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Updating the Website Repository on a VPS

Podman Deployment

Once your site is running on a VPS, updates should be boring.

This is the workflow I use to update the repository and redeploy the current website without surprises.

1) Go to the project and inspect state

cd /opt/website
git status
git branch --show-current
git remote -v

You want a clean working tree before pulling.

If there are local changes:

git stash push -m "vps-local-before-update"

2) Pull the latest code

cd /opt/website
git fetch --all --prune
git pull --ff-only origin main

--ff-only prevents accidental merge commits on the server.

3) Rebuild and restart containers

cd /opt/website
podman-compose -f compose.yml down
podman-compose -f compose.yml up --build -d

or

podman-compose -f compose.yml up --build -d --force-recreate

Check for conflicts:

podman ps -a --filter name=www.adrian-altner.de
podman rm -f www.adrian-altner.de

This rebuilds the image and replaces the running container with the new version.

If you hit:

the container name "website" is already in use

use one of these recovery paths:

# Option A: clean compose state
podman-compose -f compose.yml down
podman-compose -f compose.yml up --build -d
# Option B: remove conflicting container explicitly
podman rm -f website
podman-compose -f compose.yml up --build -d

This is common when container_name: website is fixed in compose.yml and state gets out of sync.

4) Verify application health

podman ps
podman logs --tail=100 website
curl -I http://127.0.0.1:4321
curl -I https://adrian-altner.de

If Caddy is active, the public HTTPS check is the final signal.

5) Fast rollback if something breaks

cd /opt/website
git log --oneline -n 5
git checkout <previous-commit>
podman-compose -f compose.yml up --build -d

After recovery, create a proper fix in the repository and deploy again from main.

6) Optional one-command deploy script

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

cd /opt/website
git fetch --all --prune
git pull --ff-only origin main

if ! podman-compose -f compose.yml up --build -d; then
  podman rm -f website || true
  podman-compose -f compose.yml up --build -d
fi

curl -fsS -I http://127.0.0.1:4321 >/dev/null
echo "Deploy successful"

Save it as deploy.sh, make it executable, and run:

chmod +x deploy.sh
./deploy.sh

A predictable update flow is more important than a complex one.

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