path: root/src/posts/gemini/2021-02-08/how-to-host-your-own-gemini-site-in-the-cloud/index.gmi

# How to Host Your Own Gemini Site in the Cloud

> Mon 8th February 2021 By David T. Sadler.

So I have a Gemini site over at gemini://davidtsadler.co.uk and I thought I'd write up how I achieved this in case anyone was interested in doing the same.

I would say that from purchasing the domain name to having a complete server hosting the site took about 30 minutes in total.

## Purchasing a Domain Name

I decided that for the moment I would keep my traditional "Big Web" content hosted at davidtsadler.com and use a different domain name for my new Gemini site. Since this meant purchasing a new one I popped over to Gandi.net to acquire davidtsadler.co.uk. Side note: I used to own this but decided not to renew it for some crazy reason.

## Creating a cloud sever

My cloud provider of choice is Hetzner and creating a new server is done in eight steps.

### 1. Location

Hetzner provide a few locations in Europe as to where the server is hosted. For this server I chose Helsinki.

### 2. Image

I chose Ubuntu 20.04 as the operating system as this is the one I'm most familiar with.

### 3. Type

As this server is only going to a host a Gemini site I don't need a overly powerful system so I chose their most basic CX11 configuration. For €2.99 a month this gives me:

* 1 virtual CPU.
* 2GB ram.
* 20GB SSD .
* 20 TB of network traffic a month.

### 4. Volume

You have the option of attaching additional storage to the server. I skipped this step as for the time been the 20GB SSD that comes with the server should be enough for my needs.

### 5. Network.

I skipped this step as its not needed.

### 6. Additional features

Again I skipped this step but select any if you believe that you will need them.

### 7. SSH Key

When a server is created a root user is added and a password is emailed to you so that you can login. However if you provide a SSH key it will be installed on the server instead of creating a password.

I like to use separate keys for each server that I manage so I tend store the them in a directory named after the hostname.

```shell
$ mkdir ~/.ssh/davidtsadler.co.uk

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ~/.ssh/davidtsadler.co.uk/id_rsa
```

The SSH key is added by clicking + ADD SSH KEY and then copying and pasting the contents of the id_rsa.pub file.

### 8. Name

I name my servers after the hostname so for this I called it davidtsadler.co.uk. I then created the server by clicking CREATE & BUY NOW.

## SSH

Once the server was created I took the allocated IP address and ensured that I could access it via SSH using the key that I had provided.

```shell
$ ssh root@135.181.201.71 -i ~/.ssh/davidtsadler.co.uk/id_rsa
```

## Resolve the Domain Name to the Server

In my Gandi.net account I went to the DNS Records section for the domain name I had purchased. There I deleted everything except for the @ (A) and www (CNAME) records which was configured as follows:

* @ (A) 135.181.201.71
* www (CNAME) davidtsadler.co.uk.

The A record is configured with the IPv4 address of my new server and the CNAME with the domain name. Note that the CNAME must end with a period!

After saving the changes it was just a matter of waiting for it to propagate through the DNS system. At which point I could use the domain name when logging in via SSH.

```shell
$ ssh root@davidtsadler.co.uk -i ~/.ssh/davidtsadler.co.uk/id_rsa
```

## Securing the Server

At a bare minimum I setup a firewall and harden SSH. I may at a later date go further, such as installing fail2ban.

### Configure a Firewall

This setup will deny any incoming requests unless they were first initiated by a request from the server. Since I need to be able to access the server I allow SSH. The Gemini protocol uses port 1965 so that is also allowed.

```shell
$ ufw default allow outgoing
$ ufw default deny incoming
$ ufw allow OpenSSH
$ ufw allow 1965
$ ufw enable
```

### Harden SSH

I edited the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file.

```shell
$ vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
```

I added the two below options so that the root user is not allowed to access the sever via SSH and other users may only access using keys.

```
PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no
```

Since I'd made changes to the configuration I needed to restart the SSH service.

```shell
$ service sshd restart
```

### Create non-root User

Whenever I access a server I like to login as a non-root user that is able to run sudo on the system.

```shell
$ adduser gemini

$ usermod -aG sudo gemini
```

As the SSH key is already on the server I can copy it to the non-root user account.

```shell
$ rsync --archive --chown=gemini:gemini ~/.ssh /home/gemini
```

On my local system I confirm that I can log in as the new user without a password.

```shell
$ ssh gemini@davidtsadler.co.uk -i ~/.ssh/davidtsadler.co.uk/id_rsa
```

I also confirm that I have sudo access.

```shell
$ sudo ls
```

## Installing a Gemini Site and Server

### Directory structure

I decided to go with a very simple directory structure. Each site will be a sub-directory in ~/sites that will be named after the domain name. Then each site will have the following sub-directories. The idea is that I may want to host more than one site in the future.

