CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME Cloudways Drupal

This is work in progress. The code works and is usable, but needs a few manual steps during setup time.

Feel free to test and contribute. The rsync from GitHub Actions to Cloudways needs to be revisited.

Key points

• Start Drupal 9 project
• Manage codebase with Composer https://getcomposer.org/
• Develop on local with Lando https://docs.lando.dev/
• Use Drush to manage all environments https://www.drush.org/
• Git push to deploy.
• GitHub Actions will build and artefact and deploy it for you. https://github.com/features/actions

Setup

Cloudways setup

• Register an account on Cloudways https://vrlps.co/8KpI0vD/cp (referral, thank you)
• Create a new server
  • https://platform.cloudways.com/server
  • APPLICATION & SERVER DETAIL: Custom App (even for Drupal)
  • Name your management app: Pick a good "machine name", this will become CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME.
  • Name yout server: This is up to you.
  • DigitalOcean / 2GB / Frankfurt is good cheap start for small site targeting EU users.
  • // Wait for the server to build.
  • Master Credentials: Add your main SSH key.
  • Settings & Packages - Set up your environment.
    • Note MAX INPUT VARIABLES - this might be limiting for permissions pages in Drupal.
    • Set correct time zone.
    • Set MySQL ENCODING to UTF-8.
    • Set desired PHP version.
    • Set correct time zone.
    • Set correct time zone.
  • Backups: Configure your backup rotation. I would recommend enabling Local Backups if your apps are not big.
  • SMTP: I recommend Elastic Email Add-on: https://support.cloudways.com/how-to-activate-elasticemail-addon/ (Basic subscription includes 1000 Emails for $0.10 / Month)
• Set up the application.
  • https://platform.cloudways.com/apps
  • Add new app or edit the first one that was created with your new server.
  • APPLICATION CREDENTIALS
    • Note the Public IP. Now is a good time to point a domain to the IP. That's outside the scope of this how-to.
    • Add new Username and password. This will be used for deployments.
      • Username: CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME
      • Password: Strong password.
  • Domain Management: Add the primary domain and secondary domains. (www.*)
  • SSL Certificate: SSL is handled by Let's Encrypt and verified trough DNS. You can enable it now.
  • Deployment via Git: Don't use this feature. It's missing features required for deploying Drupal. (at the time of writing)
  • Application Settings
    • FOLDER: change this to CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME
    • WEBROOT: change this to public_html/docroot (fill in only docroot)
    • SSH ACCESS : Enable

Access

Cloudways

• Check you can SSH into the APP's account: ssh CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME@CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-DOMAIN using the per-app password.
  • This should just work. If it does not, double-check the Cloudways setup again.
• Create new SSH key pair without a password in some temporary folder.

✔ rk:~> mkdir -p /tmp/cloudways-ssh
✔ rk:~> cd /tmp/cloudways-ssh/
✔ rk:/tmp/cloudways-ssh> ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME"
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/radimklaska/.ssh/id_rsa): /tmp/cloudways-ssh/id_rsa
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): 
Enter same passphrase again: 
Your identification has been saved in /tmp/cloudways-ssh/id_rsa
Your public key has been saved in /tmp/cloudways-ssh/id_rsa.pub
The key fingerprint is:
SHA256:w*******H+E**************************O/u**o CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME
The key's randomart image is:
+---[RSA 4096]----+
|         .. +=B.o|
|     +  ..oo.* B |
|    . + .=.o..B  |
|       +o o.o. . |
|     . R.K. Iz . |
|        = o Da ..|
|       o .Best.o=|
|          .E= *.+|
|          .+LoL. |
+----[SHA256]-----+
✔ rk:/tmp/cloudways-ssh> ll
total 24
drwxrwxr-x  2 radimklaska radimklaska  4096 dub 11 18:56 ./
drwxrwxrwt 52 root        root        12288 dub 11 18:54 ../
-rw-------  1 radimklaska radimklaska  3381 dub 11 18:56 id_rsa
-rw-r--r--  1 radimklaska radimklaska   739 dub 11 18:56 id_rsa.pub

• Save those in your password manager.
• Go to Cloudways, manage your App. Under Access Details there is a SSH KEYS button next to the APPLICATION CREDENTIALS that was adedd.
  • Add the public key (content id_rsa.pub) there.

GitHub Secrets

On https://github.com/radimklaska/CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME/settings/secrets/actions add following repository secrets:

• DeployCloudwaysPrivateKey: Content of id_rsa
• DeployCloudwaysUsername == CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME
• DeployCloudwaysHostname == CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-DOMAIN
• DeployCloudwaysPath:
  • something like /home/123456.cloudwaysapps.com/abcdef/public_html
  • SSH into ssh CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME@CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-DOMAIN and run pwd to get the path:

    abcdef@123456 ~/public_html $ pwd
    /home/123456.cloudwaysapps.com/abcdef/public_html
    abcdef@123456 ~/public_html $
    

Code

• https://github.com/radimklaska/cloudways_drupal and click the Use this template button.
  • Name your new repo: CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME
  • Clone it locally and get ready to edit.

Search and replace

• CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-DOMAIN: this is bare domain, like actual-domain.com
• CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME: this should be very simple name, avoid spaecial characters, like actual-name

find ./ -type f \( -iname \*.yml -o -iname \*.sh -o -iname \*.md -o -iname \*.json \) -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i '' -e 's/CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-DOMAIN/actual-domain.com/g' &&
find ./ -type f \( -iname \*.yml -o -iname \*.sh -o -iname \*.md -o -iname \*.json \) -print0 | xargs -0 sed -i '' -e 's/CLOUDWAYS-PROJECT-NAME/actual-name/g'

ToDo: First push will probably throw some errors. Missing folders etc. This needs to be fixed manually atm. More docs to come. Hopefully more automation too.

Notes:

• Set up your cron in the App settings under Cron Job Management.