Schedule Tasks Using GitHub Actions

Himanshu Garg — Thu, 29 Oct 2020 18:34:00 +0000

GitHub Actions can do a lot of things and can be triggered by different methods. Typically, you want a workflow to be executed on a push or a pull-request or an issue.

So, Where does scheduling a task fit in?

For Tracking good health of your software, you can perform scheduled testing.
Publishing the Nightly Build of your library, framework or software.

Scheduling doesn't require a change to be made into code. It will keep running on the unchanged or changed code on scheduled time. Scheduling a GitHub Workflow is done using cron. For those who don't know what cron is,

The software utility cron also known as a cron job is a time-based job scheduler in Unix-like computer operating systems.

Here is an example of scheduling a task.

# Give the workflow a name. 
name: Nightly Build

# Trigger Workflow every midnight UTC

on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 0 * * *'  
  workflow_dispatch: 
#workflow_dispatch helps run workflow anytime with a single click. 

# A workflow run is made up of one or more jobs that can run sequentially or in parallel
jobs:
  build:
    name: Scheduling
    # make sure to run this action in Linux env (say ubuntu)
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
    steps:
    # Write all the steps you want to schedule

For creating nightly build use create-release action with the above workflow. Make sure to use a dynamic naming format while creating tags & to set prerelease: true. Use the YYYYMMDD date format in the tag

Defining a cron schedule is a tougher task than one might expect. crontab.guru is a website which converts cron schedule into human-readable format. eg. 0 0 * * * means midnight according to UTC.

Continuous Deployment, The Easy Way

Himanshu Garg — Sun, 23 Aug 2020 08:01:12 +0000

Github Actions let you automate all your boring stuff. In this blog, You'll see How you can automate deployment on any Personal Server, Virtual Private Server(VPS) or Virtual Machine(VM). Every Major Cloud Service Provider provide auto-deployment which is only restricted to web hosting service.

Most of you want to always want to automate deployment on your Personal Server and VPS/VM but afraid of the hectic process. Here is how you can easily do it. It is not restricted to JavaScript, Python, Ruby. You can automate the deployment of anything from ML Model to Game's new version.

Let's Start 🚀

We will use SSH for Automation. Make sure you have Port 22 open your Server.
Let's create new SSH Key for Github Actions in server and
copy it.

# Save it with a recognizable name eg. github_actions 
# Do give it a strong passphrase
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@example.com"

# Add Key to Authorize Keys. So, We can connect to it. 
cat ~/.ssh/github_actions.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

# Copy content of Public Key. 
clip < ~/.ssh/github_actions

Navigate to Secrets Option in your Github Repository Settings.
Click on 'New Secret' to add new Secrets.
- KEY - the content of ssh private key. eg. raw content of ~/.ssh/github_actons. Copied in the Previous Step.
- HOST - ssh host
- PORT - ssh port, default is 22
- USERNAME - ssh username
- PASSWORD - ssh password
- PASSPHRASE - the passphrase is usually to encrypt the private key.
Go to the 'Actions' Tab in your repository and click on 'set up a workflow yourself'.
Use & Personalize below given .yml file.

# Give the workflow a name. 
name: Continuous Deployment

# Trigger Workflow on master/production branch. 

on:
  push:
    branches: [ master ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ master ]

# A workflow run is made up of one or more jobs that can run sequentially or in parallel
jobs:
  # This workflow contains a single job called "deploy"
  deploy:
    name: Deploy
    # make sure to run this action in Linux env (say ubuntu)
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
    steps:
    - name: executing remote ssh commands using password
      uses: appleboy/ssh-action@master
      # all environment variables needed to connect with Server is placed in with. 
      with:
        host: ${{ secrets.HOST }}
        key: ${{ secrets.KEY }}
        username: ${{ secrets.USERNAME }}
        password: ${{ secrets.PASSWORD }}
        port: ${{ secrets.PORT }}
        passphrase: ${{ secrets.PASSPHRASE }}
        # Here will go script required for auto-deployment.
        # eg. For Django server using Gunicorn. 
        # Website Server is stored in thewebsite folder
        script: |
        echo "Changing Directory to thewebsite"
        cd thewebsite/
        echo "Pulling From Github"
        git pull -q origin master
        echo "Git Pull Complete"
        echo "Restarting Service"
        sudo systemctl daemon-reload
        sudo systemctl restart gunicorn

This above will automatically deploy any change in Django. You can change the script according to the language and framework of your choice.

You can also use a locally saved script by giving the path of the script instead of writing here. eg.

script: /home/username/deploy.sh

Conclusion 📓

You can automate anything with this workflow with a change in the master/production branch as a trigger.

This workflow is designed using appleboy/ssh-action. You can read more about arguments and documentation here.

Forem: Himanshu Garg

Schedule Tasks Using GitHub Actions

Continuous Deployment, The Easy Way

Let's Start 🚀

Conclusion 📓