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https://github.com/MightyMoud/sidekick

Bare metal to production ready in mins; your own fly server on your VPS.
https://github.com/MightyMoud/sidekick

deployment heroku self-host self-hostable self-hosted self-hosting selfhosting vps-admin vps-server vps-setup vps-ubuntu

Last synced: 4 months ago
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Bare metal to production ready in mins; your own fly server on your VPS.

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README 

        


  


    

    

  



Bare metal to production ready in mins; imagine fly.io on your VPS

  


    

  



![GitHub](https://img.shields.io/github/license/mightymoud/sidekick)

![GitHub go.mod Go version](https://img.shields.io/github/go-mod/go-version/mightymoud/sidekick)

![GitHub tag (latest SemVer)](https://img.shields.io/github/v/tag/mightymoud/sidekick)






## Features

- 👍 One command VPS setup (docker, traefik, sops, age)

- 💻 deploy any application from a dockerfile

- ✊ Zero downtime deployment

- 🌏 High availability and load balancing

- 🔒 Zero config SSL Certs

- ✅ Connect domains or use sslip.io out of the box

- 🔥 Built in integration with SOPS

- 🛸 Escape the vendorlock forever



## Motivation

I'm tired of the complexity involved in hosting my side projects. While some platforms, like Fly.io, stand out in the crowded field of Heroku replacements, I believe a simple VPS can be just as effective. That's why I created Sidekick: to make hosting side projects as straightforward, affordable, and production-ready as possible. You'll be surprised how much traffic a $8/month instance on DigitalOcean can handle.



## Installation

With GO installed on your system you need to run

```bash

go install github.com/mightymoud/sidekick@latest

```



## Usage

Sidekick helps you along all the steps of deployment on your VPS. From basic setup to zero downtime deploys, we got you! ✊



First you need a VPS with Ubuntu LTS. I recommend DigitalOcean. Hetzner also gets very good reviews. You can host your own silicon too. As long as you have a public IP address you can use Sidekick.



Just make sure the following is true:

- VPS running Ubuntu - LTS recommended

- SSH Public Key available on your machine to login to VPS.



That's it!

### VPS Setup



  


    

  



First you need to setup your VPS. To do this you need to run:

```bash

sidekick init

```



Then you need to enter the following:

- IP Address of your VPS

- An email address to use for setting up SSL certs

- Docker registry to host your docker images - defaults to `docker.io`

- Docker username in the said registry

- Confirm you are currently logged in to that said registry with the username - This is needed to be able to push images on your behalf



After that Sidekick will setup many things on your VPS - Usually takes around 2 mins



  What does Sidekick do when I run this command

  

* Login with `root` user

* Make a new user `sidekick` and grant sudo access

* Logout from `root` and login with `sidekick`

* Update and upgrade your Ubuntu system

* Install `sops` and copy over the public key to your sidekick config file

* Use `age` to make secret and public keys to use later for encrypting env file.

* Send public key back to host machine to be used later for encryption

* Install Docker

* Setup Traefik and SSL certs on your VPS



### Launch a new application

  


    

  



In your application folder, make sure you have a working `Dockerfile` that you can build and run. Also make sure you know at which port your app is expecting to receive traffic.



Then run:

```bash

sidekick launch

```

Then you need to enter the following:

- Url friendly name of your app - if you opt to use `sslip.io` domain for testing this would be your subdomain

- HTTP exposed port for your app to get requests - Sidekick will scan your docker file to try to extract this number and default it.

- Domain at which you want this application to be reachable - If you choose your own domain make sure to point the domain to your VPS IP address; otherwise we default to `sslip.io` domain so you can play around. 

- If you have any `env` file with secrets in it. Sidekick will attempt to find `.env` file in the root of your folder. Sidekick will use `sops` to encrypt your env file and inject the values securely at run time. 



Should take around 2 more mins to be able to visit your application live on the web if all goes well. 



  What does Sidekick do when I run this command

  

* Build your docker image locally for linux

* Push the docker image to the registry

* Encrypt your env file, if available and push it to your VPS

* Use sops to dycrpt your env file and start and env with the values injected

* Spin up your docker image using docker compose and route traffic to it using Traefik on the specified port



### Deploy a new version 

  


    

  


With your application deployed, it's super simple to redeploy a new version.



At any point any time you need to only run:

```bash

sidekick deploy

```

That's all. It won't take long, we use cache from earlier docker images, your latest version should be up soon.

Sidekick will deploy the new version without any downtime - you can see more in the source code.

This command will also do a couple of things behind the scenes. You can check that below



  What does Sidekick do when I run this command

  

* Build your docker image locally for linux

* Compare your latest env file checksum for changes from last time you deployed your application.

* If your env file has changed, sidekick will re encrypt it and replace the encrypted.env file on your server.

* Deploy the new version with zero downtime deploys so you don't miss any traffic. 



### Deploy a preview environment

  


    

  


Sidekick also allows you to deploy preview envs at any point from your application. Preview envs are attached to your commit hash and require a clean git tree before you can initiate them. 

Once you have a clean git tree, you can run the following command to deploy a preview environment:



```bash

sidekick deploy preview

```



  What does Sidekick do when I run this command

  

* Build your docker image locally for linux

* Tag the new image with the short checksum of your git commit

* Compare your latest env file checksum for changes from last time you deployed your application.

* If your env file has changed, sidekick will re encrypt it and replace the encrypted.env file on your server.

* Add a new folder inside your app folder called "preview" where Sidekick will store and manage all your preview deployments

* Deploy a new version of your app reachable on a short hash based subdomain



## Inspiration

- https://fly.io/

- https://kamal-deploy.org/



## Vision

Simple CLI tool that can help you:

- Setup your VPS

- Deploy all your side projects on a single VPS

- Load balance multiple container per project

- Deploy new versions with Zero downtime

- Deploy preview environments with ease

- Manage env secrets in a secure way

- Connect any number of domains and subdomains to your projects with ease



## Remove sidekick



You can easily remove sidekick if you hate it.



```bash

// Mac/Linux

cd $HOME/go/bin

rm sidekick

cd ~/.config

rm -rf sidekick



// Win

cd %USERPROFILE%\go\bin

del sidekick.exe



// Powershell

cd $HOME\go\bin

Remove-Item sidekick.exe

```



---

## Roadmap

I still have a couple more feature I want to add here. Also considering some of those to be on a paid version.

- Preview env deployments

- A way to deploy more complicated projects defined in docker compose file

- Better zero downtime deploys with watchtower

- Firewall setup

- Managing multiple VPSs

- Easy way to deploy databases with one command

- TUI for monitoring your VPS

- Streaming down compose logs - ala `fly logs`

- Auto deploy on image push - to work with CICD better