• About how to install hexo blog engine.
• About how to deploy in remote server.
• About how to update, publish stuff from any place at any time.

requirements

local

These are the basic reguirements on clients to enable remote posting and updates to the hexo blog running on a server.

• node.js
• git

• hexo

remote

These are the requirements to enable live updates to the hexo blog from remote.

• nginx
• git

starting the hexo blog project

Check hexo web page for more detailed information on how to start a blog, add themes, publish posts.

Below a quick overview about basic stuff

• Create a new blog: $> hexo init <folder>
• Blog configuration: _config.yml
• Add new post: $> hexo new <post|page|draft> <filename|title>
• Generate static files (files are generated under public folder): $> hexo generate [--watch]
• Running test server: $> hexo server

keeping the blog safe in a git repository

Create a new repository in your favourite platform: github, bitbucket…

Follow the instruction to add your blog to the git repository.

Note: I just make sure the public is not uploaded to the git repository. Contents in public folder can be regenerated at any time running hexo generate

setting up the server to publish the hexo blog

This will automate the publication of the hexo web site in the server. In general the following steps will also work with any other static site generator such as hugo.
The steps are basically the following:

• Create a git repository on the server which will contain just the generated site
• Add a hook, so every time a push is received it will force a pull on the folder published on HTTP Server (nginx)

creating an empty git repository

SSH access to the server should be configured.

To setup an empty repository without a working directory run the following commands as user:

The hexo-deploy-project.git repository will be used to deploy the hexo blog.

Whenever the hexo-deploy-project.git repository receives a push from a git remote copy we need to update a folder which will be published on the http server (nginx). For that we create a hook called post_receive

Add the following content to hexo-deploy-project.git/hooks/post_receive

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#!/bin/bash

git --work-tree=/var/www/hexo --git-dir=<fullpathto>/hexo-deploy-project.git checkout -f

Now make sure the work-tree folder exists and has the right permissions. This is the folder that will be published on the HTTP server

Finally edit nginx configuration to publish the folder.

Edit or add a new server section in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

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    server {
        listen       80;
        server_name  localhost;

        location / {
            root   /var/www/hexo;
            index  index.html index.htm;
        }

        error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
        location = /50x.html {
            root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
        }
    }

After restarting the nginx service you should be able to access the server with http://<servername>

… finally configure deployment in hexo project

Add the following section at the end of your _config.yml file:

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deploy:
  type: 'git'
  repo: <user>@<servername>:<fullpathto>/hexo-deploy-project.git
  message: "Updated: {{ now('YYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss')}}"

Now when executing hexo deploy, the public folder of the hexo project will be pushed to the hexo-deploy-project. As soon as it receives the push is received, the hook is fired. the /var/www/hexo is updated, thus is publicly available.

how to use it to publish the blog from anywhere

1. From a remote machine (see local requirement), checkout your hexo project in git
2. Write posts, do changes in configuration, test locally (hexo generate, hexo server)
3. Push your changes to the git repository
4. Finally, deploy everything in your server to make it publicly available by running:

Your new entries should be available at: http://<servername>

See ‘moving from http to https’ post to learn how to enable HTTPS on nginx