Hobby Stacks - React / ASP.NET Core / PostgreSQL

Why create Hobby Stacks?

Our goal is to define a technology stack for hobby projects with minimal costs. We also want to offer real-world examples that go beyond canned tutorials showcasing isolated technologies or features.

We decided to gear this tech stack towards commercial projects which meant opting for a private container registry and code repository.

This example application uses React, .NET Core (ASP.NET Core) and PostgreSQL.

Features	Tools	Alternatives	Costs
Hosting	DigitalOcean	Vultur	5$
Container Registry (Private)	Azure Container Registry	GitLab Container Registry*	5$ / Free
Repositories (Private)	Azure DevOps	GitLab, GitHub	Free
CI/CD Pipelines	Azure Pipelines	GitLab, CircleCI, Travis CI	Free
Web Server (Reverse Proxy)	Nginx		Free
Web Performance & Security	Cloudflare		Free
SSL Certificates	Let's Encrypt + Certbot		Free
Multi-Container Tool	Docker Compose		Free
IDE	Visual Studio Community	Visual Studio Code	Free
Front-end + UI	ASP.NET Core - MVC + React		Free
APIs	ASP.NET Core - Web API		Free
Database	PostgreSQL		Free

* GitLab Container Registry is only available for projects hosted on GitLab.

Getting Started

1. DigitalOcean
   • Prerequisites
   • Provision Droplet on DigitalOcean
2. Azure DevOps
   • Prerequisites
   • Fork Project in Azure DevOps
   • Provision Azure Container Registry
   • Update Deployment Files
   • Configure Service Connections
   • Create Azure Pipelines
   • Configure Variables in Azure Pipelines
3. Deployment
   • Create Build from Azure DevOps

DigitalOcean

Prerequisites (DigitalOcean)

In order to provision Droplets on DigitalOcean you will need:

• DigitalOcean Account:
  • If you don't have one, create your free DigitalOcean account.
• Domain Name: A domain name from any registrar that you can point to your Droplet. You can refer to this tutorial on DigitalOcean about how to point custom domains from common domain registrars to your Droplet.

Provision Droplet on DigitalOcean

More details.

Azure DevOps

Prerequisites (Azure DevOps)

In order to use all of the tools in this stack you will need:

• Azure DevOps Services Organization:
  • If you don't have one, create your free Azure DevOps Services account.
• Azure Account and Subscription: You will need an active Azure account and subscription to provision the private Azure Container Registry.
  • If you don't have one, create your free Azure account;
  • If you have an active Visual Studio subscription, you are entitled to free Azure credit every month. You can refer to this link to read more about the offer and how to start using your monthly Azure credit.

Fork Project in Azure DevOps

More details.

Provision Azure Container Registry

For convenience, the steps to provision the Azure Container Registry have been scripted in PowerShell. The provisionContainerRegistry.ps1 script can be found under /src/infrastructure in the Azure DevOps repository.

In order to run the PowerShell script, you will need to install the Azure CLI. You can refer to Microsoft's quickstart guide to learn more about the commands used in the script.

.\provisionContainerRegistry.ps1 -resourceGroupName "hobbystacks-rg" -resourceGroupLocation "EastUS" -containerRegistryName "hobbystacksRegistry" -containerRegistrySku "Basic"

Update Deployment Files

1. Docker Compose
   • Azure Container Registry
2. Nginx
   • server_name
   • ssl_certificate
   • ssl_Certificate_key

More details.

Configure Service Connections

1. Docker Registry
   • Azure Container Registry
2. SSH
   • DigitalOcean

More details.

Create Azure Pipelines

1. Build
   • YAML
2. Release
   • Enable CD.
   • Add Copy files over SSH step.
   • Add SSH step.

More details.

Configure variables in Azure Pipelines

1. Secret Variables
   • Azure Container Registry - Username
   • Azure Container Registry - Password
2. Variables
   • Certbot - Domains
   • Certbot - Main Domain
   • Certbot - Email
   • Certbot - Data Path

More details.

Setup Project in Azure DevOps (Azure DevOps Demo Template)

More details.

Deployment

Create Build from Azure DevOps

More details.

View Results in Browser

More details.

Authors

• Philippe Turcotte - Initial work

See also the list of contributors who participated in this project.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.