Connecting the LAMP app with Git

privsec

How do we set up GIT from github to auto pull updates from the main branch every time there is an update made or merge performed?

james

Hello @privsec

This could be done in multiple ways.

You get set a simple cron for your lamp app that just pulls every 5 minutes.

But this is not reactive to updates to your master branch. It just pulls every 5 minutes.

A more complex approach would be to set up a GitHub action that pushes the changes to the LAMP app with the cloudron cli.

james

Hello @privsec
I talked with @staff about it, and we asked @BrutalBirdie to create a GitHub Action for this since he knows a lot about GitLab CI/CD and also GitHub actions.

BrutalBirdie

HeyO

Now there is this GitHub Repository: https://github.com/cloudron-io/cloudron-push-to-app which publishes this action to the GitHub Marketplace https://github.com/marketplace/actions/cloudron-push-to-app

The README should explain how to use it.
Still, this can be confusing for people who never used GitHub actions.

I have created a demo repo https://github.com/BrutalBirdie/github-action-test-repo and added the workflow according to my README.
Added an Environment:

and the secrets:

Now if I update the README.md, add a simple index.html and index.css it will be deployed to https://default-lamp.cloudron.dev/ when accessing https://default-lamp.cloudron.dev you should see some neon 404 page and you can access the README.md https://default-lamp.cloudron.dev/README.md

And in the action view you can see the executed action and logs https://github.com/BrutalBirdie/github-action-test-repo/actions/runs/19704245518/job/56447718391

joseph

Oh nice, this is incredible. Can you also make a guide @BrutalBirdie ? A PR to https://docs.cloudron.io/guides/ would be awesome .

Not a PHP dev but when/where does one run "composer install" in the workflow ? Maybe in the action itself?

joseph

Doc page is at https://docs.cloudron.io/guides/github-action/

privsec

This is awesome! Now, how can I confirm if this worked?

privsec

Also, looks like in the YAML file the token and url is wapped

privsec

I keep getting this error message

I have ensured that the URL, Token, and App ID are correct.

Here is my YAML file

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  deploy-to-cloudron-app:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: my.domain.com
    steps:
      - name: Checkout Repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v6
      - name: Setup PHP
        uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v2
        with:
          php-version: '8.3'
          extensions: pdo_mysql, pdo, json, mbstring, curl
          coverage: none
      - name: Verify PHP Extensions
        run: |
          echo "PHP Version:"
          php -v
          echo -e "\nInstalled Extensions:"
          php -m | grep -E "(pdo_mysql|pdo|json|mbstring|curl)" || echo "Some extensions not found"
          echo -e "\nAll PHP Extensions:"
          php -m
      - name: Install composer dependencies
        run: |
          composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist --optimize-autoloader
      - name: Verify Cloudron Connection
        run: |
          if [ -z "${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_URL }}" ]; then
            echo "Error: CLOUDRON_URL secret is not set"
            exit 1
          fi
          echo "Cloudron URL configured: ${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_URL }}"
          echo "App ID: ${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_APP_ID }}"
      - name: Cloudron Push to App
        uses: cloudron-io/cloudron-push-to-app@latest
        with:
          CLOUDRON_URL: "${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_URL }}"
          CLOUDRON_TOKEN: "${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_TOKEN }}"
          CLOUDRON_APP_ID: "${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_APP_ID }}"
          CLOUDRON_PUSH_DESTINATION: "/app/data" (I want to push to this directory, rather then to public)
          CLOUDRON_CREATE_APP_BACKUP: "false"

joseph

Just guessing but @brutalbirdie can confirm. Does CLOUDRON_URL need to have https:// ?

BrutalBirdie

Ah, yes, CLOUDRON_URL is a misleading variable name, changing it to CLOUDRON_FQDN.
So the documented example of my.demo.cloudron.io is correct.
I have updated the GitHub Action repo, Example Repo and Cloudron documentation (will be deployed soon) accordingly.

I have added the demo branch to demo GitHub project https://github.com/cloudron-io/github-action-test-repo and the file .github/workflows/deploy-to-my-demo-cloudron-io.yaml which is using a clear text token, url, and appid for better understanding and only deploys on the demo branch.
You can use this file as a copy-and-paste example for testing.
But be aware, the APP_ID and TOKEN might be outdated anytime if the my.demo.cloudron.io server is reset or someone deletes the app.

