Setting up a simple blog using sphinx and ablog using a SquareSpace domain, Nginx & DigitalOcean droplet#

Buying a domain on squarespace and droplet on Digital Ocean:#

Buy a domain on squarespace.
Create an Ubuntu droplet on Digital Ocean.

Installing Anaconda and building the website using sphinx and ablog:#

Once you create the droplet above, ssh into it as root, create a separate user if you want and install anaconda.
Once you install the conda environment, install the following python libraries via pip:
```
pip install sphinx ablog pydata_sphinx_theme sphinx_panels
```
Sphinx: A documentation engine written and used by the Python community.

ablog: A Sphinx extension that converts any documentation or personal website into a blog.

pydata_sphinx_theme: A simple, Bootstrap-based Sphinx theme made by the PyData community.

sphinx_panels: A Sphinx extension for creating panels in a grid layout or as drop-downs.
Create a source directory where all the configuration files will be placed.

Run the following command in the terminal and answer the follow-ups as shown in the example

$ sphinx-quickstart
Welcome to the Sphinx 5.0.2 quickstart utility.

Please enter values for the following settings (just press Enter to
accept a default value, if one is given in brackets).

Selected root path: .

You have two options for placing the build directory for Sphinx output.
Either, you use a directory "_build" within the root path, or you separate
"source" and "build" directories within the root path.
> Separate source and build directories (y/n) [n]:

The project name will occur in several places in the built documentation.
> Project name: Carnage
> Author name(s): 0xCarnage
> Project release []: 1.0

If the documents are to be written in a language other than English,
you can select a language here by its language code. Sphinx will then
translate text that it generates into that language.

For a list of supported codes, see
https://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/usage/configuration.html#confval-language.
> Project language [en]: en

Creating file /home/carnage/sphinxblog/conf.py.
Creating file /home/carnage/sphinxblog/index.rst.
Creating file /home/carnage/sphinxblog/Makefile.
Creating file /home/carnage/sphinxblog/make.bat.

The directory would look something like this:

_build/

_static/

_templates/

conf.py

make.bat

index.rst

Makefile

Open up conf.py and update the extensions & html_theme section as follows:

extensions = [
"ablog",
"sphinx.ext.intersphinx",
"sphinx_panels",
]

html_theme = "pydata_sphinx_theme"

Run ablog build to build the static pages. A directory called _websites will be created which will contain all the required htm, css and js files. The directory would look something like this at this stage:

_build/

_static/

_templates/

_website/

conf.py

make.bat

index.rst

Makefile

Setting up ngnix#

Install nginx using the following command:

sudo apt install nginx

The default directory for serving webpages is /var/www/html/. So we are going to move the entire _websites directory we created above to /var/www/html/.

Open up the nginx conf using the command sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default and add /var/www/html/_website/ to the root section of the file in server block. It should look something like this:

##
# You should look at the following URL's in order to grasp a solid understanding
# of Nginx configuration files in order to fully unleash the power of Nginx.
# https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/
# https://www.nginx.com/resources/wiki/start/topics/tutorials/config_pitfalls/
# https://wiki.debian.org/Nginx/DirectoryStructure
#
# In most cases, administrators will remove this file from sites-enabled/ and
# leave it as reference inside of sites-available where it will continue to be
# updated by the nginx packaging team.
#
# This file will automatically load configuration files provided by other
# applications, such as Drupal or Wordpress. These applications will be made
# available underneath a path with that package name, such as /drupal8.
#
# Please see /usr/share/doc/nginx-doc/examples/ for more detailed examples.
##

# Default server configuration
#
server {

    # SSL configuration
    #
    # listen 443 ssl default_server;
    # listen [::]:443 ssl default_server;
    #
    # Note: You should disable gzip for SSL traffic.
    # See: https://bugs.debian.org/773332
    #
    # Read up on ssl_ciphers to ensure a secure configuration.
    # See: https://bugs.debian.org/765782
    #
    # Self signed certs generated by the ssl-cert package
    # Don't use them in a production server!
    #
    # include snippets/snakeoil.conf;

    root /var/www/html/_website/;

    ...
}

At this point if you hit up the droplet’s IP address on the browser search bar. You’d see a page similar to this:

Now, we’ll be looking at how do we connect the domain bought on squarespace with the DO droplet’s IP address.

Connecting the Squarespace domain with DO droplet’s IP#

TODO