deployment-files

Capstone Deployment Files

Hosting Overview

The app is currently hosted on a Vultr virtual private server (VPS). The frontend can be accessed at https://transcribro.com and the backend can be accessed at https://api.transcribro.com. The frontend is served from the /var/www/transcribro file directory on the VPS by an NGINX proxy on the server. The backend is running in a Docker container on the VPS and is exposed by the NGINX proxy on the server.

Installation (Ubuntu Server)

Provided that the owner of the repo gives the GITHUB_TOKEN permission to create releases and publish packages, the Docker image for the backend and the deployment files should be accessible.

Download deployment-files from GitHub

NOTE: Deployment files MUST be released on the GitHub repo before you can download them.

Provided that the deployment files are released on the GitHub repo, you should be able to view them at https://github.com/nomaddevs1/capstone-deployment-test/releases/tag/deployment-files. You can download the tar.gz compressed archive containing the files necessary for deployment by running:

wget https://github.com/nomaddevs1/capstone/releases/download/deployment-files/deployment-files.tar.gz

After downloading the tar archive you can extract it by running:

tar -xzvf deployment-files.tar.gz

Setup

IMPORTANT: Make sure that the DNS A or AAAA records are set to point api.transcribro.com and transcribro.com to your server address before running the setup-server.sh script; If the DNS records don't have the correct IP address, Certbot WILL NOT PROVIDE THE SSL CERTIFICATES.

Navigate to the extracted deployment-files directory in your terminal

cd deployment-files

To set up the server for the first time, you can either use the convenience script setup-server.sh with sudo privileges or setup everything manually with the following steps. If you use the convenience script to setup the server, you can skip to the Download SSH Keys step.

Manually Install Dependencies

The server uses Docker, NGINX, and certbot to set the app up:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install docker.io docker-compose nginx
sudo snap install --classic certbot

Manually Set Up Docker

Enable the Docker daemon and socket on the server:

sudo systemctl enable docker.service --now
sudo systemctl enable docker.socket --now

Manually Set Up User

Setting up a user with access to docker and site files is recommended.

Add a user transcribro with docker group:

sudo useradd transcribro -m
sudo usermod -aG docker transcribro

Generate ssh keys for user transcribro:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f transcribro -C transcribro-user

Add the generated ssh key to authorized ssh keys for user transcribro:

sudo mkdir -p /home/transcribro/.ssh
sudo cat transcribro.pub | sudo tee -a /home/transcribro/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo chown -R transcribro:transcribro /home/transcribro/.ssh
sudo chmod 600 /home/transcribro/.ssh/authorized_keys

Manually Copy Site Files

The site built by create-react-app is essentially just a folder of static files. The build site files have been packaged in the deployment-files folder, so we can copy them to /var/www/transcribro and set site file permissions by running:

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/transcribro
sudo chown -R transcribro:transcribro /var/www/transcribro/
sudo chmod -R 664 /var/www/transcribro/
sudo cp -ar ./site/. /var/www/transcribro

Manually Enable Firewall

You can set up the firewall by running:

sudo ufw allow http
sudo ufw allow https
sudo ufw allow ssh
sudo ufw enable

This will allow http, https, and ssh traffic in and out of the server.

Manually Download SSL Certificates with Certbot

IMPORTANT: Make sure that the DNS A or AAAA records are set to point api.transcribro.com and transcribro.com to your server address before running certbot. If the DNS records don't have the correct IP address, Certbot WILL NOT PROVIDE THE SSL CERTIFICATES.

sudo certbot --nginx -n --agree-tos \
        -d api.transcribro.com \
        -d transcribro.com \
        -m ryan.bell62101@gmail.com

Manually Setup NGINX

sudo cp ./transcribro.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/
sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
sudo ln -sf /etc/nginx/sites-available/transcribro.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Download SSH Keys

After running the preceding steps manually or using the setup-server.sh convenience script, the following tasks have been completed on the server:

• Docker, docker-compose, NGINX, and Certbot have been downloaded
• transcribro a user with limited permissions on the server has been created
• SSH keys for the transcribro user have been generated
• React site files have been copied into /var/www/transcribro
• SSL certificates should be installed on the NGINX proxy for api.transcribro.com and transcribro.com
• NGINX is running on the system (you should be able to see the page at https://transcribro.com at this point, but you will be unable to send requests to the API since the backend is not running yet)

Now you can copy the ssh keys for the transcribro user from the server to your local machine so you can log into the server as the transcribro user:

scp -OT <sudo-user>@<server-ip>:"~/deployment-files/transcribro ~/deployment-files/transcribro.pub" "$HOME/.ssh"

Start the Backend

Log into the server as the transcribro user:

ssh transcribro@<server-ip> -i ~/.ssh/transcribro

Download the site-deployment files from GitHub:

wget https://github.com/nomaddevs1/capstone/releases/download/deployment-files/deployment-files.tar.gz
tar -xzvf deployment-files.tar.gz
cd deployment-files

And run the start-server.sh script, pasting in the Whisper API key when prompted:

./start-server.sh

This will pull the latest docker image of the backend from the GitHub Container Registry and start the container running the backend.

Updating the App

Update Site Files

To update the React site files, you must login as the transcribro user and then download the newest deployment files

wget https://github.com/nomaddevs1/capstone/releases/download/deployment-files/deployment-files.tar.gz
tar -xzvf deployment-files.tar.gz
cd deployment-files

Update the site files by running the update-site-files.sh script:

./update-site-files

Update NGINX Configuration

To update the NGINX configuration, you must log in as a sudo/admin user on your server and download the newest deployment files:

wget https://github.com/nomaddevs1/capstone/releases/download/deployment-files/deployment-files.tar.gz
tar -xzvf deployment-files.tar.gz
cd deployment-files

Then you need to copy the new NGINX configuration file to /etc/nginx/sites-available directory by running:

sudo cp ./transcribro.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Update the Backend

To update the backend, you must log in as the transcribro user and run:

cd deployment-files
./start-backend.sh