How I Setup a Web Server

After doing this setup, I will be able to do a git push to Gitlab to update by static websites. For go sites, there is still a manual step or two.

Start a new droplet on Digital Ocean using Ubuntu 18.04
- Do initial setup, using script they provide: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/initial-server-setup-with-ubuntu-18-04
ufw allow http
ufw allow https
Install git
- sudo apt-get install git
Install caddy
- curl https://getcaddy.com | bash -s personal http.git,http.realip,tls.dns.cloudflare
Install go
- sudo apt-get install golang-go
- This is so I can compile on the server and only have to push code, not binaries.
Install hugo
- sudo apt-get install hugo
- This is for building static sites on the server, so I only have to push the templates and content.

vhosts directory

All of caddy's sites will have their own files in the vhosts directory.

mkdir ~/logs
mkdir ~/vhosts
echo "import vhosts/*" > ~/Caddyfile

Create helper shell scripts

caddy.sh

Start the caddy server. Fill in the environment variables with the correct values.

#! /bin/sh
CLOUDFLARE_EMAIL= CLOUDFLARE_API_KEY= caddy -conf ~/Caddyfile -log ~/logs/caddy.log &

hard-reload-caddy.sh

Kill the caddy server and restart it.

#! /bin/sh
kill `pgrep caddy`
./caddy.sh

reload-caddy.sh

Send USR2 signal to the caddy process so that it will reload itself gracefully.

#! /bin/sh
kill -s USR2 `pgrep caddy`

runhugo.sh

Runs hugo in the given directory.

#! /bin/sh

cd $1
hugo

update_service

Build from go source and create a systemd service file. Currently really doing a manual step here.

#! /bin/sh
cd ~/go/src/gitlab.com/flowonyx/$1/$2
go get ./...
go build -o ~/$1

echo "[Unit]" > /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "Description=Web server" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "[Service]" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "WorkingDirectory=~/go/src/gitlab.com/flowonyx/$1/src" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "ExecStart=~/$1" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "User=joel" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "Group=joel" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "UMask=007" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "[Install]" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service
echo "WantedBy=multi-user.target" >> /etc/systemd/system/$1.service

vhosts files

For static sites, use the git plugin for caddy.

example.com, www.example.com {
	root ~/example/public

	git {
		repo git@gitlab.com:flowonyx/example.git
		key ~/.ssh/hook_key
		path ~/example
		clone_args "--depth=1"
		hook /updatehook SECRET
		then ~/runhugo.sh ~/example
	}

	log ~/logs/example.log
}

Remember to setup the hook in Gitlab

Go to Settings -> Integrations for the project and create a "Push event" hook that will use https://example.com/updatehook with the specified SECRET.

Now every time I push to Gitlab, it will post to that hook and the site will get updated on the server.

Server Setup