How I automate my blog deployment

the workflow

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This blog is built using Hugo which builds static websites from markdown files. This enables mee to write them in any code editor. But to publish the post I still need to manually copy the files to the server and run the build command.

This can easily be automated using a CI/CD pipeline on my git server OneDev.

Here I will show you how I set this up.

I use two servers for this:

• a lab server for testing
• a production server for the live blog (you are on right now)

When I write a new post and want to see it on the server I push the changes to the git server in the lab branch. OneDev will then automatically build the website and deploy it to the lab server.

I can make my changes to the post and push them until I am happy with the result. Then I merge the changes to the main branch. OneDev will then automatically build the website and deploy it to the production server.

Preparation

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I assume that the webserver is already set up. In my setup I am using Ubuntu with nginx to server the static pages.

To be able to deploy the website I need to have a ssh key pair. The public key needs to be added to allowed keys of the deployer user on the webserver and the private key needs to be added to the project secrets. Additionally, the deployer user needs write permissions to the server directory.

To see how to setup key based authentication you can see this post

OneDev

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create the build job

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First we need to checkout the code so that we can work with it. Then we are going to start up a small container which will build the website and copy it to the webserver through ssh using rclone.

version: 39
jobs:
- name: LAB - build and deploy
  steps:
  - !CheckoutStep
    name: checkout code
    cloneCredential: !DefaultCredential {}
    withLfs: false
    withSubmodules: true
    condition: ALL_PREVIOUS_STEPS_WERE_SUCCESSFUL
  - !CommandStep
    name: build and deploy
    runInContainer: false
    image: klakegg/hugo:hugo:0.111.3-ext-alpine
    interpreter: !DefaultInterpreter
      commands: |
        set -e

        echo "--> Setting up SSH and dependencies..."
        apt-get update && apt-get install -y openssh-client rsync

        mkdir -p ~/.ssh
        chmod 700 ~/.ssh
        echo "@secret:DEPLOY_KEY_LAB@" > ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
        chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

        echo "--> Building Hugo site..."
        hugo --minify

        echo "--> Deploying files via rsync to lab-webserver.kohnkenet.de..."
        rsync -e 'ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null' -avzO --delete public/ deployer@@lab-webserver.kohnkenet.de:/var/www/knet

        echo "--> Deployment finished successfully!"        
    useTTY: true
    condition: ALL_PREVIOUS_STEPS_WERE_SUCCESSFUL

trigger

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There are different triggers available to use in OneDev. I am using the Branch Update trigger. One for the lab branch and one for the main branch. Above you can only see the lab trigger. The main trigger looks very similar.

private key

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Go into the project to Settings -> Build -> Job Secrets

Then create the DEPLOY_KEY_LAB used in the script and paste the private SSH key from which the public key was added to the known_hosts file on the webserver.

Results

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Now you can see the server being updated automatically when you push changes to the git server.