mySQL error message during subdomain installation

I found instructions for installing Ghost on Ubuntu with Apache since I’m installing it onto the same Digital Ocean droplet that I already have Wordpress on (it’s on a subdomain), and Wordpress is using Apache.

I’m trying to get a ghost installation working here: https://newsletter.eleanorkonik.com/

Here’s my debug report

Debug Information:
    OS: Ubuntu, v20.04.1 LTS
    Node Version: v14.17.2
    Ghost Version: 4.9.4
    Ghost-CLI Version: 1.17.3
    Environment: production
    Command: 'ghost install'
Message: Ghost was able to start, but errored during boot with:
ER_NOT_SUPPORTED_AUTH_MODE: Client does not support authentication
protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client
Help: Unknown database error
Suggestion: journalctl -u ghost_newsletter-eleanorkonik-com -n 50
Stack: Error: Ghost was able to start, but errored during boot with:
ER_NOT_SUPPORTED_AUTH_MODE: Client does not support authentication
protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client
    at Server.<anonymous>
(/usr/lib/node_modules/ghost-cli/lib/utils/port-polling.js:73:28)
    at Object.onceWrapper (events.js:481:28)
    at Server.emit (events.js:375:28)
    at emitCloseNT (net.js:1661:8)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:81:21)

ghostuser@wordpress-ubuntu-s-1vcpu-1gb-nyc1-01:/var/www/newsletter.eleanorkonik.com$
mysql --version
mysql  Ver 8.0.25-0ubuntu0.20.04.1 for Linux on x86_64 ((Ubuntu))

I’m leery of upgrading mysql lest I break my wordpress installation, so before I do any of that I wanted to get a sanity check because upgrading mysql would be an upgrade of the server, not the client – my understanding is that ghost is behaving as the client. The error message from the server is telling me to upgrade the client, I think.

Does anybody have any insight here?

Thanks!

Take a look at this thread which points to this comment in GitHub :)