Hosting a space

I've been hosting spaces on Linux with nginx. This process could be improved!

1. rsync your local repo, and a built copy of space, to the server. You'll do this when you make changes, too:

   (cd space/server && GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o ../../server.prod ./main) && rsync -av . --delete --exclude .git user@server:space/
   

2. Make a systemd job to run space. Create this file as .config/systemd/user/space.service (you can also name it something else):

   [Unit]
   Description=Space!
   
   [Service]
   ExecStart=%h/space/server.prod -static ../../static/ -p
   WorkingDirectory=%h/space/space/server
   Restart=on-failure
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=default.target
   

   Note that the -p flag in the systemd job disables automatic hot reloading. You can use the management UI instead; see below.

3. Start the job: systemctl --user start space. If you want it to start at boot, use systemctl --user enable space. You might also need to run sudo loginctl enable-linger "$USER" so that your account's jobs start automatically.

4. Install nginx, and configure it like this (by editing /etc/nginx/sites-available/default, or by creating a new file in that folder and symlinking it to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/):

   server {
     server_name space.example.com;
   
     charset utf-8;
   
     location / {
             proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8031;
   
             proxy_http_version 1.1;
             proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
             proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
             proxy_set_header        X-Forwarded-For   $remote_addr;
             proxy_set_header        X-Real-IP         $remote_addr;
             proxy_set_header        Host              $host;
             proxy_read_timeout 900;
      }
   
     listen [::]:80 ipv6only=on;
     listen 80;
   }
   

   You might need to reload nginx's config with something like sudo systemctl reload nginx.

5. For browsers to enable video, you'll need HTTPS. I'd use Let's Encrypt. Install certbot: sudo apt install python3-certbot-nginx. Then just run certbot and, when prompted, select to redirect all traffic to HTTPS. If you'd just like to enable HTTPS for Space, run certbot -d space.example.com instead. The certificate should get installed and renewed automatically going forward.

To manage the space, I'll generally forward the management server to my local machine over SSH, like this: ssh -L 8044:127.0.0.1:8034 user@server. Then visit http://127.0.0.1:8044 in a browser. You can use the buttons to reload just the renderer (i.e. static/party/index.html) or the whole site for everyone.