Setting up this Jekyll blog

Helmut Lutz · January 3, 2023

SetupNotes

This is just a plain list of steps that I followed to get this site up and running. For my future self, or anyone who has similar issues.

  • Starting from scratch on Windows, I followed this guide for the Jekyll installation: Jekyll installation guide
  • The tutorial in Github pages guide describe how to set up the repostiory and how to create a site with Jekyll

Issues

  • Running the page locally did not quite work as in the guide above, you have to add webrick in between: 
      bundle install
  bundle add webrick
  bundle exec jekyll serve
  • Another issue was that the css was not rendering properly online - locally it did. The solution was to add an url and baseurl to the _config.yml (actually this was described in the guide as optional step, just didn’t read the guide careful enough): 
      baseurl: "/blog" # the subpath of your site, e.g. /blog
  url: "https://helmutlutz.github.io" # the base hostname & protocol for your site, e.g. http://example.com

Using a template without Gemfile

In cases, where you simply want to try different styles for the website, or when you are debugging something, you don’t want to wait everytime until github finishes the deployment process. However, when you start with a template which for some reason doesn’t come with a Gemfile, you cannot deploy the site locally. The good news is, that you can follow this deployment guide to create your own Gemfile.

  • Navigate to the folder of the blog in the Git-Bash console, and use these commands: 
    bundle init
bundle add jekyll
  • Then, add the following lines to the Gemfile: 
    group :jekyll_plugins do
gem 'jekyll-sitemap'
gem 'jekyll-feed'
gem 'jekyll-seo-tag'
gem 'jekyll-paginate'
end
  • You should also find these plugins in your _config.yml file: ```bash plugins:
    • jekyll-sitemap
    • jekyll-feed
    • jekyll-seo-tag
    • jekyll-paginate ```
  • Finally you can start serving locally with bundle exec jekyll serve

Configuring a custom domain for this blog

  • Buy a custom domain from one of the large DNS providers
  • In your provider account, find the domain and go to Domain settings and Manage DNS
  • Add 4 A records (i.e. edit the first that is already there and add 3 more):
  • Edit the address in the CNAME row (with Name “www”) to point to your gh-pages website (helmutlutz.github.io). Exclude the repository’s name (/blog)
  • Revisit the guide Managing a custom Domain for gh-pages, and start with step 1. Essentially you need to go to the Settings and Pages site of the repository and enter your custom Domain. This will automatically create a CNAME file pointing to your domain.
  • Enforce HTTPS encryption for your site by selecting “Enforce HTTPS”
  • Now you can update your local repository by pulling the changes.
  • Finally you have to edit URLs in the _config.yml file: 
      enforce_ssl: https://www.ephemeralhorizons.com
  baseurl: ""
  url: "https://www.ephemeralhorizons.com"

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