the admin panel choose New content to write a post or a static page. Bludit's editor supports rich text and Markdown-style shortcuts, image uploads, categories and tags. Published content appears immediately on the public site with a clean, pretty URL.

Step 10 - Manage plugins and themes

Open Plugins to enable or configure the bundled plugins (TinyMCE editor, visit statistics, canonical links, robots.txt, and more), and Themes to change the public site's appearance or the admin panel's own theme. Both areas support installing additional plugins and themes as zip archives.

Step 11 - Confirm content lives on the dedicated disk

All Bludit content lives under /var/lib/bludit-content, which is a dedicated Azure data disk captured into the image and re-provisioned on every VM. Bludit's application code links to it via a symlink at /var/www/bludit/bl-content, so posts, pages, uploads, plugin and theme configuration and the admin user database are all plain files on this mount, independent of the OS disk:

df -h /var/lib/bludit-content | tail -1
ls /var/lib/bludit-content
findmnt -no SOURCE,TARGET,FSTYPE /var/lib/bludit-content
readlink -f /var/www/bludit/bl-content

Maintenance

• Back up your site: because Bludit needs no database, a backup is simply a copy of /var/lib/bludit-content (all posts, pages, uploads, plugin/theme configuration and the admin account). Snapshot the data disk or tar the directory.
• Add users: sign in as admin and use Users then New user to add editors or authors alongside the built in admin account.
• Plugins and themes: install and configure extensions from the Plugins and Themes sections of the admin panel.
• Security updates: unattended security upgrades are enabled, so the OS keeps itself patched. Reboot when a new kernel is installed.
• TLS: for production, front Bludit with your own domain and a TLS terminating reverse proxy or Azure Application Gateway.

Support

cloudimg provides 24/7/365 expert technical support for this image. Contact support@cloudimg.co.uk. Bludit is licensed under MIT. This image is provided by cloudimg; additional charges apply for build, maintenance and 24/7 support.