BrutalBirdie

@privsec said in Connecting the LAMP app with Git:

(I want to push to this directory, rather then to public)

Note on that.
The action runs:

cloudron push --app ${CLOUDRON_APP_ID} ${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/. ${CLOUDRON_PUSH_DESTINATION}

Be aware of the /. after ${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}.
From the cloudron cli:

cloudron push --help
Usage: cloudron push [options] <local> <remote>

push a single local file or directory to a remote directory

Options:
  --app <id/location>  App id or location
  -h, --help           display help for command

  Examples:

    $ cloudron push --app myapp file.txt /app/data/file.txt # pushes file.txt
    $ cloudron push --app myapp file.txt /app/data/         # pushes file.txt. trailing slash is important
    $ cloudron push --app myapp dir /app/data               # pushes dir/* as /app/data/dir/*
    $ cloudron push --app myapp dir/. /app/data             # pushes dir/* as /app/data/*
    $ cloudron push --app myapp dir/subdir /app/data        # pushes dir/subdir/* as /app/data/subdir/*
    $ cloudron push --app myapp . /app/data                 # pushes .* as /app/data/*

Meaning, if you set CLOUDRON_PUSH_DESTINATION: "/app/data", yes, everything in the GitHub repository will be pushed to /app/data, but be aware, this does not delete existing files.
So, if you have the file /app/data/historic.txt and this is not in your GitHub repo, after the action has run, this file will still exist.

This could be seen as inconvenient, but, let's take the following scenario:
You have the folder /app/data/static/images which holds all your static image assets and in the GitHub repo you have static/images/.gitkeep an empty folder that is still tracked by git but empty.
If I changed the GitHub Action to overwrite the CLOUDRON_PUSH_DESTINATION instead of copying into it, all the /app/data/static/images files would be deleted.

Just wanted to make you aware of that

privsec

For clarification purposes, by reset, do you mean restarting the app?

james

Hello @privsec

I assume you are asking about this sentence:

@BrutalBirdie said in Connecting the LAMP app with Git:

But be aware, the APP_ID and TOKEN might be outdated anytime if the my.demo.cloudron.io server is reset or someone deletes the app.

With resetting the my.demo.cloudron.io the following is referenced.
The server my.demo.cloudron.io is re-deployed regularly to keep it nice and clean.
This deletes all apps, users and so on. Like you would set up the server from 0 again.
Since @brutalbirdie used my.demo.cloudron.io for demonstration, the used app id and token inside .github/workflows/deploy-to-my-demo-cloudron-io.yaml#L20-L21 can be invalidated any given time.

So the warning given by @brutalbirdie simplified: Don't expect the demo for my.demo.cloudron.io inside .github/workflows/deploy-to-my-demo-cloudron-io.yaml#L20-L21 to work all the time, since the my.demo.cloudron.io instance is build anew regularly.

I hope this helps and if I interpreted this wrong, please correct me @brutalbirdie

privsec

So, im feeling pretty dumb.

I have updated the .yaml file and I have ensured the right values are in my secrets environment. I even ran this through chatgpt to make sure nothing is missing or wrong. And the action is still failing for me.

The issue is when it actually tries to push to my cloudron app

Here is my current yaml

name: Cloudron Diagnostic Deploy

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  deploy-to-cloudron-app:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: environment

    steps:
      - name: Checkout Repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Diagnostic – Print environment context
        run: |
          echo "=== GITHUB CONTEXT ==="
          echo "Branch: $GITHUB_REF"
          echo "Workflow: $GITHUB_WORKFLOW"
          echo "Runner: $RUNNER_NAME"
          echo "Workspace: $GITHUB_WORKSPACE"
          echo "======================"

      - name: Diagnostic – Check secret presence
        shell: bash
        run: |
          declare -A secrets
          secrets["CLOUDRON_FQDN"]="${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_FQDN }}"
          secrets["CLOUDRON_TOKEN"]="${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_TOKEN }}"
          secrets["CLOUDRON_APP_ID"]="${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_APP_ID }}"

          echo "Checking secrets..."
          for key in "${!secrets[@]}"; do
            if [ -z "${secrets[$key]}" ]; then
              echo "❌ $key is EMPTY"
            else
              echo "✅ $key is set"
            fi
          done

      - name: Cloudron Push to App
        uses: cloudron-io/cloudron-push-to-app@latest
        
        with:
          CLOUDRON_FQDN: "${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_FQDN }}"
          CLOUDRON_TOKEN: "${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_TOKEN }}"
          CLOUDRON_APP_ID: "${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_APP_ID }}"
          CLOUDRON_PUSH_DESTINATION: "/app/data"
          CLOUDRON_CREATE_APP_BACKUP: "false"

I have the three keys set in my environment using my main cloudron domain name, my API key, and the app id string found in the app under info

privsec

Ok, so I just found out the issue, its the /app/data/public push

It has to be /app/data/public, otherwise it will fail.

