+++
title = "Zola website deployment with Drone CI"
date = 2022-09-28

[taxonomies]
categories = ["Linux"]

[extra]
author = "Emil Miler"
+++

NOTE: This article is outdated and superseded by [native Gitea Actions](@/posts/zola-deployment-with-gitea-actions-and-rsync/index.md).

Zola is my SSG of choice, as it it fast, powerful and packed in a single statically linked binary. Here is how I use with in conjunction with Drone CI for automatic building and deployment to my webserver.

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I have written a [bachelor's thesis](https://git.microlab.space/em/bakalarka) on static site generators and implementing a sample website with Zola in particular. Where my thesis lacks, though, is in the automatic deployment, where I glued together some Git hooks and shell scripts. It works fairly well, but it does not provide much feedback or code validity checks.

## Pipeline

We start with a simple header in which we define the basics.

```yaml
kind: pipeline
name: default

steps:
```

The Drone pipeline has two main parts -- build and deployment. Best way of building the source is by pulling the [official Zola container from ghcr](https://github.com/getzola/zola/pkgs/container/zola). Since the container does not have a shell, we need to use `entrypoint` and `command` options, instead of a set of shell commands.

```yaml
- name: build
  image: ghcr.io/getzola/zola:v0.16.1
  entrypoint: [ "/bin/zola" ]
  command: [ "build" ]
```

Deployment is done using [drone-rsync](https://plugins.drone.io/plugins/rsync) plugin, which handles connection to a remove webserver and can work with private keys via Drone secrets, which we configure later.

```yaml
- name: deploy
  image: drillster/drone-rsync
  settings:
    hosts: [ "0x45.cz" ]
    user: drone
    source: public/*
    target: /srv/www/em.0x45.cz
    recursive: true
    delete: true
  environment:
    RSYNC_KEY:
      from_secret: rsync_key
```

## Webserver configuration

The server needs a new user with write access to the website root directory.

```sh
useradd drone
mkdir -p /srv/www/em.0x45.cz
chown drone:drone /srv/www/em.0x45.cz
```

## SSH keys

Create a keypair for SSH connection from Drone to our deployment server.

```sh
ssh-keygen -t ed25519
```

Public key has to be added to `~/.ssh/authorized_keys` of *drone* user on our webserver. The private key has to be inserted to Drone as a secret. This can be easily done trough the web UI, or [by using commands](https://docs.drone.io/cli/secret/drone-secret-add/). The secret name has to match `from_secret` option, so in our case: `rsync_key`. Drone can then easily authenticate and push content to our webroot.