+++
date = '2024-11-27'
draft = false
title = 'How to Host a Simple Blog'
tags = ['howto', 'tutorial', 'web']
categories = ['technical']
+++

No. I don't want to have a git repository with a million billion files that are auto generated by [hugo](https://gohugo.io/), [jekyll](https://jekyllrb.com/).
No. I don't want to use some non-official, homebrew, backwater, docker image made by some random guy that stopped maintaining the image in 2011.
I want my own dockerfile that is based on `alpine` or even use an image official to the framework.
No. I **definitely** don't want to use a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor - I have my own local markdown editor that works just fine thank you.
All I want i one (1) - i repeat - ONE fucking goddamn configuration file for the entire site (toml, conf, yaml I don't care) and blog posts should be written in markdown.

If you are like me, read on.

Additionally, there should be community made themes available - but I shouldn't have to fucking add them as a git submodule, god damn.
The blog should be hostable through a docker image that just takes your markdown and config file, builds the static website, and serves it using some standard server
(e.g. nginx or python's `http.server` I don't care which, as long as it is somewhat standard - If I am managing a docker container, I will manage the networking in docker)

Ideally, the directory structure should look like this:

```
blog
├── Dockerfile      // dockerfile to build and host the site
├── README.md       // info about the repository, not a blogpost
├── config.toml     // blog-framework configuration file
└── content
    ├── about.md    // the "about" page
    └── posts       // actual blog posts go here
        └── example.md
```

And then to build the site, simply build the container:

```sh
docker build .
```

Then you should just be able to insert the docker image into some docker-compose or kubernetes stack - or even just `docker run -d` if you'd like.
The point of this is that you should really just focus on writing the blog entries - not the blog website.

If you want to use this workflow - this blog is written using this approach, so see my [gitea](https://git.gtz.dk/agj/blog) instance or the [github](https://github.com/sillydan1/blog) mirror for reference.

The `Dockerfile` I have settled on goes like this:

```dockerfile
FROM alpine
RUN apk add hugo git
WORKDIR /hugo
RUN hugo new site /hugo
RUN git clone https://github.com/yihui/hugo-xmin.git themes/hugo-xmin
ADD hugo.toml /hugo/hugo.toml
ADD content /hugo/content
CMD ["hugo", "serve", "--bind", "0.0.0.0"]
```

For now, I am just using the built-in server in `hugo`, but it should be possible to serve using `nginx`.

I mentioned `hugo` before, but I was mostly mad that I had to add the autogenerated stuff in git - with this approach... I don't have to 🎊!