Simple github action to run docker-compose on remote host.

This action packs contents of the action workspace into archive. Logs into remote host via ssh. Unpacks the workspace there and runs docker-compose up -d command.

Comparing to other actions with similar behavior this one does not use any unknown docker-images. It is entirely built from Dockerfile on top of alpine:3.8.

• ssh_private_key - Private SSH key used for logging into remote system. Please, keep your key securely in github secrets.
• ssh_host - Remote host name.
• ssh_port - Remote port for SSH connection. Default is 22.
• ssh_user - Remote user which should have access to docker.
• docker_compose_prefix - Project name passed to compose. Each docker container will have this prefix in name.
• docker_compose_filename - Path to the docker-compose file in the repository.
• use_stack - Use docker stack instead of docker-compose.
• docker_compose_down - Execute docker-compose-down.

Let's say we have a repo with single docker-compose file in it and remote ubuntu based server with docker and docker-compose installed.

1. Generate key pair, do not use a password here.

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 deploy_key

2. Create a user which will deploy containers for you on the remote server, do not set password for this user:

ssh example.com
$ sudo useradd -m -b /var/lib -G docker docker-deploy

3. Allow to log into that user with the key you generated on the step one.

scp deploy_key.pub example.com:~
ssh example.com
$ sudo mkdir /var/lib/docker-deploy/.ssh
$ sudo chown docker-deploy:docker-deploy /var/lib/docker-deploy/.ssh
$ sudo install -o docker-deploy -g docker-deploy -m 0600 deploy_key.pub /var/lib/docker-deploy/.ssh/authorized_keys
$ sudo chmod 0500 /var/lib/docker-deploy/.ssh
$ rm deploy_key.pub

4. Test that key works.

ssh -i deploy_key [email protected]

5. Add private key and user name into secrets for the repository. Let's say that names of the secrets are EXAMPLE_COM_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY and EXAMPLE_COM_SSH_USER.

6. Remove your local copy of the ssh key:

rm deploy_key

7. Setup a github-actions workflow (e.g. .github/workflows/main.yml):

name: Deploy

on:
  push:
    branches: [ master ]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - uses: alex-ac/github-action-ssh-docker-compose@master
      name: Docker-Compose Remote Deployment
      with:
        ssh_host: example.com
        ssh_private_key: ${{ secrets.EXAMPLE_COM_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
        ssh_user: ${{ secrets.EXAMPLE_COM_SSH_USER }}
        docker_compose_prefix: example_com

8. You're all set!

In case you want to use some advanced features like secrets. You'll need to setup a docker swarm cluster and use docker stack command instead of the plain docker-compose. To do that just set use_stack input to "true":

name: Deploy
on:
  push:
    branches: [ master ]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - actions/chockout@v2

    - uses: alex-ac/github-action-ssh-docker-compose@master
      name: Docker-Stack Remote Deployment
      with:
        ssh_host: example.com
        ssh_private_key: ${{ secrets.EXAMPLE_COM_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
        ssh_user: ${{ secrets.EXAMPLE_COM_SSH_USER }}
        docker_compose_prefix: example.com
        use_stack: 'true'

If you need to run a docker-compose down to do a clean rollback. Only one down of the services will be executed To do that just set docker_compose_down input to "true":

name: Deploy
on:
  push:
    branches: [ master ]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - actions/chockout@v2

    - uses: alex-ac/github-action-ssh-docker-compose@master
      name: Docker-Stack Remote Deployment
      with:
        ssh_host: example.com
        ssh_private_key: ${{ secrets.EXAMPLE_COM_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY }}
        ssh_user: ${{ secrets.EXAMPLE_COM_SSH_USER }}
        docker_compose_prefix: example.com
        docker_compose_down: 'true'