This also just screwed my app up as I was testing randomly and now i have nested project files.

privsec

I need this changed to be /add/data as /app/data/public, can you update that?

james

Hello @privsec

@privsec said in Connecting the LAMP app with Git:

I need this changed to be /add/data as /app/data/public, can you update that?

Can you please elaborate?

The Actions does:

cloudron push --app ${CLOUDRON_APP_ID} ${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}/. ${CLOUDRON_PUSH_DESTINATION}

A manual test of this.
I created the following folder and file structure as the ${GITHUB_WORKSPACE}:

push-test
├── base-file-1
└── sub-folder-1
    └── sub-file-1

Now, if I run:

cloudron push --app "default-lamp" push-test/. /app/data

The expected outcome is:

the file base-file-1 in /app/data/base-file
the folder sub-folder-1 in /app/data/sub-folder-1
the file sub-file-1 in /app/data/sub-folder-1/sub-file-1

and indeed, that is the case:

cloudron exec --app default-lamp -- ls -lah /app/data/
total 44K
drwxr-xr-x 5 cloudron cloudron 4.0K Nov 29 01:46 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root     root     4.0K Nov 25 10:28 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data   44 Nov 25 10:28 .phpmyadminauth
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data  100 Nov 25 10:28 PHP_VERSION
drwxr-xr-x 2 www-data www-data 4.0K Nov 25 10:28 apache
-rw-r--r-- 1 cloudron cloudron    0 Nov 29 01:43 base-file-1
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data 2.3K Nov 25 10:28 credentials.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data  157 Nov 25 10:28 php.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data  343 Nov 25 10:28 phpmyadmin_login.txt
drwxr-xr-x 5     1001     1001 4.0K Nov 28 10:24 public
-rw-r--r-- 1 www-data www-data   50 Nov 25 10:28 run.sh
drwxr-xr-x 2 cloudron cloudron 4.0K Nov 29 01:45 sub-folder-1

I think you need to articulate and explain what you expect it to do.

privsec

So my git repo has
/public
/apache
/logs

when I ran the yaml with the push to being /app/data, the action would fail.

I updated the yaml to push to /app/data/public

I then had a project file like this
/public/public
/public/apache
/public/logs
/public
/apache
/logs

privsec

oK, Im not sure if I just fat fingered something or if this was fixed, but the yaml is now set up to be working.

Here is my .yaml file

name: Sync Repo with Cloudron LAMP app
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  deploy-to-cloudron-app:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    environment: [WHATEVER YOUR ENVIRONMENT NAME WAS IN SETTINGS OF REPO]

    steps:
      - name: Checkout Repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Diagnostic – Print environment context
        run: |
          echo "=== GITHUB CONTEXT ==="
          echo "Branch: $GITHUB_REF"
          echo "Workflow: $GITHUB_WORKFLOW"
          echo "Runner: $RUNNER_NAME"
          echo "Workspace: $GITHUB_WORKSPACE"
          echo "======================"

      - name: Diagnostic – Check secret presence
        shell: bash
        run: |
          declare -A secrets
          secrets["CLOUDRON_FQDN"]="${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_FQDN }}"
          secrets["CLOUDRON_TOKEN"]="${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_TOKEN }}"
          secrets["CLOUDRON_APP_ID"]="${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_APP_ID }}"

          echo "Checking secrets..."
          for key in "${!secrets[@]}"; do
            if [ -z "${secrets[$key]}" ]; then
              echo "❌ $key is EMPTY"
            else
              echo "✅ $key is set"
            fi
          done

      - name: Cloudron Push to App
        uses: cloudron-io/cloudron-push-to-app@latest
        
        with:
          CLOUDRON_FQDN: "${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_FQDN }}"
          CLOUDRON_TOKEN: "${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_TOKEN }}"
          CLOUDRON_APP_ID: "${{ secrets.CLOUDRON_APP_ID }}"
          CLOUDRON_PUSH_DESTINATION: "/app/data"
          CLOUDRON_CREATE_APP_BACKUP: "false"

Cloudron makes it easy to run web apps like WordPress, Nextcloud, GitLab on your server. Find out more or install now.

Cloudron Forum

Connecting the LAMP app with Git