home73k/priv/content/2021/04/2021-04-08_elixir-phoenix-automated-deployment-gitea-git.md

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%{ title: "Elixir Phoenix Automated Deployment with Gitea/systemd", id: "elixir-phoenix-automated-deployment-gitea-systemd-git", date: ~N[2021-04-08 17:49:00], author: "Adam Piontek", tags: ~w(tech elixir phoenix notes coding automated deployment gitea git systemd) }

I don't know if this is the "right" way to do this, but it's working for me at the moment, and since it took a bit to figure out, I figured I'd write up my notes.

My needs are simple: when I'm happy with an update to my blog, or another elixir phoenix app I run, Shift73k (or more in the future), I'd like to be able to just commit to my repository, and then have those changes go live. At the moment I run both gitea and my other little apps on the same Linode, so I was able to set it up like this:

deployment script

First, the Phoenix deployment makes use of Releases, though I'm not doing anything fancy to track versions or anything like that.

This means the general upload procedure looks like this, and I can put it in a bash script to make updating a bit easier:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

cd /opt/myapp73k

# update from master
/usr/bin/git pull 73k master

# fetch prod deps & compile
/usr/bin/mix deps.get --only prod
MIX_ENV=prod /usr/bin/mix compile

# perform any migrations
MIX_ENV=prod /usr/bin/mix ecto.migrate

# update node packages via package-lock.json
/usr/bin/npm --prefix /opt/myapp73k/assets/ ci

# rebuild static assets:
rm -rf /opt/myapp73k/priv/static/*
/usr/bin/npm --prefix /opt/myapp73k/assets/ run deploy
MIX_ENV=prod /usr/bin/mix phx.digest

# rebuild release
MIX_ENV=prod /usr/bin/mix release --overwrite

# restart service
sudo /bin/systemctl restart myapp73k.service

sudo permissions

To allow the user that's running the script to invoke sudo we need to give it explicit permission, e.g. by placing the following in a file like /etc/sudoers.d/deploy_hooks:

git  ALL=(runuser) NOPASSWD: /home/runuser/deploy_hooks/deploy-myapp73k.sh
runuser ALL= NOPASSWD: /bin/systemctl restart myapp73k.service

The first line allows the user git to run the script /home/runuser/deploy_hooks/deploy-myapp73k.sh as the user with username runuser -- and without requiring a password. Permissions should only allow the runuser accoutn to modify the script, so someone with access to the git account can't modify it to make it run something else.

The second line allows the user runuser to run only the command /bin/systemctl restart myapp73k.service without a password. Doing anything else with sudo will still ask for a password.

What this enables is that a git post-receive hook, running as user git, can call the deploy script, which runs as user runuser and performs the app update, which can finish by calling systemctl restart{:.lang-bash}

gitea post-receive hook content

For git to run the deployment script after the repository receives a new commit, we set a git hook. But I want to be able to commit development branches to the repository without those commits getting deployed, so I want the hook to do nothing unless it's a commit to the master branch (could be any other branch, say "prod")

My hook looks something like this:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
while read oldrev newrev refname
do
    branch=$(git rev-parse --symbolic --abbrev-ref $refname)
    if [ "master" = "$branch" ]; then
        sudo -u runuser /home/runuser/deploy_hooks/deploy-myapp73k.sh
    fi
done

Here we can see the hook checks the branch first, and if master, runs sudo -u runuser{:.lang-bash} to run the script as user runuser

elixir phoenix release systemd unit

That should just about do it, but as an extra note, here's the elixir phoenix release systemd unit:

[Unit]
Description=MyApp73k service
After=local-fs.target network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=runuser
Group=runuser
WorkingDirectory=/opt/myapp/_build/prod/rel/myapp73k
ExecStart=/opt/myapp73k/_build/prod/rel/myapp73k/bin/myapp73k start
ExecStop=/opt/myapp73k/_build/prod/rel/myapp73k/bin/myapp73k stop
#EnvironmentFile=/etc/default/myApp.env
Environment=LANG=en_US.utf8
Environment=MIX_ENV=prod
Environment=PORT=4000
LimitNOFILE=65535
UMask=0027
SyslogIdentifier=myapp73k
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

I hope this is helpful to someone --- most of all my future self!