VPS Provisioning & CI/CD Deployment

This guide walks you through:

1. Provisioning a fresh Hetzner (Ubuntu) VPS
2. Generating an SSH key for GitHub Actions → VPS
3. Installing Docker & Docker Compose
4. Creating your app directory
5. Wiring up GitHub Actions to deploy via SSH and Docker Compose

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1. Run the provisioning script

On your VPS as root:

# Upload the script (either via scp or direct paste):
cat > /root/setup_vps.sh <<'EOF'
$(sed 's/^/    /' <<EOF
$script_content
EOF
)
EOF

chmod +x /root/setup_vps.sh
/root/setup_vps.sh

• At the end it will print a new private key.
• Copy everything between the COPY THIS PRIVATE KEY markers.

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2. Add GitHub Secrets

Go to YourRepo → Settings → Secrets and Variables → Actions and add:

• VPS_HOST = your VPS IP or hostname
• VPS_USER = the deploy user (default: deployer)
• VPS_SSH_KEY = paste the private key from step 1
• VPS_SSH_PASSPHRASE = leave blank (we generated with no passphrase)
• REMOTE_APP_PATH = /home/deployer/{APP-DIR}

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3. Verify access

From your local machine:

ssh -i actions-to-vps deployer@your.vps.ip docker compose version

You should see Docker Compose’s version output without a password prompt.

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4. Prepare your project on the VPS

Your GitHub Actions will SSH into $REMOTE_APP_PATH and deploy files.
You don’t need to git clone on the VPS.

Ensure that your workflow copies:

• docker-compose.local.yml
• docker-compose.prod.yml
• Dockerfile
• app/ (your code)
• Caddyfile and Caddyfile.local
• config/.env.prod or .env.local

into $REMOTE_APP_PATH.

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5. GitHub Actions snippet

Key job in your .github/workflows/main.yml:

vps-deploy:
  if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/vps-test'
  name: 🚀 Deploy to VPS Test Environment
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  steps:
    - name: 🚚 Checkout code
      uses: actions/checkout@v3

    - name: 📁 Copy entire repo to VPS via SFTP
      uses: appleboy/scp-action@v0.1.0
      with:
        host: ${{ secrets.VPS_HOST }}
        username: ${{ secrets.VPS_USER }}
        key: ${{ secrets.VPS_SSH_KEY }}
        passphrase: ${{ secrets.VPS_SSH_PASSPHRASE }}
        port: 22
        source: "."                    # <-- copy everything
        target: ${{ secrets.REMOTE_APP_PATH }}
        recursive: true

    - name: 🔑 SSH & rebuild on VPS
      uses: appleboy/ssh-action@master
      with:
        host: ${{ secrets.VPS_HOST }}
        username: ${{ secrets.VPS_USER }}
        key: ${{ secrets.VPS_SSH_KEY }}
        passphrase: ${{ secrets.VPS_SSH_PASSPHRASE }}
        port: 22
        script: |
          set -e
          cd ${{ secrets.REMOTE_APP_PATH }}
          echo "⏳ Pulling latest images & rebuilding with prod compose…"
          docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml pull
          docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up -d --build

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6. Next steps

• Push to your vps-test branch → watch the CI deploy automatically.

• Merge to main (or staging) to trigger other environments.

• Enjoy zero-downtime, GitHub-driven deployments!

  Note : SSH into the vps using ssh root@<VPS-IP> and use the password set for the vps