How to get auto-deploy working from Gitlab to your Digital Ocean (DO) server.

Install https://github.com/olipo186/Git-Auto-Deploy (via apt-get):

```
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:olipo186/git-auto-deploy
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git-auto-deploy
```

Change config file to match your setup:

```
nano /etc/git-auto-deploy.conf.json
```

Here's my config file:

```
{
  "logfilepath": "/var/log/git-auto-deploy.log",
  "host": "0.0.0.0",
  "port": 8016,
  "global_deploy": [
    "echo Deploy started!",
    "echo Deploy completed!"
  ],
  "repositories": [
    {
      "url": "https://gitlab.com/username/domain.com.git",
      "branch": "master",
      "remote": "origin",
      "path": "/site",
      "deploy": "echo deploying",
      "secret-token": "secretstuff"
    }
  ]
}
```

You need to make sure you have the port you specify - in my case 8016 - allowed by the firewall:

```
sudo ufw allow 8016/tcp
```

Time to start the `git-auto-deploy` service and test the port.

```
service git-auto-deploy start
service git-auto-deploy status // * /usr/bin/git-auto-deploy is running
```

From another machine, check if the port is receiving connections:

```
$ telnet domain.com 8016
Trying XXX.XXX.XX.XX...
Connected to domain.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
```

Now you can add it as a hook in Gitlab. As per git-auto-deploy docs, 'Go to your repository -> Settings -> Web hooks. In "URL", enter your hostname and port (http://domain.com:8016). Hit "Add Web Hook"''. The secret token must be the same as in `git-auto-deploy.conf.json` above. I left "Enable SSL verification" unchecked. After you add it, click the 'test' button to make sure it returns HTTP 200.

On DO server, there will be a new user, git-auto-deploy and group with the same name. You need to generate an SSH key for this user _on the server_ in their home directory, under .ssh(`cd ~/.ssh`):

```
ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "git_auto_deploy_on_digital_ocean" -b 4096
```

Add the new public key (contents of the `~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub`) to Gitlab, click on user icon in the top right, then user settings -> SSH keys

Test it on the server:

```
git init
git remote add origin https://gitlab.com/username/domain.com.git
git fetch
```
If the fetch completes without error then your SSH key works.

Here's the directory structure to keep all the service stuff (.git directory, package.json, etc.) outside of the publicly-accessible folder:

```
|--site
   |--.git
   |--package.json
   |--public_html
      |--assets
      |--index.html
```

You're ready to test it out. Put a tail on the log file:

```
tail -f /var/log/git-auto-deploy.log
```

On your machine, commit a test file and push:

```
touch test.html
git add test.html
git commit -m 'test'
git push
```

Inside the logfile, you should see something like this:

```
[INFO ]  Updating repository /site
[INFO ]  HEAD is now at 7d1153a updated gulp to reflect directory change
[INFO ]  Repository /site successfully updated
[INFO ]  Executing 3 deploy commands
[INFO ]  Deploy started!
[INFO ]  deploying
[INFO ]  Deploy completed!
[INFO ]  3 commands executed with status; [0, 0, 0]
[DEBUG]  Successfully released lock: /site/status_running
[INFO ]  Done
```

If you see an error like below, it means your folder/file permissions are incorrect. Make sure the `git-auto-deploy` user can write to the folder. I just made this user owner of the `public` folder.

```
[ERROR] error: cannot open .git/FETCH_HEAD: Permission denied
```

If you see the below, try to run a `git pull` inside the repo on the server before you test pushing to Gitlab from your machine.

```
[ERROR] fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
```

On the server, all the files from repo should now be present. Now every time you push to Gitlab, these changes will also be pushed to your DO server. Rejoice!