# Accessing Ghost over localhost fails because of https redirect

**URL:** <https://forum.ghost.org/t/accessing-ghost-over-localhost-fails-because-of-https-redirect/62309>\
**Category:** Developer help\
**Created:** [March 27, 2026, 5:00pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/accessing-ghost-over-localhost-fails-because-of-https-redirect/62309 "2026-03-27T17:00:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AtmosphericIgnition](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/atmosphericignition/32/39478_2.png) [@AtmosphericIgnition](https://forum.ghost.org/u/AtmosphericIgnition)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2026, 5:00pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/accessing-ghost-over-localhost-fails-because-of-https-redirect/62309/1 "2026-03-27T17:00:04Z")

</div>

Hello,

before publishing a Ghost site, I’m trying to work with Ghost over localhost, before allowing access to it over my reverse proxy. The problem I seem to be having is that Ghost keeps trying to redirect my browser’s localhost requests to https, which causes the connection to error out. How can I configure Ghost not to forward http requests to https? When the site is public, I will have my reverse proxy configured to do that anyway, and I really don’t see the benefit of https on localhost, especially since Ghost can’t even seem to complete the TLS handshake.

- **What’s your URL**? This is the easiest way for others to help you  
Site not public yet
- **What version of Ghost are you using?** If it’s not the latest, please update Ghost first before opening your topic  
`6.24.0`
- How was Ghost installed and configured?  
Official Docker Compose
- What Node version, database, OS & browser are you using?  
Same versions as included in the official compose file.
- What errors or information do you see in the console?

```auto
ghost-1 | [2026-03-27 16:50:18] INFO "GET /" 301 5ms
ghost-1 | [2026-03-27 16:50:30] INFO "GET /" 301 2ms

```

- What steps could someone else take to reproduce the issue you’re having?

1. Install Ghost using the Docker Compose method.
2. Configure `.env` and `docker-compose.yml`, but do not enable a reverse proxy.
3. Try accessing Ghost over localhost.
4. See TLS handshake errors - `SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG` caused by Ghost attempting to redirect [http://localhost:2368](http://localhost:2368) to [https://localhost:2368/](https://localhost:2368/).

Any help is greatly appreciated.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AtmosphericIgnition](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/forum.ghost.org/atmosphericignition/32/39478_2.png) [@AtmosphericIgnition](https://forum.ghost.org/u/AtmosphericIgnition)\
**Post date:** [March 31, 2026, 5:20pm UTC](https://forum.ghost.org/t/accessing-ghost-over-localhost-fails-because-of-https-redirect/62309/2 "2026-03-31T17:20:37Z")

</div>

The solution ended up being changing:

```auto
url: https://${DOMAIN:?DOMAIN environment variable is required}

```

to

```auto
url: http://${DOMAIN:?DOMAIN environment variable is required}

```

in my compose file. And adding

```auto
DOMAIN=localhost:2368

```

to my `.env`,