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Diffstat (limited to 'src')
| -rw-r--r-- | src/_config.yml | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | src/_includes/header.html | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | src/_posts/2021-01-23-goodbye-github-pages.md | 239 |
3 files changed, 242 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/src/_config.yml b/src/_config.yml index c8b0980..acca4c8 100644 --- a/src/_config.yml +++ b/src/_config.yml @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ description: >- A mix of tech, art, travel, and who knows what else. baseurl: "" # the subpath of your site, e.g. /blog url: https://blog.mediocregopher.com # the base hostname & protocol for your site, e.g. http://example.com -repository: mediocregopher/blog.mediocregopher.com +repository: https://github.com/mediocregopher/blog.mediocregopher.com twitter_username: mediocre_gopher github_username: mediocregopher rss: rss diff --git a/src/_includes/header.html b/src/_includes/header.html index 888a8dc..a6b9e30 100644 --- a/src/_includes/header.html +++ b/src/_includes/header.html @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ <header id="title-header" role="banner"> <div class="row"> - <div class="seven columns"> + <div class="seven columns" style="margin-bottom: 3rem;"> <h1 class="title"> <a href="{{ "/" | relative_url }}">{{ site.title | escape }}</a> </h1> @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ </div> </div> {%- if!page.nofollow != true %} - <div class="five columns light" style="text-align: right"> + <div class="five columns light"> <span style="display:block; margin-bottom:0.5rem;">Get notified when new posts are published!</span> <a href="{{ "/follow.html" | relative_url }}"><button class="button-primary"> <i class="fab fa-twitter"></i> diff --git a/src/_posts/2021-01-23-goodbye-github-pages.md b/src/_posts/2021-01-23-goodbye-github-pages.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f19ec7 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/_posts/2021-01-23-goodbye-github-pages.md @@ -0,0 +1,239 @@ +--- +title: >- + Goodbye, Github Pages +description: >- + This blog is no longer sponsored by Microsoft! +--- + +Slowly but surely I'm working on moving my digital life back to being +self-hosted, and this blog was an easy low-hanging fruit to tackle. Previously +the blog was hosted on Github Pages, which was easy enough but also in many ways +restricting. By self-hosting I'm able to have a lot more control over the +generation, delivery, and functionality of the blog. + +For reference you can find the source code for the blog at +[{{site.repository}}]({{site.repository}}). Yes, it will one day be hosted +elsewhere as well. + +## Nix + +Nix is something I'm slowly picking up, but the more I use it the more it grows +on me. Rather than littering my system with ruby versions and packages I'll +never otherwise use, nix allows me to create a sandboxed build pipeline for the +blog with perfectly reproducible results. + +The first step in this process is to take the blog's existing `Gemfile.lock` and +turn it into a `gemset.nix` file, which is essentially a translation of the +`Gemfile.lock` into a file nix can understand. There's a tool called +[bundix][bundix] which does this, and it can be used from a nix shell without +having to actually install anything: + +``` + nix-shell -p bundix --run 'bundix' +``` + +The second step of using nix is to set up a nix expression in the file +`default.nix`. This will actually build the static files. As a bonus I made my +expression to also allow for serving the site locally with dynamic updating +everytime I change a source file. My `default.nix` looks like this: + +``` +{ + # pkgs refers to all "builtin" nix pkgs and utilities. By importing from a + # URL I'm able to always pin this default.nix to a specific version of those + # packages. + pkgs ? import (fetchTarball "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/cd63096d6d887d689543a0b97743d28995bc9bc3.tar.gz") {}, + system ? builtins.currentSystem, +}: + + let + # bundlerEnv looks for a Gemfile, Gemfile.lock, and gemset.nix inside + # gemdir, and derives a package containing ruby and all desired gems. + ruby_env = pkgs.bundlerEnv { + name = "ruby_env"; + ruby = pkgs.ruby; + gemdir = ./.; + }; + in + { + # build will derive a package which contains the generated static + # files of the blog. It uses the build.sh file (provided below) to + # do this. + build = derivation { + name = "mediocre-blog"; + + # The build.sh file (source provided below) is executed in order + # to actually build the site. + builder = "${pkgs.bash}/bin/bash"; + args = [ ./build.sh ]; + + # ruby_env is provided as an input to build.sh so that it can + # use jekyll, and the src directory is provided so it can access + # the blog's source files. system is required by the derivation + # function, and stdenv provides standard utilities to build.sh. + inherit ruby_env system; + src = ./src; + stdenv = pkgs.stdenv; + }; + + # serve will derive an environment specifically tailored for being + # run in a nix-shell. The resulting shell will have ruby_env + # provided for it, and will automatically run the `jekyll serve` + # command to serve the blog locally. + serve = pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation { + name = "mediocre-blog-shell"; + + # glibcLocales is required so to fill in LC_ALL and other locale + # related environment vars. Without those jekyll's scss compiler + # fails. + # + # TODO probably get rid of the scss compiler. + buildInputs = [ ruby_env pkgs.glibcLocales ]; + + shellHook = '' + exec ${ruby_env}/bin/jekyll serve -s ./src -d ./_site -w -I -D + ''; + }; + } +``` + +(Nix is a bit tricky to learn, but I highly recommend chapters 14 and 15 of [the +nix manual][manual] for an overview of the language itself, if nothing else.) + +The `build.sh` used by the nix expression to actually generate the static files +looks like this: + +```bash +# stdenv was given a dependency to build.sh, and so build.sh can use it to +# source in utilities like mkdir, which it needs. +source $stdenv/setup +set -e + +# Set up the output directory. nix provides the $out variable which will be the +# root of the derived package's filesystem, but for simplicity later we want to +# output the site within /var/www. +d="$out/var/www/blog.mediocregopher.com" +mkdir -p "$d" + +# Perform the jekyll build command. Like stdenv the ruby_env was given as a +# dependency to build.sh, so it has to explicitly use it to have access to +# jekyll. src is another explicit dependency which was given to build.sh, and +# contains all the actual source files within the src directory of the repo. +$ruby_env/bin/jekyll build -s "$src" -d "$d" +``` + +With these pieces in place I can easily regenerate the site like so: + +``` +nix-build -A build +``` + +Once run the static files will exist within a symlink called `result` in the +project's root. Within the symlink will be a `var/www/blog.mediocregopher.com` +tree of directories, and within that will be the generated static files, all +without ever having to have installed ruby. + +The expression also allows me to serve the blog while I'm working on it. Doing +so looks like this: + +``` +nix-shell -A serve +``` + +When run I get a normal jekyll process running in my `src` directory, serving +the site in real-time on port 4000, once again all without ever installing ruby. + +As a final touch I introduced a simple `Makefile` to my repo to wrap these +commands, because even these were too much for me to remember: + +``` +result: + nix-build -A build + +install: result + nix-env -i "$$(readlink result)" + +clean: + rm result + rm -rf _site + +serve: + nix-shell -A serve + +update: + nix-shell -p bundler --run 'bundler update; bundler lock; bundix; rm -rf .bundle vendor' +``` + +We'll look at that `install` target in the next section. + +## nginx + +So now I have the means to build my site quickly, reliably, and without +cluttering up the rest of my system. Time to actually serve the files. + +My home server has a docker network which houses most of my services that I run, +including nginx. nginx's primary job is to listen on ports 80 and 443, accept +HTTP requests, and direct those requests to their appropriate service based on +their `Host` header. nginx is also great at serving static content from disk, so +I'll take advantage of that for the blog. + +The one hitch is that nginx is currently running within a docker container, +as are all my other services. Ideally I would: + +* Get rid of the nginx docker container. +* Build a nix package containing nginx, all my nginx config files, and the blog + files themselves. +* Run that directly. + +Unfortunately extracting nginx from docker is dependent on doing so for all +other services as well, or at least on running all services on the host network, +which I'm not prepared to do yet. So for now I've done something janky. + +If you look at the `Makefile` above you'll notice the `install` target. What +that target does is to install the static blog files to my nix profile, which +exists at `~/.nix-profile`. nix allows any package to be installed to a profile +in this way. All packages within a profile are independent and can be added, +updated, and removed atomically. By installing the built blog package to my +profile I make it available at `~/.nix-profile/var/www/blog.mediocregopher.com`. + +So to serve those files via nginx all I need to do is add a read-only volume to +the container... + +``` +-v $HOME/.nix-profile/var/www/blog.mediocregopher.com:/var/www/blog.mediocregopher.com:ro \ +``` + +...add a new virtual host to my nginx config... + +``` +server { + listen 80; + server_name blog.mediocregopher.com; + root /var/www/blog.mediocregopher.com; +} +``` + +...and finally direct the `blog` A record for `mediocregopher.com` to my home +server's IP. Cloudflare will handle TLS on port 443 for me in this case, as well +as hide my home IP, which is prudent. + +## Deploying + +So now it's time to publish this new post to the blog, what are the actual +steps? It's as easy as: + +``` +make clean install +``` + +This will remove any existing `result`, regenerate the site (with the new post) +under a new symlink, and install/update that newer package to my nix profile, +overwriting the previous package which was there. + +And that's it! Nix is a cool tool that I'm still getting the hang of, but +hopefully this post might be useful to anyone else thinking of self-hosting +their site. + +[jekyll]: https://jekyllrb.com/ +[bundix]: https://github.com/nix-community/bundix +[manual]: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/#chap-writing-nix-expressions |