feat: December 2022 monthly update

content/blog/2022-12-31-december-2022-monthly-report.md

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+title = "December 2022 Monthly Report"
+date = "2022-12-31"
+description = "Towards MVP: deploy sites with forms with Forgejo and Gitea integration. Infrastructure-as-Code to deploy full system is WIP"
+draft=false
+
+[taxonomies]
+tags = ['monthly-report', 'JAMStack', 'self-hosting']
+
+[extra]
+author = 'realaravinth'
++++
+
+These past couple of months have been very busy interesting, LibrePages
+went from being a simple `git pull` webhook to fully-fledged platform
+that can deploy static sites from _any_ Git forge.
+
+This month, the following things were accomplished:
+
+## 1. Deploy site from dashboard
+
+It is now possible to deploy and manage websites with log inspection
+right from the dashboard. LibrePages will automatically assign a
+randomly generated, but friendly-sounding subdomain on a domain that the
+LibrePages system manages. It is also possible to inspect deployment
+events, like site updates, to troubleshoot errors in the deployment
+pipelines.
+
+Custom domain support isn't available at the moment but will be
+implemented soon.
+
+## 2. Forms support
+
+Forms are useful but creating a separate backed or relying on
+privacy-invasive tech like Google Forms is very inconvenient. Popular
+JAMStack platforms like Netlify provide forms support, so we thought
+implementing forms support will be useful.
+
+LibrePages Forms is a [separate
+service](https://git.batsense.net/LibrePages/forms) that can be
+integrated into the system. It accepts form submissions in both JSON and
+`application/x-www-form-urlencode`. Adding it to your
+LibrePages-deployed website is very simple, please see
+[here](https://docs.librepages.org/forms/add/) for instructions.
+
+## 3. Forgejo and Gitea integration
+
+LibrePages exposes an endpoint which users can call to update their
+deployments. This allows us to support all types of Git-based forges. In
+addition to the endpoint, we now expose a webhook that is compatible
+with Forgejo and Gitea. This way, the deployment will automatically be
+updated when a push event is received at the deployed branch, without the
+user (or their CI) requiring to call the endpoint.
+
+## 4. Sysadmin: logging and debugging
+
+LibrePages is complicated system made of multiple services. It also uses
+several third-party applications, like Nginx, to serve websites.
+Debugging an issue that affecting multiple services used be complicated
+but LibrePages now includes instrumentation to monitor with
+[Prometheus](https://prometheus.io) and provides distributed tracing via
+OpenTelemetry-based based utilities like [Jagger](https://www.jaegertracing.io/).
+
+## 5. Nginx, bind and Let's Encrypt
+
+LibrePages is modular, it can be integrated into any existing system,
+like [Gna!](https://gna.org) and [Enough
+Community](https://enough.community/) to provide static site hosting. We
+do this using
+[Conductor](https://git.batsense.net/LibrePages/conductor), which allows
+LibrePages to integrate with multiple DNS servers/providers, reverse
+proxies and other third-party applications that LibrePages would depend
+on.
+
+Currently, we are working on supporting a system based on Nginx, Bind9 and Let's Encrypt.
+
+## 6. Infrastructure-as-Code
+
+[Infrastructure as code to deploy the full
+system](https://git.batsense.net/LibrePages/Infrastructure-as-Code) is
+being worked on. So far, we've implemented deploying a Debian server
+using Terraform and libvirt. Installing and and configuring LibrePages
+is being worked on.
+
+## Thanks
+
+I would like to thank the [Easter-eggs](https://www.easter-eggs.com/)
+for funding team for funding [my work on
+LibrePages](https://forum.gna.org/t/5-000-contract-aravinth-manivannan-easter-eggs/58) <3