Website-2026/README.md

Marcus Allison — Portfolio (Static site)

Quick deploy instructions for an nginx host (Debian/Ubuntu):

1. Copy files to the web root on the server:

   sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html sudo cp -r . /var/www/html/ sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html

2. Configure nginx with your own server block and enable it:

   sudo cp /path/to/your/site.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/website-but-better sudo ln -sf /etc/nginx/sites-available/website-but-better /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

3. Test nginx config and reload:

   sudo nginx -t sudo systemctl reload nginx

4. (Optional) Provision HTTPS with Certbot (Let's Encrypt):

   sudo apt update && sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.example.com -d www.yourdomain.example.com

5. Docker alternative (serve static site with nginx container):

   docker run --rm -p 80:80 -v "$(pwd):/usr/share/nginx/html:ro" nginx:stable

Customize:

• Replace yourdomain.example.com with your real domain.
• Update contact email in index.html.
• The homepage uses the server.jpg as a small lab snapshot; formal photography should live in images/.

Photography gallery:

• To regenerate images/manifest.json after adding or removing photos, run:

py -3 scripts/generate_manifest.py

• Alternatively, enable Nginx directory listing for /images/ so the site can probe the directory. Example server block fragment for /images/ only:

location /images/ {
   alias /var/www/html/images/;
   autoindex on;
}

Blog support:

• Add plain text files to the blog/ directory. Supported extensions are .txt and .text.
• Each file should start with a date/time line, then a title line, then the body.
• To attach a file, place it in blog/files/ and reference it in the post with [[file: filename.ext]] or [[attachment: filename.ext]].
• Run py -3 scripts/generate_blog_manifest.py from the project root to refresh blog/manifest.json after adding or removing posts.

Git sync:

• Run the sync script from anywhere by invoking the repo script path, for example ./scripts/sync_site.sh from the repo root or /path/to/website-but-better/scripts/sync_site.sh from another directory.
• The script uses its own location to find the repo root, so it does not need to be started from the web root.
• The default remote is https://git.organic-server.org/organic-CPU/website-but-better.git and the default branch is main.
• By default it deploys to /var/www/html.
• Override with GIT_REPO_URL, GIT_BRANCH, or DEPLOY_DIR if needed.

Automatic sync every 12 hours:

• Copy scripts/sync_site.service and scripts/sync_site.timer to /etc/systemd/system/.
• Update sync_site.service to point at the actual repository path on your server.
• Then enable and start the timer:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now sync_site.timer

This makes the website sync twice per day and deploy the latest files to the nginx root.

Editing the Git link:

• Update the header Git link in index.html at the element with id git-link to your repository URL.

If you want, I can also:

• Add a Docker Compose service for a static site + automatic certs.
• Produce a small resume/JSON-LD metadata file for SEO.