Docker compose CI/CD

While on this self-hosting journey, I've not found any simple solutions that I liked for automatically deploying a docker compose stack to a single machine. I've played with git hooks and didn't want to go for Github actions (have to expose network). But now with the new release of Gitea Actions, you can self-host a simple CI/CD workflow! No more hacks/workarounds needed and lots of flexibility if needed, and you can easily store all your environment variables in the Gitea repo secrets.

Changes normally come from one of two scenarios:

1. You make changes to your docker-compose.yml or something like home assistant's configuration.yml in your local IDE.
2. You update something (config) through the UI of a service (say node-red flows.json), that you want backed up to your repo.

For scenario 1, you can simply make your changes in your comfy local IDE, push them to Gitea and the deploy.yaml will pull the changes to your server, set environment variables based on your Gitea repo's secrets and update your compose stack. For scenario 2, once this PR in Gitea is merged, we can use backup.yaml to schedule a workflow that will push your changes from the server to the repo. Bonus: From Gitea you can set up a mirror to Github, so that you have extra peace of mind.

Setup

The following steps are to be executed on the same server the docker compose stack is meant to run on. It assumes it's a linux machine with an ssh server running.

1. Use docker compose up -d gitea to start Gitea
2. browse to the new Gitea instance and go through initial setup.
3. Since Gitea Actions are still in preview: Enable actions in Gitea's app.ini (see link) and restart Gitea.

    # custom/conf/app.ini
    [actions]
    ENABLED = true

4. Create a new repo in Gitea. Note: Name the base branch main or update the workflows accordingly.
5. Go to the repo's setting in Gitea, check the box: 'Enable Repository Actions' and save.
6. Go to Site Administration -> Runners -> Create new runner and get a runner registration token.
7. Replace the variables in docker-compose.yml or set them as environment variables:

• ${RUNNER_TOKEN}
• ${GITEA_IP} (e.g. 192.168.2.1)
• ${PATH_TO_THIS_REPO} (e.g. '~/deployment_pipeline')
• ${REPO_NAME} (e.g. Bob/deployment_pipeline)

8. Add your SSH key to Gitea example guide. Note: Make sure it doesn't have a passphrase and permissions are set correctly.
9. Run docker compose up -d gitea_act to start the actions runner.
10. Add all your environment variables for your other docker compose services to the secrets in the Gitea repo, using the SERVER_ENV_PROD secret name.

Optional: 11) Set Github (or other) as mirror for Gitea repo.

Usage

In your development environment, set Gitea as the remote for your repo. Commit and push your work, and watch the Gitea Actions do the rest of the work!

TODO / IDEAS

• Could maybe try and get a runner token from Gitea by itself?
• Test the schedule workflow once its released.
• The runner registration token only works once, so if you have to rebuild, you have to refresh the token. Maybe there is a solution for this?
• Automatically restart services in the workflow if files in their folders have changed.
• Reduce image size
• Add image to Dockerhub?