This is done via github webhook and systemd. When github receives a push (likely from local branch), it notifies the remote server that it should pull. The remote server pulls from github, and runs docker build to build the website, and serves it with nginx.

The auto-build program is a Flask script managed by systemd, setup by generating a systemd service file using the auto-build-setup.sh shell script.

service="[Unit]
Description=howard-chu-www auto build daemon

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=$(pwd)
ExecStart=$(pwd)/.venv/bin/flask run --host 0.0.0.0 --port 5000
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=3
KillSignal=SIGKILL
Environment="FLASK_ENV=production"
Environment="PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target"

echo "$service" > /etc/systemd/system/howard-chu-www.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable howard-chu-www
sudo systemctl start howard-chu-www

Now I don’t need to worry about the remote server, if it builds on my local machine, after pushing to github, it will be served on my server.

The Howard Chu Homepage project has been open sourced on https://github.com/Sberm/howard-chu-www