Deploy Your First App

Deploy a simple web application to Gordon in under 10 minutes.

What You'll Learn

Building a container image
Pushing to Gordon's registry
Configuring routes
Deploying your app

Prerequisites

Gordon running on your VPS
Docker installed locally
Domain configured (e.g., app.mydomain.com)

Steps

1. Create a Simple App

Create a new directory with a simple Node.js app:

mkdir my-first-app
cd my-first-app

Create server.js:

const http = require('http');

const port = process.env.PORT || 3000;

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/html' });
  res.end(`
    <html>
      <body>
        <h1>Hello from Gordon!</h1>
        <p>Deployed at: ${new Date().toISOString()}</p>
      </body>
    </html>
  `);
});

server.listen(port, '0.0.0.0', () => {
  console.log(`Server running on port ${port}`);
});

Create Dockerfile:

FROM node:18-alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY server.js .
ENV PORT=3000
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["node", "server.js"]

2. Build the Image

docker build -t my-first-app .

3. Tag for Gordon Registry

Replace registry.mydomain.com with your Gordon registry domain:

docker tag my-first-app registry.mydomain.com/my-first-app:latest

4. Configure the Route

On your Gordon server, edit ~/.config/gordon/gordon.toml:

[routes]
"app.mydomain.com" = "my-first-app:latest"

Reload Gordon:

gordon reload

5. Push to Deploy

docker login registry.mydomain.com

Push the image:

docker push registry.mydomain.com/my-first-app:latest

6. Verify Deployment

Visit https://app.mydomain.com in your browser.

You should see "Hello from Gordon!" with the deployment timestamp.

Common Issues

"unauthorized" on push

Enable registry authentication or check credentials:

gordon auth token generate --subject deploy --expiry 0
docker login -u deploy -p <token> registry.mydomain.com

App not accessible

Check the container is running:
```
docker ps | grep my-first-app
```
Check Gordon logs:
```
gordon logs -f
```
Ensure DNS points to your server

Wrong port

If your app uses a different port, expose it in Dockerfile:

ENV PORT=8080
EXPOSE 8080

Updating Your App

Make changes, then rebuild and push:

# Edit server.js
docker build -t my-first-app .
docker tag my-first-app registry.mydomain.com/my-first-app:latest
docker push registry.mydomain.com/my-first-app:latest

Gordon automatically deploys the update with zero downtime.