netgo

README

netgo

This is a Go implementation of a static website server.

About

netgo makes it easy to deploy and maintain a static website.

Install

# Install the binary (or download from https://github.com/AletheiaWareLLC/netgo/releases/latest)
go install aletheiaware.com/netgo/cmd/netserver

# Create user
adduser netgo

# Create config
cat <<EOT >> /home/netgo/config
CERTIFICATE_DIRECTORY=/etc/letsencrypt/live/example.com/
HTTPS=true
EOT

# Set permissions
chmod 600 /home/netgo/config

# Allow netgo to read config
sudo chown -R netgo:netgo /home/netgo/config

# Create netgo service
sudo cat <<EOT >> /etc/systemd/system/netgo.service
[Unit]
Description=netgo static website server
[Service]
User=netgo
WorkingDirectory=/home/netgo
EnvironmentFile=/home/netgo/config
ExecStart=$(whereis netserver) start
SuccessExitStatus=143
TimeoutStopSec=10
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOT

# Reload daemon
sudo systemctl daemon-reload

# Enable service
sudo systemctl enable netgo

# Start service
sudo systemctl start netgo

Content

By default netserver will serve content from a subdirectory called html\static, this can be overriden with the environment variable CONTENT_DIRECTORY.

Git Bare

If a website is stored in a git repository, a bare version on the server can be used to make deploying an update to a website as simple as git push live.

# Create a directory to house the repository
mkdir -p /var/www/example.com

# Enter directory
cd /var/www/example.com

# Initialize a bare repository
git init --bare

# Create a hook to checkout the latest version of the website
cat << EOT >> hooks/post-receive
#!/bin/sh
GIT_WORK_TREE=/var/www/example.com git checkout -f
EOT

# Make the hook executable
chmod +x hooks/post-receive

On the development machine setup the server as a remote;

git remote add live username@example.com:/var/www/example.com
git push live +master:refs/heads/master

Whenever you make changes to the website, commit them and run git push live to deploy them to the server.

Logging

By default netserver will log to a subdirectory called logs, this can be overridden with the environment variable LOG_DIRECTORY.

HTTPS

HTTPS can be enabled by setting the environment variable HTTPS=true.

Certificate

SSL certificates will be loaded from a subdirectory called certificates, this can be overriden with the environment variable CERTIFICATE_DIRECTORY.

A Certificate Authority such as Let's Encrypt can be used to generate a certificate.

# Install certbot
sudo apt install certbot

# Generate certificate
sudo certbot certonly --standalone -d example.com

# Allow netgo to read security credentials
sudo chown -R netgo:netgo /etc/letsencrypt/

# Add cron job to renew certificate on the first day of the week
(sudo crontab -l ; echo '* * * * 0 sudo certbot renew --pre-hook "systemctl stop netgo" --post-hook "systemctl start netgo"') | sudo crontab -

Firewall

A Firewall such as UFW can be used to control the open ports.

# Install ufw
sudo apt install ufw

# Allow http port
sudo ufw allow 80

# Allow https port
sudo ufw allow 443

# Enable firewall
sudo ufw enable

# Allow netgo to bind to port 443 (HTTPS)
# This is required each time the server binary is updated
sudo setcap CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE=+eip $(whereis netserver)

HTTP to HTTPS Redirect

netserver can redirect clients accessing webpages via HTTP to use HTTPS instead when the following environment variables are set;

• HOST - only requests matching the given host will be redirected; eg example.com
• ROUTES - only requests matching one of the given comma-separated routes will be redirected; eg /,/index.html,/logo.png

Documentation

Index

• Constants
• func HTTPSRedirect(host string, paths map[string]bool) func(http.ResponseWriter, *http.Request)
• func QueryParameter(query url.Values, parameter string) string
• func StaticHandler(directory string) func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request)

Constants

const HTTPS = "HTTPS"

Functions

func HTTPSRedirect

func HTTPSRedirect(host string, paths map[string]bool) func(http.ResponseWriter, *http.Request)

func QueryParameter

func QueryParameter(query url.Values, parameter string) string

func StaticHandler

func StaticHandler(directory string) func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request)