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+---
+layout: post
+title: "HOWTO: Host your jekyll site using apache web server"
+date: 2023-08-31 18:27:00 +0000
+categories: jekyll self-host apache2 linux
+---
+
+I finally have a personal blog just how I like it. I wouldn't say it took a long time (just a couple of days) or that I'd rather have used
+an overkill alternative, like WordPress. But I should recognize that it wasn't as easy as I thought it'd be. Besides the customizations
+I made to the theme I use, I think the main responsible of my suffering hosting this blog was apache.
+
+And so I think that a guide of what to do to host a static site made in jekyll on a VPS with apache2 it's a good idea for a first post,
+so let's get to it. A heads up: I already assume that you have your jekyll site ready and you're just looking on how to deploy it
+to your server, so I'll omit the steps regarding a site's generation.
+
+# Requirements
+- A VPS, whether using a hosting provider like vultr or a PC turned on 24/7 in your home. Just be sure that it is accessible to the public
+  internet (that it has a static public IP), which is the most important aspect of a web server.
+- Some linux distro installed in your server. I personally use Debian, but the instructions presented here are distro-agnostic.
+- Apache2
+- Ruby; I recommend [rbenv][rbenv]
+
+# Apache2
+If you wish to host your site in the apache's main directory (in the case of debian, it's /var/www/html/), and, as a consequence, in your main domain
+(not a subdomain) then there's no extra configuration besides the one I'll show. If instead you'll host your blog on a subdomain, just beware that 
+there're certain things to have in mind, like your server's name and the directory that's going to store your blog files.
+
+I was looking for two things when setting up my server: **internationalization** and **pretty URLs**. The configuration I'll show takes into consideration
+these two points, and it achieves them through [mod_rewrite][mod_rewrite]:
+
+{% highlight apache %}
+<VirtualHost _default_:443>
+	ServerName example.com
+
+	DocumentRoot /var/www/html/
+	DirectoryIndex index.html	
+		
+	RewriteEngine On
+	RewriteRule ^/(page[1-9]+)$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/$1/index.html
+	RewriteRule ^/en/(page[1-9]+)$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/en/$1/index.html
+	RewriteRule ^/en/$ %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/en/index.html
+	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
+	RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d	
+	RewriteRule ^([^\.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L]
+	
+	ErrorDocument 404 "/not-found"
+
+	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
+	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
+</VirtualHost>
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+The first two rules relate to pagination, using the jekyl-paginate rubygem. If you won't use pagination,
+you can omit it. Although I recommend you use it.
+
+The second one is a doozy, for now I'll only host the blog in english and spanish, although if I wish to,
+in the future, add a third language, like french, I could change the regex to:
+
+`^/(en|fr)/(page[1-9]+)$`
+
+The same for the next one, which only takes care of serving the index of every internationalized index version.
+The last three rules take care of pretty URLs (URLs without the file extension, e.g. about-me instead of about-me.html)
+
+The last configuration (ErrorDocument) is the page the server'll show every time there is a 404 status response. Chances
+are the theme you're using for your blog already has one, and if not, it's worth it to create one because the apache's
+default "Not found" page isn't particularly pleasing.
+
+# User permissions
+
+The /var/www/html directory usually belongs to the group (and user) www-data (in other distros this user is called apache),
+but if you like you can add yourself to this group or even better, become the owner. Be mindful of security though, this directory
+usually belongs to the root or www-data user, so it's probably worth it to create an user just for this and nothing else, and to not
+have anything sensible in your /var/www/html directory, besides your blog's files:
+
+{% highlight shell %}
+sudo chown -R $(whoami) /var/www/html
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+I did this because it's useful if you wish to use git hooks, so that with every change you push, the site will update automatically,
+so it behaves like a dynamic site, like a WordPress instance for example.
+
+# Deploy hook
+
+If you use a special user as the owner of your git repos, like me (my git user in my VPS doesn't have access to an interactive
+shell for example) then you can add another remote repo and point towards it:
+
+## Server
+
+{% highlight shell %}
+git --bare init your_blog.git
+cd your_blog.git
+touch hooks/post-receive
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+## Client (where you write your posts)
+
+{% highlight shell %}
+git remote add deploy your_user@example.com:/home/your_user/your_blog.git
+git push deploy
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+## Post-receive script
+
+Now, the script that'll be executed everytime you push any changes is the following, courtesy of [the jekyll docs][jekyll_docs].
+I modified it as I use rbenv, it'll be the same for you if you use it as well, but if you installed ruby and bundler with, for example,
+your package manager, then you won't have to add your rubygems' directory to your PATH, but if you installed ruby in any other way, it'll
+be required.
+
+{% highlight shell %}
+#!/bin/bash -l
+
+export GEM_HOME=$HOME/.rbenv/shims/
+export PATH=$GEM_HOME:$PATH
+
+GIT_DIR=$HOME/blog.git
+TMP_GIT_CLONE=$HOME/tmp
+GEMFILE=$TMP_GIT_CLONE/Gemfile
+PUBLIC_WWW=/var/www/html # Use the directory apache uses for serving your blog.
+
+git clone $GIT_DIR $TMP_GIT_CLONE
+BUNDLE_GEMFILE=$GEMFILE bundle install
+BUNDLE_GEMFILE=$GEMFILE bundle exec jekyll build -s $TMP_GIT_CLONE -d $PUBLIC_WWW
+rm -Rf $TMP_GIT_CLONE
+exit
+{% endhighlight %}
+
+# Conclusions
+
+Well, that was the _setup_ of my website. I personally think there is a technical barrier to using jekyll, and it's a shame
+because it covers a lot of use cases pretty well, but us technical users sometimes forget that what could be easy for us,
+like a git push, it's kind of black magic to others, and let's just not talk about that giant apache config file  or having
+to write a git hook. Nevertheless, I enjoy jekyll, I enjoyed this process and I hope you do, too.
+
+[rbenv]: https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv
+[mod_rewrite]: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/rewrite/intro.html
+[jekyll_docs]: https://jekyllrb.com/docs/deployment/automated/