Introduction

In this tutorial, How to deploy the website to VPS using Gitlab CI/CD. You need a little knowledge about VPS, SSH, Public key, private key, Nginx… Now let’s go Gitlab CI/CD and deploy the website to VPS.

Prerequisites

• Domain: https://devopsroles.com
• VPS on Linode: Have installed Nginx and added the domain into VPS.
• Source code: For example, is React
• Create SSH key on VPS
• Add SSH key into GitLab, CI/CD of Project
• Install Gitlab Runner
• Add .gitlab-ci.yml to the root folder on Gitlab

On VPS

Create a public key and Private key for CI/CD

Type the command on VPS below:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -m pem -C "pvhuu285@gmail.com" -P "" -q -f ~/.ssh/gitlab

It will gen two files is gitlab and gitlab.pub

Convert PKCS #1 to PKCS #8 as command below:

openssl pkcs8 -in gitlab -topk8 -out gitlab2 -nocrypt
#openssl pkcs8 -in gitlab -topk8 -out gitlab2

If you use gitlab key PKCS #1 is the error “Error loading key “/root/.ssh/id_rsa”: invalid format”. I will convert the gitlab2 private key.

On terminal type command

cat gitlab.pub

Copy the code public key, and paste it into SSH of the account Gitlab

Type the command below to get the private key

cat gitlab2

This private key assign to Settings CI/CD of Repository. Variables are SSH_PRIVATE_KEY

Copy the public key into the authorized_keys file.

touch .ssh/authorized_keys
cat .ssh/gitlab.pub > .ssh/authorized_keys

Create a new .ssh/config file with the content below:

  IgnoreUnknown AddKeysToAgent,UseKeychain
  #UseKeychain yes
  AddKeysToAgent yes
  PreferredAuthentications publickey
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/gitlab

Install Gitlab Runner on VPS

My example, Install Gitlab Runner on Ubuntu VPS

Download and install binary

sudo curl -L --output /usr/local/bin/gitlab-runner https://gitlab-runner-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/latest/binaries/gitlab-runner-linux-amd64

Give it permission to execute

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gitlab-runner

Create a GitLab CI user

sudo useradd --comment 'GitLab Runner' --create-home gitlab-runner --shell /bin/bash

Install and run as a service

sudo gitlab-runner install --user=gitlab-runner --working-directory=/home/gitlab-runner
sudo gitlab-runner start

Command to register the runner

sudo gitlab-runner register --url https://gitlab.com/ --registration-token $REGISTRATION_TOKEN

REGISTRATION_TOKEN the get on repository setting, In CI/CD

Create new .gitlab-ci.yml file at the folder root on Gitlab

The content is as below:

# Using the node image to build the React app

image: node:latest
variables:
  PUBLIC_URL: /
# Cache node modules - speeds up future builds
#cache:
#  paths:
#     - node_modules
stages:
     - build
     - deploy
build:
  stage: build
  script:
     - echo "Start building App"
     - chmod +x node_modules/.bin/react-scripts
     - npm install # Install all dependencies
     - npm run build #--prod  Build for prod
     - echo "Build successfully!"
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - build 
  only:
    - master # Only run on master branch
deploy_production:
  stage: deploy
  image: ubuntu
  before_script:
    - 'which ssh-agent || ( apt-get update -y && apt-get install openssh-client -y )'
    - mkdir -p ~/.ssh
    - echo "$SSH_PRIVATE_KEY" | tr -d '\r' > ~/.ssh/gitlab
    - chmod 700 ~/.ssh/gitlab
    - eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
    - ssh-add ~/.ssh/gitlab
    - ssh-keyscan -H 'gitlab.com' >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts
    - apt-get install rsync -y -qq
    - apt-get install curl -y -qq

  script:
     - echo "Deploying to server"
     - ssh -i ~/.ssh/gitlab -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no huupv@SERVER_IP -p PORT
     - rsync -avz --progress -a -e "ssh -p PORT" build/ huupv@SERVER_IP:/var/www/YOUR_DOMAIN/public_html
     - echo "Deployed"
  environment:
    name: production
  only:
     - master # Only run on master branch

After clicking commit and checking the result in CI/CD

Conclusion

You have Gitlab CI/CD deploy the website to VPS. I hope will this your helpful. Thank you for reading the DevopsRoles page!