Files

Blake Ridgway 0cbcc962f7 DOCS-1: Init document work

2026-07-28 07:20:32 -05:00

3.6 KiB

Raw Permalink Blame History

title, description, section, order

title	description	section	order
Deploy a Static Site with Nginx	Host a static HTML site, Hugo, or Jekyll site on your Arcline VPS with Nginx.	vps	3

Deploy a Static Site with Nginx

Static sites are fast, secure, and simple to host. This guide covers deploying plain HTML, Hugo, and Jekyll sites on your Arcline VPS.

Prerequisites

A VPS with Nginx installed (see Nginx + PHP-FPM + MySQL for setup)
A domain pointed to your VPS IP
Your static site files (HTML, CSS, JS) ready to upload

Step 1 — Create the site directory

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example.com
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/example.com

Step 2 — Upload your site files

Via SFTP (FileZilla, Cyberduck)

Connect to your VPS:

Host: your.vps.ip.address
User: yourname
Port: 22
Protocol: SFTP

Upload files to /var/www/example.com/.

Via rsync (command line)

rsync -avz --delete ./_site/ yourname@your.vps.ip.address:/var/www/example.com/

The --delete flag removes remote files that no longer exist locally — perfect for rebuilds.

Via SCP

scp -r ./my-site/* yourname@your.vps.ip.address:/var/www/example.com/

Step 3 — Configure Nginx

Create a site configuration:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com www.example.com;
    root /var/www/example.com;
    index index.html;

    # Gzip static assets
    location ~* \.(css|js|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico|svg|woff2?)$ {
        expires 1y;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, immutable";
        access_log off;
    }

    # HTML files — shorter cache
    location ~* \.html$ {
        expires 1h;
        add_header Cache-Control "public, must-revalidate";
    }

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

Enable the site:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl reload nginx

Step 4 — Set up SSL

sudo certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com

Deploying a Hugo site

If you build your site with Hugo locally:

Generate the site: hugo
The output goes to the public/ directory
Upload public/ to your server

Or build directly on the VPS (for CI/CD style deployment):

# Install Hugo on the VPS
sudo apt install hugo -y
# Or download a specific version from GitHub releases

# Clone your repo
git clone https://git.arcline.it/yourname/your-site.git /var/www/example.com-source

# Build
cd /var/www/example.com-source
hugo -d /var/www/example.com

Deploying a Jekyll site

Jekyll requires Ruby. Install it on the VPS:

sudo apt install ruby-full build-essential -y
sudo gem install jekyll bundler

Clone and build:

git clone https://git.arcline.it/yourname/your-site.git /var/www/example.com-source
cd /var/www/example.com-source
bundle install
jekyll build -d /var/www/example.com

Security headers for static sites

Add this to your Nginx config inside the server block for recommended security headers:

add_header X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN" always;
add_header X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff" always;
add_header Referrer-Policy "strict-origin-when-cross-origin" always;
add_header Permissions-Policy "camera=(), microphone=(), geolocation=()";

Test and reload:

sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

What's next

Deploy a Node.js app with PM2 + Nginx
Deploy a Go binary as a systemd service
Set up automated backups with restic

3.6 KiB Raw Permalink Blame History