npm deployment with rsync

npm is a package manager for the JavaScript runtime environment Node.js, and rsync can be used to synchronise the data with the remote server.

First steps

  1. Set up environment variables

    DEPLOY_DIR

    Directory on the remote server to which data is to be distributed..

    DEPLOY_HOST

    Host name or IP address of the server to be deployed to.

    DEPLOY_KEY_FILE

    Path to a private SSH key that is to be used for authentication against the server.

    DEPLOY_USER

    Name of the SSH account.

    KNOWN_HOSTS_FILE

    Path to a file with predefined known_hosts entries with which the connection is to be checked.

  2. Setting up the CI/CD pipeline

    .gitlab-ci.yml
    stages:
  - deploy

deploy-static-assets:
  stage: deploy
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == $CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH
  environment:
    name: prod
    deployment_tier: production
  image: node:alpine
  script:
    - apk add --no-cache git nodejs npm openssh-client-default rsync
    - chmod 0600 "$DEPLOY_KEY_FILE"
    - ./deploy.sh
    Line 13

    installs the packages required for building and uploading

    Line 14

    changes the access authorisations for the ssh key

    Line 15

    calls the deploy.sh file

  3. Moves the static files to the server

    deploy.sh
     1#!/bin/sh
 2set -e
 3
 4# Deploy static assets to a server via rsync.
 5
 6# Create SSH config.
 7cat >deploy.ssh_config <<-END
 8    Host deploy
 9        HostName $DEPLOY_HOST
10        User $DEPLOY_USER
11        IdentityFile $DEPLOY_KEY_FILE
12        UserKnownHostsFile $KNOWN_HOSTS_FILE
13END
14
15
16# Build the JavaScript application & related files.
17cd vite-app
18npm ci
19npx vite build
20
21# Deploy the application and GeoJSON data.
22rsync \
23    -rtlv \
24    --rsh 'ssh -F ../deploy.ssh_config' \
25    --rsync-path "mkdir -p \"$DEPLOY_DIR\" && rsync" \
26    ../data/cusy.geojson \
27    cusy.html \
28    dist/cusy-map.css \
29    dist/cusy-map.js \
30    dist/cusy-map.js.map \
31    "deploy:$DEPLOY_DIR"
    Line 7–13

    creates the ssh configuration file.

    Line 18

    installs the dependencies of the project from the vite-app/package.json file.

    See also

    npm-ci

    Line 19

    creates the vite project for production.

    Line 24

    moves the ssh configuration to the server.

    Lines 25–31

    moves the application and GeoJSON data to the server.