Docker provides a containerized environment for the website. It packages up the code and all of its dependencies so that the website can run quickly and reliably on any machine you put it on.
To provide a little more detail:
- We will install docker on the machine which should host the website and turn on swarm mode (only need to do this once).
- We will build a docker image for a version of the website.
- The image defines everything that is needed to run that version of the website, including things such as "we need version X.Y of this dependency".
- We will run a command to deploy that version of the website.
To deploy a new version, we simply build a new image and run the same command to automatically replace the old version.
Visit https://www.docker.com/get-started/.
If you are on a Windows machine, you will need to install Docker Desktop.
In a command line, enable swarm mode with docker swarm init on Windows.
Other OSs should see https://docs.docker.com/engine/swarm/swarm-mode/ for more detailed instructions.
Make sure you have installed dependencies by running yarn in the root directory.
Run yarn build to build the image.
Before deploying the image, you need to define secrets which are used in the production environment.
- Create a
secretsdirectory at the root of the repository. - In this directory, create a
jwtSecret.txtfile. - It is recommended that you set the contents of this file to a random 32 character hex hash. You can go to this website and copy one of the hash lines if you would like.
- Repeat the previous steps for
seedHashSecret.txt, using a different hash for the file contents.
Run yarn deploy to deploy the image.
Wait a few seconds, then you should be able to access the website at http://localhost:3000.
To stop deploying the website, you can run yarn down.