Urbit Hosting

This repo contains configurable files which can used to set up a server (local or VPS) to host one or more websites and Urbit ships at the same time using Docker, Caddy, and MinIO.

Note that it assumes you already have:

• Access to a local server or VPS
  • The server is assumed to be some common variant of Linux, e.g. Ubuntu 18.04
• Access to a user account with sudo privileges
• SSH set up on the server
• One or more domain names that you will use to access the server remotely

Directory Layout

|- star-cmd: Raw VPS setup files
   |- sites: Root directory for websites
   |  |-  my-website: Dummy website folder; should be replaced by one or more
   |                  folders, each of which is root for a website
   |- Caddyfile: Caddy setup file; see Caddy documentation
   |    https://caddyserver.com/docs/caddyfile
   |- compose.yml: docker-compose setup file; see docker-compose documentation
   |    https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/compose-file-v3/#service-configuration-reference
   |- launch.sh: Bash script for non-system user with sudo privileges to launch
   |             Docker containers
   |- start.sh: Docker containers startup script 
   |- stop.sh: Docker containers teardown script
   |- thwart.sh: Bash script for non-system user with sudo privileges to stop
   |             Docker containers
   |- vps-setup: Bash script to setup the VPS environment (install dependencies,
                 enable firewall, etc.)

Setup

1. Clone this repo to the server
2. Fill out the required fields in the files:
   1. Caddyfile
      1. Fill in the fields with your custom domain(s)
      2. You may need to add more fields (using the same pattern) if you're hosting multiple ships or websites.
   2. vps-setup.sh
      1. line 17
      2. line 20
      3. You may need/want to modify the default values on lines 22 - 31. If you modify line 22, you'll also need to modify the launch.sh and thwart.sh scripts to match the new system user.
      4. Note the comments on lines 18 and 23 if you plan to host multiple ships
   3. compose.yml
      1. line 35
      2. line 60
      3. line 83
      4. If you're hosting more than one ship, you'll need to note the comments on lines 38 - 55. You will also need to clone lines 83 - 84 for each additional ship.
3. If you're not using MinIO, you can delete minio_bucket_policy.json, all of the MinIO info in Caddyfile, and lines 20 - 34, line 58, and line 67.
4. Run vps-setup.sh as root
5. (Optional) Move the launch.sh and thwart.sh scripts somewhere in your regular user account. They can be used as a shorthand for spinning your web server up/down.

DNS

Add wildcard subdomain A rules that point to the server IP for each of the mappings in your Caddyfile. For example, if your Caddyfile looks like this after setup:

www.urbit.io {
  redir https://urbit.io permanent
}

urbit.io {
  root * /var/www/my-website
  file_server
}

zod.urbit.io {
  reverse_proxy web-zod-1:80
}

console.minio.urbit.io {
  reverse_proxy web-minio-1:9001
}

minio.urbit.io images.minio.urbit.io {
  reverse_proxy web-minio-1:9000
}

then in your domain provider settings, you will need to set the following A records for urbit.io (which you must own):

• www
• @
• zod
• console.minio
• minio
• images.minio

Acknowledgements

Thank you to ~datder-sonnet for base files, working examples, and tech support!

Thank you to ~sitful-hatred for the initial article that inspired all of this work!