Automating deployment as part of a general continuous integration strategy is best-practice these days. Web content should be similarly treated.
I.e. version controlled and deployed with git.
1 - Local Git Deployment
Overview
Let’s create a two-tiered system that goes from dev to prod using a post-commit trigger
graph LR Development --git / rsync---> Production
The Development system is your workstation and the Production system is a web server you can rsync to. Git commit will trigger a build and rsync.
I use Hugo in this example, but any system that has an output (or build) folder works similarly.
Configuration
The first thing we need is a destination.
Production System
This server probably uses folders like /var/www/XXXXX for its web root. Use that or create a new folder and make yourself the owner.
sudo mkdir /var/www/some.site.org
sudo chown -R $USER /var/www/some.site.org
echo "Hello" > /var/www/some.site.org/index.html
Edit your web server’s config to make sure you can view that web page. Also check that rsync is available from the command line.
Development System
Hugo builds static html in a public directory. To generate the HTML, simply type hugo
cd /path/to/my-existing-site
hugo
ls public
We don’t actually want this folder in git and most themes (if you’re using Hugo) already have a .gitignore file. Take a look and create/add to it.
# Notice /public is at the top of the git ignore file
cat .gitignore
/public
package-lock.json
.hugo_build.lock
...
Assuming you have some content, let’s add and commit it.
git add --all
git commit -m "Initial Commit"
Note: All of these git commands work because pulling in a theme initialized the directory. If you’re doing something else you’ll need to git init.
The last step is to create a hook that will build and deploy after a commit.
cd /path/to/my-existing-site
touch .git/hooks/post-commit
chmod +x .git/hooks/post-commit
vi .git/hooks/post-commit
#!/bin/sh
hugo --cleanDestinationDir
rsync --recursive --delete public/ [email protected]:/var/www/some.site.org
This script ensures that the remote directory matches your local directory. When you’re ready to update the remote site:
git add --all
git commit --allow-empty -m "trigger update"
If you mess up the production files, you can just call the hook manually.
cd /path/to/my-existing-site
touch .git/hooks/post-commit
Troubleshooting
bash: line 1: rsync: command not found
Double check that the remote host has rsync.