Last week, I setup the infrastructure for BootConf 2014 website and its deployment workflow. Essentially the website is based on Octopress with a mix of Git + SSH to ensure we deploy to a staging site first and then to the live site. Its all working nice for us.
Octopress Setup
Here is how I set it up:
On a server machine
On a staging server setup two Git+SSH Repositories or you can use GitHub for this step. Lets assume these repositories are defined in environment variables SITE_OCTOPRESS_REPO and SITE_SOUCE_REPO. We set a few environment variables to shorten the CLI ( read more at Octopress Setup
):
WEBUSER=user@staging.example.com
SITE_OCTOPRESS_REPO=$WEBUSER:/home/user/repos/octopress-bootconf.in.git
SITE_SOURCE_REPO=$WEBUSER:/home/user/repos/octopress-bootconf.in-source.git
Clone Octopress to a folder: octopress-bootconf
$ git clone https://github.com/imathis/octopress octopress-bootconf
$ cd octopress-bootconf/
$ bundle install
$ git remote add myrepo $SITE_OCTOPRESS_REPO
$ git push myrepo master
Now create the site source with default theme:
$ bundle exec rake install # creates a source/ folder with site structure and some files
$ cd source/
$ git init .
$ git add .
$ git add myrepo $SITE_SOUCE_REPO
$ git push myrepo master
You don’t need to commit source/ folder to the octopress repo, because its a separate repository. In this repository you keep track of only the site source. Thereby separating Octopress code from your site’s content and layout.
On a local machine
Install Ruby and related tools: ruby1.9.3, gem, bundler, rake
$ sudo apt-get install ruby1.9.3 ruby-bundler ruby-rake rubygems
$ git clone $SITE_OCTOPRESS_REPO octopress-bootconf.in
$ git clone $SITE_SOURCE_REPO source-bootconf.in
$ cd octopress-bootconf.in/
$ ln -sf ../octopress-bootconf.in/ source
$ sudo bundle install -V
NOTE: You may also use a Git submodule for keeping Octopress and site source in separate repositories.
Change the base url for the site to /2014/, and read here for more details:
$ bundle exec rake set_root_dir[2014/]
How to add a new post?
New post is created using new_post task. The file is generated in source/_posts/ folder as a markdown file. You can generate it like this:
cd /path/to/octopress-bootconf.in
bundle exec rake "new_post[title of the post]"
Feel free to edit it ( refer to existing posts on formatting ). Once you are done editing, you can check the preview and deploy it.
Same goes for the existing pages in the navigation menu.
Generating the static site and previewing it
NOTE the use of bundle exec prefix in the command bundle exec rake as we are using bundler to resolve dependencies.
Generate site:
$ bundle exec rake generate
## Generating Site with Jekyll
identical source/stylesheets/screen.css
Configuration from /..../_config.yml
Building site: source -> public/2014
Successfully generated site: source -> public/2014
Preview it:
$ bundle exec rake preview
Starting to watch source with Jekyll and Compass. Starting Rack on port 4000
Configuration from ..../_config.yml
[2014-03-10 13:57:47] INFO WEBrick 1.3.1
[2014-03-10 13:57:47] INFO ruby 1.9.3 (2011-10-30) [x86_64-linux]
[2014-03-10 13:57:47] INFO WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=24422 port=4000
Auto-regenerating enabled: source -> public/2014
[2014-03-10 13:57:47] regeneration: 100 files changed
>>> Change detected at 13:57:47 to: screen.scss
identical public/2014/stylesheets/screen.css
>>> Compass is polling for changes. Press Ctrl-C to Stop.
Open the URL: http://localhost:4000/2014/
Deployment to staging and live sites
First login into staging site:
ssh $WEBUSER
cd /path/to/octopress-bootconf.in
Copy Rakefile into two files: Rakefile.staging and Rakefile.live, and update the deployment user/server details in the two files.
To deploy to staging site, you need to symlink the Rakefile to staging config:
cd /path/to/octopress-bootconf.in
ln -sf Rakefile.staging Rakefile
To deploy to live site, you need to symlink the Rakefile to live config:
cd /path/to/octopress-bootconf.in
ln -sf Rakefile.live Rakefile
And then switch back to staging site Rakefile.
ALWAYS MAKE SURE which Rakefile you are using.
Deployment is a simple command:
cd /home/jdevday/workspace/octopress-bootconf.in
bundle exec rake generate deploy