Setting Up a Local Development Environment for Jekyll with Docker

Why?

own blog is fun. Full-blown wordpress to much. Writing a lighnight fast website just with markdown is aswesome. Hosting it on github pages makes it super easy…

There are multiple builders. My first attemps is jekyll.

I don’t want to install local dependencies like ruby. I want to keep my pc clean. I want to have a constitent working environment no matter on which pc i am sitting. Therefore I want to have a local docker base development environment. Also I want to keep my page under version control with git. Updating my website should be like pushing a markdown file to github.

My Battleplan

Image:

local folder with jekyll.
Pfeil 1: local development with docker. accessiable with port :4000.
Pfeil 2: push to github, github workflows, accessiable with github pages

So let’s get my hands dirty…

Build the setup

1. Install docker

… simple script

2. Create Dockerfile

This is the Dockerfile, to create our own jekyll container. It provides everything needed and expects, that jekyll is available in /src/jekyll.

FROM debian:bookworm-slim

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y \
    ruby \
    ruby-bundler \
    ruby-dev \
    nano \
    curl \
    build-essential \
    zlib1g-dev \
  && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

RUN echo '# Install Ruby Gems to ~/gems' >> /root/.bashrc && \
    echo 'export GEM_HOME="$HOME/gems"' >> /root/.bashrc && \
    echo 'export PATH="$HOME/gems/bin:$PATH"' >> /root/.bashrc

ENV GEM_HOME=/root/gems
ENV PATH=/root/gems/bin:$PATH

WORKDIR /srv/jekyll

RUN ruby --version && bundle --version && gem install bundler jekyll

CMD ["irb"]

3. Create docker-compose.yml and launch the container

Now it is time to create the local environment…

---
services:
  jekyll:
    build: .
    container_name: jekyll_dev
    volumes:
      - .:/srv/jekyll
      - ./vendor/bundle/:/usr/local/bundle
      - ./gems/:/root/gems
    ports:
      - "4000:4000"
    command: sh -c "bundle && jekyll serve --force_polling --drafts --host 0.0.0.0"

Use the setup

… how to initialize … how to build…

Setting Up a Local Development Environment for Jekyll with Docker.