my recent reads..

cracking the static site SSL challenge with netlify


For the last year or so I’ve been running this blog on Github with Jekyll and Github Pages. That’s nice and easy, but the lack of SSL support for custom domains has remained stubbornly over-the-horizon.

I’m glad I tweeted my wish! With a nudge from @spencerbgibb I got to try out netlify.

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… and it is the real deal! I’ve just ported half a dozen sites from Github Pages, now all with automatically-provisioned SSL from LetsEncrypt

I’m really impressed with the static-site publishing system they’ve put together. It works just like Github Pages .. but better. Seriously, all I had to do was:

  • Sign-in/sign-up
  • Choose to add a site from one of my repos (automated with GitHub OAuth)
  • Build requirements for most of these sites were auto-detected (I had a to tweak a couple where the site target was ambiguous)
  • …and the site is deployed
  • Next, add a custom domain name
  • Switch the CNAME records

Then the only time consuming bit … waiting for DNS propagation!

Once DNS is all good, enabling SSL is just three clicks: verify DNS .. do it! .. confirm!