Nanfeng

Notes on software development, code, and curious ideas

Deploying a Hexo Blog to an Alibaba Cloud Server

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Push generated Hexo files to a bare Git repository and serve them through Nginx on an Alibaba Cloud server.

This deployment has two parts: pushing Hexo’s generated static files to the server, and configuring a web server to serve that directory.

Upload generated files with Git

Create a dedicated Git user

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sudo adduser git

Configure SSH access for that account. Add your public key to ~git/.ssh/authorized_keys, then apply restrictive permissions:

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sudo mkdir -p /home/git/.ssh
sudo touch /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo chmod 700 /home/git/.ssh
sudo chmod 600 /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo chown -R git:git /home/git/.ssh

Test from your local terminal:

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ssh -v git@SERVER_IP

Create the bare repository and web directory

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sudo mkdir -p /www/git /www/wwwroot/hexo
sudo git init --bare /www/git/blog.git
sudo chown -R git:git /www/git/blog.git /www/wwwroot/hexo

Create /www/git/blog.git/hooks/post-receive:

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#!/bin/bash
git --work-tree=/www/wwwroot/hexo \
    --git-dir=/www/git/blog.git \
    checkout -f

Make the hook executable:

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sudo chmod +x /www/git/blog.git/hooks/post-receive

The dedicated account needs write access only to the repository and deployment directory. Avoid granting it unrestricted sudo access.

Configure Hexo

In the root _config.yml:

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deploy:
  type: git
  repo: git@SERVER_IP:/www/git/blog.git
  branch: master

Deploy with:

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hexo clean && hexo generate --deploy

Serve the website

Install and configure Nginx, then create a virtual host whose document root is /www/wwwroot/hexo. Point the domain’s DNS records to the server and obtain a valid TLS certificate so the site can be served over HTTPS.

The original setup used the BaoTa control panel to add the site and choose the same document root:

Adding a website in BaoTa Selecting the Hexo document root Website configuration

Common problems

  • The domain does not open: verify the Nginx document root, DNS records, firewall/security-group rules, and TLS configuration.
  • Files do not deploy: verify ownership and write permissions for the bare repository and deployment directory, then inspect the Git hook output.
  • SSH fails: confirm the public key, authorized_keys permissions, account shell, and server SSH logs.
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