* bin This will contain the Gemini server binary.
* certs TLS certificates for the site are kept here.
* public This will contain the .gmi files of the site.
* scripts Contains scripts used to start the Gemini server.

I created the directory structure with the below command.

```shell
$ mkdir -p ~/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/{bin,certs,public,scripts}
```

### Install certificates

Sine the Gemini protocol encourages using a self-signed certificate I installed one with the openssl command.

```shell
$ openssl req -x509 \
    -newkey rsa:4096 \
    -keyout ~/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/certs/key.rsa \
    -out ~/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/certs/cert.pem \
    -days 3650 \
    -nodes \
    -subj "/CN=davidtsadler.co.uk"
```

### Create Some Test Content

I created a very simple index.gmi file purely for testing.

```shell
$ cat << EOF > ~/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/public/index.gmi
# Welcome

Hello world!
EOF
```

### Install the Gemini Server Binary

I decided to go with agate as the Gemini server as its very simple to install and configure. Installing it was a matter of downloading the binary archive into the bin directory and setting the executable permission on it.

```shell
$ cd ~/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/bin

$ wget https://github.com/mbrubeck/agate/releases/download/v2.3.0/agate.x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.gz

$ gunzip agate.x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.gz

$ mv agate.x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu agate

$ chmod u+x agate
```

I wrote a very simple bash script to run agate and have it serve the site.

```shell
$ cat << EOF > ~/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/scripts/start
#!/bin/bash

/home/gemini/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/bin/agate \
    --content /home/gemini/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/public/ \
    --key /home/gemini/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/certs/key.rsa \
    --cert /home/gemini/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/certs/cert.pem \
    --addr [::]:1965 \
    --addr 0.0.0.0:1965 \
    --hostname davidtsadler.co.uk \
    --lang en-GB
EOF

$ chmod u+x ~/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/scripts/start
```

### Testing the Site

At this point I have the Gemini server installed and a site available for testing.

I first started agate with the bash script.

```shell
$ ~/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/scripts/start

[2021-02-05T17:26:56Z INFO  agate] Listening on [[::]:1965, 0.0.0.0:1965]...
```

With agate up and running I pointed my Gemini client to gemini://davidtsadler.co.uk and confirmed I was able to access the site before entering Ctrl-C to halt agate.

### Configure Systemd

Since I was happy that agate was able to serve my new site I created a systemd unit to ensure that agate was started whenever the system was rebooted.

```shell
$ sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/agate.service
```

The unit is very simple and just runs the bash script to start agate once the network is available.

```
[Unit]
Description=Agate Gemini Server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=gemini
Group=gemini
ExecStart=/home/gemini/sites/davidtsadler.co.uk/scripts/start

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
```

I then started this service and confirmed it was working.

```
$ sudo systemctl start agate.service

$ sudo systemctl status agate.service

Active: active (running)
```

The final step was to have this service start when the system is rebooted.

```
$ sudo systemctl enable agate.service
```

## Conclusion

Setting up a Gemini site was easy to do and I hope this guide shows it. I have several ideas about how I'm going to use this new site and I'm excited to see where this leads to.

### Links

=> https://www.gandi.net/ Gandi.net - My domain registrar of choice.
=> https://hetzner.cloud/?ref=Gf3UFbRaixBK Hetzner - My cloud server provider.
=> https://github.com/mbrubeck/agate/ Agate - A simple Gemini server.
=> gemini://davidtsadler.co.uk/ davidtsadler.co.uk - My Gemini site.

=> /posts/gemini/ Gemini - Read More Posts.

I don't have comments as I don't want to manage them. You can however contact me at the below address if you want to.

=> mailto:david@davidtsadler.com Email david@davidtsadler.com

=> https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ The contents of this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Copyright © 2021 David T. Sadler.

=> / Return to Homepage.