##Overview This is an article to cover setting up jekyll and git to successfully deploy a blog on a VPS.

##Summary There are several steps needed to successfully setup a server with git and jekyll. I use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS as my VPS OS and the latest Jekyll Ruby gem. Be sure to run these instructions on both the server and the client

  • Install git and ruby
  • Install jekyll
  • Create new jekyll site
  • Init git repo
  • Create git bare repo
  • Create git hook
  • Create virtual host
  • Clone git repo
  • Make blog post
  • Push back to origin

###Install git and ruby

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apt-get install git ruby

###Install jekyll To install for the local user only run

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gem install jekyll

To install system wide

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sudo gem install jekyll

###Create a new jekyll site Create a default new jekyll site (will be created in a directory the same name of the site)

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jekyll new <site-name>
cd <site-name>

###Init git repo

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git init
git commit -a -m "Initial commit"

###Create git bare repo If you don’t have a default location for your git repos please create on. I use $HOME/git

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cd ..
git clone --bare <site-name> $HOME/git/site-name.git
rm -rf <site-name>

Create git hook

Git hooks are commands to run after an event in git. We want to create the site after a commit. This is a post receive hook.

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cd $HOME/git/site-name.git/hooks
vi post-receive

In the post-receive file, paste in the following code

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#!/bin/bash

GIT_REPO=$HOME/git/site-name.git
TMP_GIT_CLONE=$HOME/tmp/webrepo
PUBLIC_WWW=/var/www/site-name

git clone $GIT_REPO $TMP_GIT_CLONE
jekyll b -s $TMP_GIT_CLONE -d $PUBLIC_WWW
rm -Rf $TMP_GIT_CLONE
exit

###Create virtual host This is a bit involved so I will simply provide a link to instructions

Apache configuration

###Clone git repo On your workstation, clone your git repo

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git clone ssh://username@server-name/home/username/git/site-name.git

###Make a blog post It is easier to edit the default post in site-name/_posts. Edit this file and then run the following

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git commit -a -m "Edited default post"

###Push back to origin When you push changes back to the origin the post_receive hook runs and creates your site.

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git push origin

After this completes browse to your site.