Add new server to GitLab AutoDeploy

If not mentioned otherwise, the following values are variables and will change from project to project (or server to server):

• dev-server - Git branch name, usually following the name of the server which the files will be deployed to (can be uat-server or live-server, etc)
• the /var/www/html path is just an example, this will be the root folder of the website we want to deploy to (from nginx/apache sites-enabled)
• the https://gitlab.apoyar.eu/somepath will be the url to the project in question - to be obtained from GitLab

And now the steps:

• Install Git AutoDeploy
  • apt-get install software-properties-common
  • add-apt-repository ppa:olipo186/git-auto-deploy
  • apt-get update
  • apt-get install git-auto-deploy
• copy the settings file from Dev: /etc/git-auto-deploy.conf.json
• amend the file contents: url to access (GitLab project), active branch required
• open the /etc/init.d/git-auto-deploy file and make the daemon running as www-data:
  • DAEMON_UID="www-data"
  • DAEMON_GID="www-data"
• Run systemctl daemon-reload after you’ve made the changes above
• A reboot may be required here
• Make sure the Deploy Bot account has access to the project and is made a Master
• Backup the current website contents: cp -R /var/www/html/ /home/neal/backup/
• Delete the website contents, including the git part (if present):
  • cd /var/www/html
  • rm –rf *
  • rm –rf .git .gitignore .htaccess
• Before you do the below process, you may need to check the owner of the /var/log/git-auto-deploy.log file. It should be www-data. If not, change it:
  • chown www-data:www-data /var/log/git-auto-deploy.log
• Start the daemon in foreground, but as the user www-data: sudo -H -u www-data bash -c 'git-auto-deploy --pid-file /var/run/git-auto-deploy/git-auto-deploy.pid --log-file /var/log/git-auto-deploy.log --config /etc/git-auto-deploy.conf.json'
• Once static, Ctrl-C the process
• It should create the tree
• Check the contents of the /var/www/html/.gitignore file
• If not present, create one, own it by www-data and push back to the server. If present, leave out the 3 next steps
  • vi .gitignore
  • chown www-data:www-data .gitignore
  • git push origin dev-server
• Copy the ignored files listed above from backup
• Clear the cache and push changes to GitLab:
  • cd /var/www/html
  • git rm –rf –cached .
  • git add .
  • git status
  • if the above command says nothing to commit, you can leave out the 2 next steps
  • git commit
  • git push origin dev-server
• Make sure all objects in the .git/objects folder are owned by www-data: chown –R www-data:www-data *
• Change the Deploy Bot to be a Reporter in GitLab
• Start the service: service git-auto-deploy start
• Observe the log file: tail –f /var/log/git-auto-deploy.log
• If you don’t see anything in the log and the foreground app runs fine, reboot the server
• Add the http://hostname:8001 as webhook to GitLab project in question: https://gitlab.apoyar.eu/root/bleckmann/settings/integrations
• Reboot the server and check whether it’s listening on port 8001: netstat -anp