Git Hook Listener

An application for continuous deployment that listens for git webhooks and downloads push updates automatically.

Feel free to check out my step-by-step guide to configure an AWS EC2 server too.

 

Summary

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1. "Why should I use this"?
2. Prerequisites
3. Getting started
4. Author

 

1. "Why should I use this"?

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In order to replicate the latest code in your repo to your servers, just using git commit.

Short story: I used to update applications on servers by dragging and dropping files via Filezilla, manually. Sometimes I had to check the files to replace from my computer to the server. And I used to do this process a lot of times, specially to show and validate new functionalities in development. It takes a lot of time and effort just to do a simple task: get my newest updates in my machine and update on the server. But now, using a git repository and this project, I just commit my changes and, BAM! The files are replicated to the server as well! 😃

 

2. "Ok, what are the prerequisites?"

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• Git repository (github, bitbucket...)
• NodeJS installed in your server / computer.

 

3. Getting started

1. Store your Git repository user credentials in your machine (for Linux)

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This is for avoiding prompting your user and password when doing a git pull. Windows users, please give me a feedback.

  // In terminal, write:
  $ nano ~/.netrc
  
  // And add these lines:
  machine github.com (or bitbucket.org)
  login [YOUR_USER]
  password [YOUR_PASS]
  
  // Save it using: CMD + o
  // And exit using: CMD + x

 

2. Download this project

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  $ cd [path to download]
  $ git clone https://github.com/renancaldas/git-hook-listener.git
  $ cd git-hook-listener && npm install

 

3. Running for the first time

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You should have nodemon installed! If you don't, please do: npm install -g nodemon

   $ npm start
   // Which runs: NODE_ENV=development DEBUG=git* nodemon git-hook-listener.js

It should appear the message: git-hook-listener.js Server started at port 3000 +0ms

 

4. Test if application is up and running

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Make a GET request to the endpoint running, for example:

    // Open a new CMD, because the current window is running the application
    $ curl http://localhost:3000/test

    // Or try connecting remotelly
    $ curl http://www.your_domain_running_the_app.com:3000/test

If appears the message "Ready to use POST /hook endpoint!" you are good to go!

 

5. Configuring webhook

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Go to your Git repo (like bitbucket), select your repository then go to Settings -> Webhooks and create a request to the application, ending with the /hook. For example: http://www.your_domain_running_the_app.com:port/hook.

Obs: If you are running in your local machine using localhost, you should create a proxy for receving external requests from the internet. In this case, I recommend Ngrok for testing: https://ngrok.com/.

 

6. It is done!

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Finally, you can push changes to your repository. It will trigger the webhook to the application and do a git clone / pull to your server in the specified folder in the config file, automatically!

Obs: I recommend PM2 (Process Manager 2) to set this application to run "forever" (like npm forever) even after a crash or server restart.

 

 

4. Author

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Renan Caldas de Oliveira

• Web: http://www.renancaldas.com