199 lines
8.3 KiB
Markdown
199 lines
8.3 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "New Website"
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date: "2025-06-12T08:00:00-06:00"
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description: "There's finally a new website at d-b.ca."
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summary: "I've published my personal website. A brief history of some past endeavours, and some details on the technology behind the new site."
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---
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I've finally published a proper website at [https://d-b.ca/](https://d-b.ca/).
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The last time I had anything live on this domain was over 20 years ago,
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according to the [Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/). What took so
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long? The truth is, my interests have shifted over the years, and I've been
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learning a lot. This site, while useful in its own right, is really a
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culmination of a personal platform I've developed over time.
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## History
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My first personal website was developed while I was a student at the
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[University of Alberta](https://ualberta.ca), near the end of the previous
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century. The web was still in its early stages, but the university provided
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students with the means to publish web content. It was mostly a novelty at the
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time and didn't last beyond my time at school, but it sparked my interest in
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Internet technologies and their applications.
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That early site included one interesting feature. I developed a mechanism to
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automatically update a page every time I logged into one of the school's
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computers, so my friends could find me if they wanted to. At the time,
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dynamically updating websites was a tricky thing. The most common way was
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using [CGI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface), which is
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like having a tiny program run every time someone requested a page. The
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university did not allow student sites to use it. So, I wrote some shell
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scripts that were called as part of my login and logout scripts that would
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generate the static HTML file and write it to my web content directory. It
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needed to handle cases like multiple logins, and the logout script didn't
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always get triggered, so I'd have to keep an eye on it for stale entries.
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### Self-Hosting
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I've always been an avid self-hoster. Learning by getting a system up and
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running works well for me. I also value the privacy and control that it
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provides. Plus, it's much cheaper for me in the long run!
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It really began when I was working at a local Internet service provider. I was
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able to get a special deal on a good broadband connection at home, which
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included a small network block (a `/28`, consisting of 16 IP addresses) that I
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could use. I dedicated my largest machine as my server and developed several
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services, including a new website.
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My website at that time wasn't fancy, and was geared primarily towards
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experimentation. I developed a simple content management system from scratch
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in PHP, which I used to publish a blog. It also integrated with mailing
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lists, another area I was exploring at the time.
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### D-B.CA
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I hadn't registered a domain name of my own in those early days, so everything
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resided under a friend's domain. In late 2002, I decided to finally register
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one of my own, primarily so I could have a stable email address. I wanted to
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incorporate the initials in my name, so I came up with `d-b.ca`. This was a
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compromise because someone was squatting on `db.ca` at the time, and, to my
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knowledge, they still are.
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Early on, I focused mostly on operating my email services and other
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experiments, with little attention paid to a website. There were a few test
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pages at times, but nothing substantial.
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## Modern Technology
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One of the projects I've been following is [Hugo](https://gohugo.io/). I've
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seen and worked with various web content management systems in the past, and
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they often feel cumbersome and present security concerns. Hugo is an example
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of a "Static Site Generator." Think of it like this: instead of creating web
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pages on the fly every time someone visits, Hugo takes all the raw content and
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turns it into a set of ready-to-serve files, much like a compiler turns code
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into an executable program. The resulting static resources can be served as
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regular files from any web service, without the need for dynamically
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generating content upon request from a database, as traditional CMS systems
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do.
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Using Hugo is much easier with a solid base template. There are
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[many to choose from](https://themes.gohugo.io/), including the one I've
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selected here called ["Blowfish"](https://blowfish.page/). I like how it
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looks, and it supports the style of site that this is very well.
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Another benefit of a static site generator is that all the sources for the
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site can be treated like software code, making it simple to use development
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tools like [Git](https://git-scm.com/) for version control. I keep the sources
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for this site in a public repository on my own Git server. Feel free to take a
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look:
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{{< gitea repo="d-b.ca/web" >}}
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### CI/CD
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I've also set up a CI/CD pipeline to build and deploy the site whenever
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changes are made to the source repository. What does this mean?
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**CI** = *Continuous Integration*
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> This is the practice of frequently integrating changes into a source
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> repository. The changes are checked, assembled, and packaged through
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> automated processes. [More information](https://martinfowler.com/articles/continuousIntegration.html)
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**CD** = *Continuous Delivery*
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> This is the capability of being able to take new changes (such as the
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> outputs of the CI process) and getting them deployed and running
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> automatically. [More information](https://continuousdelivery.com/)
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The CI portion is triggered by a push to the
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[`web`](https://git.brds.ca/d-b.ca/web) repository. It runs an automated
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workflow that builds the site and packages the resulting artifacts into a
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container image based on the [Caddy](https://caddyserver.com/) web server.
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A container image is like a pre-packaged software environment that ensures the
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website runs consistently regardless of the underlying infrastructure. The
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resulting image contains everything the website needs to operate and can run
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on any infrastructure that can support it, such as my own laptop or my server
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cluster.
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The build container with Hugo is another image that is only used to create the
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website container. I maintain it in this repository:
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{{< gitea repo="d-b.ca/hugo-builder" >}}
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After the workflow has built the container image for running the website, it
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updates the CD GitOps repository to deploy this new version immediately to a
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private staging site. Another definition:
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> **GitOps** refers to the practice of managing infrastructure automation by
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> keeping machine-readable descriptions of the intended infrastructure in a
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> version-controlled Git repository. A CD system will monitor the repository
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> for changes, immediately adding, modifying, or removing infrastructure to
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> bring the state of the operational system into alignment with the source
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> description.
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There are many benefits to managing infrastructure this way. Changes are
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automatically tracked because everything is stored in an existing code
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repository system that's specifically designed for managing and tracking
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change. Problematic changes can be reverted easily by reverting the change in
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the repository. Automation keeps things in sync at all times - any changes
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made manually outside of this system are immediately spotted and removed.
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When I want to publish the new version as the production website, I use my
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regular private production GitOps repository to update the image version tag,
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and the rest happens automatically. The CD repository for the staging site is
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public, you're welcome to check it out here:
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{{< gitea repo="d-b.ca/db-cd" >}}
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#### Pipeline Diagram
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{{< mermaid >}}
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flowchart TB
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subgraph GIT [Git Repository]
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WR[(Web)]
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CDR[(CD)]
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end
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WP(Push Web Updates)-->WR
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WP ~~~ HBI
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subgraph CI [CI Workflow]
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CIP[Pull Source
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Repository]-->BWI[Build Web
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Image]
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BWI-->PWI[Push Web
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Image]
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PWI-->UCD[Update CD
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Repository]
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end
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PWI-->WI
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WR-->CIP
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subgraph DOCKER [Image Repository]
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HBI((Hugo
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Build))
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WI((Web))
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end
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HBI-->BWI
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UCD-->CDP(Push Image
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Update)
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CDP-->CDR
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CDR-->CDPull
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subgraph CD [CD Process]
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CDPull[Pull Source Repository]-->DWI[Deploy Web Image]
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end
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WI-->DWI
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{{< /mermaid >}}
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## Underlying Platform
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In future articles, I'll describe the evolution of the physical network and
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systems this site is running on, and how they enabled me to build a
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[Kubernetes](https://kubernetes.io/) cluster to scale this site and run other
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services, all on hardware I assembled myself!
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