My main blog is hosted on DreamHost, and I was looking for the best way to upload files locally to the remote host.
The best way to do this is to use something that just uploads the changes rather than the whole thing each time.
With linux we have a tool available called rsync.
Under windows however we need to install a couple of things to get this to work.
Msys2
If you’re using windows then there’s a couple of ways to gain access to Unix tools such as rsync.
One is the use of WSL2, this will however involve setting up a virtual machine which can use a lot of space on the disk.
Another way is the use of something called MSYS2.
After installing we can install rsync and jq
# Update MSYS2
pacman -Suy
# Install rsync
pacman -S rsync
# Install jq to read json files under bash
pacman -S mingw64/mingw-w64-x86_64-jq
Settings
Upload Settings
First lets create a json settings file called settings.json
{
"username": "username-here@remote-server.com",
"password": "password-here",
"srcdir": "../dist/",
"remotedir": "destination-directory"
}
In my case I’m placing all the publish scripts under a publish subdirectory.
The source files being up one level then down into a dist subdir.
RSync Ignore
Lets say we want to tell rsync to ignore certain paths or directories during the upload / sync.
Create a rsync.rules file.
- /.git/
Upload Script
Next we’re going to create an upload script called upload.sh
#!/bin/bash
# Script to upload content via ssh / rsync
username="$(jq -r '.username' settings.json)"
password="$(jq -r '.password' settings.json)"
srcdir="$(jq -r '.srcdir' settings.json)"
remotedir="$(jq -r '.remotedir' settings.json)"
echo "making sure the remote directory exists"
sshpass -p $password ssh $username mkdir -p $remotedir
echo "starting the upload"
sshpass -p $password rsync -e "/usr/bin/ssh" -av --delete --filter "merge rsync.rules" $srcdir $username:$remotedir
Lets make the script executable, so under the MSYS2 shell
chmod +x upload.sh
Windows PowerShell wrapper
If we’re using windows then lets create a quick shortcut to launch the above script from powershell using msys2.upload.ps1
# Dreamhost powershell publish script
iex "C:\msys64\msys2_shell.cmd -here -mingw64 -shell bash upload.sh"
Running the scripts
In order for this to work we need to log onto the server at least once via ssh.
This will place the ssh server signature into the /home/ric/.ssh/known_hosts file
At a MinGW64 prompt run the following to connect at least once
ssh username-here@remote-server.com
We should now be ready to perform the upload
cd D:\examplesite\publsh
upload.ps1
You can then log onto your site via ssh to confirm the files have been uploaded. If you’re looking for a good ssh terminal for windows I’d suggest