Personal web page of Björn Lindström 2026-03-14T09:43:18+00:00 © 2010–2026 Björn Lindström Björn Lindström bkhl@elektrubadur.se https://elektrubadur.se/tags/hcoop/ https://elektrubadur.se/posts/how_this_blog_works/ Björn Lindström 2020-05-03T00:00:00+02:00 2020-05-03T00:00:00+02:00

<p>This blog is created using the <a href="https://www.getzola.org/">Zola static site engine</a>. I use a combination of <a href="https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/">GitLab CI</a> and <code>cron</code> to automatically upload it to my web server whenever I merge a change to the <a href="https://git-scm.com/">Git</a> <code>master</code> branch of the home page.</p> <p>The <code>elektrubadur.se</code> source code is kept <em>here in GitLab</em> <em>[Update 2024-11-05: <a href="https://github.com/bkhl/elektrubadur.se/">elektrubadur.se source code since moved to GitHub</a>]</em>. While writing a post I just run <code>zola serve</code> on my computer and can look at a dynamically updated website on a local web server.</p>

<p>This blog is created using the <a href="https://www.getzola.org/">Zola static site engine</a>. I use a combination of <a href="https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/">GitLab CI</a> and <code>cron</code> to automatically upload it to my web server whenever I merge a change to the <a href="https://git-scm.com/">Git</a> <code>master</code> branch of the home page.</p> <p>The <code>elektrubadur.se</code> source code is kept <em>here in GitLab</em> <em>[Update 2024-11-05: <a href="https://github.com/bkhl/elektrubadur.se/">elektrubadur.se source code since moved to GitHub</a>]</em>. While writing a post I just run <code>zola serve</code> on my computer and can look at a dynamically updated website on a local web server.</p> <p>Once ready, I commit on a branch and push it to GitLab, and then make a merge request. This might seem a bit silly for a one-man project, but this way I can disable pushes to the <code>master</code> branch entirely, which can help prevent an accident.</p> <p>The repository includes the separate repository <a href="https://gitlab.com/bkhl/web-build">web-build</a> as a submodule. It contains some scripts used to build and publish the web site.</p> <p>My website is hosted at <a href="https://hcoop.net/">HCoop</a>, a hosting cooperative. Because it uses AFS, passwordless login requires the use of Kerberos, so I can&rsquo;t just push the page using a deploy key.</p> <p>So, rather than pushing the website there, I&rsquo;m pulling. I&rsquo;ve put the script <code>fetch_website.py</code> from <a href="https://gitlab.com/bkhl/web-build">web-build</a> on the target host, and makes it run it as a cron job:</p> <pre tabindex="0"><code class="language-crontab" data-lang="crontab">*/5 * * * * k5start -qtUf &#34;/etc/keytabs/user.daemon/$USER&#34; -- &#34;$HOME/scripts/fetch_website.py&#34; &#34;https://gitlab.com/bkhl/elektrubadur.se/-/jobs/artifacts/master/download?job=build&#34; &#34;$HOME/www/elektrubadur.se&#34; </code></pre><p>The <code>k5start</code> thing is another thing needed because of the use of AFS and Kerberos. The point here is that you give the script a URL to a GitLab artifact, and a target directory, and it will deploy it if there&rsquo;s been any change.</p> <p><a href="https://gitlab.com/bkhl/web-build/-/blob/f76df73fd337b43452e7cb934347357b5c9aafa7/fetch_website.py">The entire script</a> is a bit long to post here, but it basically checks if there is a new artifact in GitLab for the website, built from the <code>master</code> branch, and if there is downloads and deploys it. It saves the ETag in a file, so that it can compare to that and skip downloading unless there has been a change.</p> <p>Credits for tools used making this page, inspirations for the design &amp;c. are also on <a href="/about_page/">About This Page</a>.</p>