Create secure personal website on google page with jekyll

Nowdays creating (static) website could be simple and cheap, yes, we can use google or aws with free credit for annualy. For this chapter we try to make with github and connect with custom domain.

Part 1 — choose a custom domain

skip if you want using just domain from github.io or you didn’t spend cost a penny

domain registration

You can buy with various domain provider like godaddy, wix, 101domain or many option outside there, for this example I use namecheap.

Some domain like .com need activation via email to check owner validity.

Part 2 — create repository

Now create repository with your-username.github.io inhttps://github.com/new

optional choose .gitignore with jeckyll when integrate using jeckyll

then create repository

On local terminal grab repository git clone https://github.com/username/username.github.io

Go to selected folder with cd username.github.io

Create index.html with echo “Hello World” > index.html

After that commit and push git add . and git commit -m "first blood" than git push -u origin/master

Go to https://username.github.io.

Part 3— link custom domain

On your repository choose setting tab.

Then scroll to below until found custom domain. Fill with your custom domain.

custom domain save

Follow your DNS provider’s instructions to create a CNAME record that points your subdomain to your default pages domain. For example, if you own the subdomain www.example.com, you can configure a CNAME record to point www.example.com to YOUR-GITHUB-USERNAME.github.io. DNS changes can take over a full day to update, and the wait varies among DNS and hosting providers.

cname github

In local terminal dig www.example.com +nostats +nocomments +nocmd

Part 4 — Github https redirection

If you configured your custom domain using an A record, your A record must point to one of the following IP addresses for HTTPS to work:

• 185.199.108.153
• 185.199.109.153
• 185.199.110.153
• 185.199.111.153

After updating any A record IP addresses, you must remove and re-add your custom domain to the repository you’re using to publish your Pages site to trigger the process of enabling HTTPS.

check with dig example.com +nostats +nocomments +nocmd

Than choose https on github repository setting

enforce HTTPS

notes: in this step https site is available, but not secure

Part 5 — Using cloudflare to inject https

Since on this writing date, github not support custom domain https, so we need redirect dns using cloud flare to force ssl.

Register first on https://www.cloudflare.com/

fill custom domain name

choose free option

update domain setting to using cloudflare dns

On your hosting change nameservers default dns into cloudflare dns.

lia.ns.cloudflare.com for dns1

west.ns.cloudflare.com for dns2

It cost several hours until days depends on domain provider, check status on overview tab.

Than go to crypto tab than set ssl to on, it will redirect any http request to https and use ssl from cloud flare.

crypto area

Also turn check on Automatic https rewrite to make assets to use https when eligible, rather than https

Your site now already using https

already force using ssl

Part 6 — Using jekyll to generate website

Choose theme from github page theme from https://jekyllthemes.io/

or just install jekyll using jekyll new blog

Build using command bundle exec jekyll build and check with bundle exec jekyll server.

check on localhost:4000

After done some improvement. copy _site into your repo github with command cp -r _site username.github.io

Push using git push than your site already published

my website with rss from medium

Happy deploy :)