Simple jekyll deployment with a shell script and GitHub

I wanted to document and share my process for deploying this very website (jokecamp.com).

There are many ways to automate the deployment of a jekyll website. I tried a few methods but settled on a very simple ssh script I can run from my local computer. These steps could be used for any type of code deployment. It is not specific to a jekyll website.

Quick Summary

• Execute the deploy.sh script on your local computer and enter your password when prompted
• The script will then
  • connect and login to the remote server via ssh
  • git pull the entire project from GitHub into a private directory
  • Copy the contents of the _site folder your public website directory

Specific Setup and Configuration

Prerequisites:

• commit your website to GitHub
  • include the auto-generated _site folder
  • for example: https://github.com/jokecamp/jokecamp.com/
• a remote unix server that supports ssh (secure shell) access
  • I use nearlyfreespeech.net
• a local computer that can run shell scripts
  • Mac, Linux or Windows with cygwin

Create the following scripts on your local computer. I prefer and would advise not to commit these to your project. I keep my deployment scripts on dropbox.

Create deploy.sh

#!/bin/bash

ssh username@your.remote.host.for.ssh.com 'bash -s' < server-script.sh

Create server-script.sh

#!/bin/bash

echo 'getting latest from github'
cd /home/private/jokecamp.com/
git pull -v

echo 'deploying to home/public'
cp -av /home/private/jokecamp.com/_site/. /home/public/

echo '** done. www.jokecamp.com deployed. **'

A couple notes about my environment. /home/private is a directory that cannot be accessed from the public facing internet. It is safe to keep the entire GitHub project here. The /home/public/ directory is the root directory serving this website (jokecamp.com).

You will need to do a one time change of permissions on the scripts in order be able to execute them. Run these commands on your local computer

chmod 755 deploy.sh
chmod 755 server-script.sh

Now I can deployment the site with one script. It will prompt me for my password then connect to the site via ssh, pull the latest from GitHub and update my website.

$ ./deploy.sh
username@your.remote.host.for.ssh.com's password:

That is all. Our website has been deployed!