This is a five step blog post about how to deploy quickly to a VPS using an awesome Go-powered PaaS (Platform as a Service). Deploy fast with Flynn – zoom zoom!

Part 0: Get a VPS (Virtual Private Server)

Before you can do anything with this tutorial, it is vital that you have a clean VPS that you will install Flynn onto. Without a VPS, there is nothing to be Flynn-ing (yes, I just turned Flynn into a verb) onto. My preference is to get a VPS via DigitalOcean (this isn’t an endorsement - I just like their cheap prices + good support). Once you have your VPS ready to go, ssh into the server, and proceed to the next step.

Part 1: Install Flynn onto your VPS

Welcome to part 1! In this part, we’ll be installing the Flynn PaaS onto your VPS. Make sure you are SSH’d into the server already, and set to go.

  1. Run the following command to install the Flynn CLI (command line interface). This lets Flynn + you chat about all of the cool websites you’ll be building! This command may take a few minutes to run, so don’t be worried if it’s taking a little while.
$ L=/usr/local/bin/flynn && curl -sSL -A "`uname -sp`" https://dl.flynn.io/cli | zcat >$L && chmod +x $L

$ sudo bash < <(curl -fsSL https://dl.flynn.io/install-flynn)

$ /sbin/modprobe zfs
  1. Run the following command to get the discovery URL for your one-node cluster. If you want to have multiple nodes of Flynn, please see their documentation or tweet at me (@applerebel) for more information.
sudo flynn-host init --init-discovery
  1. Run the following two commands to get your one-node cluster going. Make sure the second command returns the correct response!
$ sudo start flynn-host
$ sudo status flynn-host
# --> This command should include `flynn-host start/running`. If it says `stop/waiting` instead, check out the logs at `/var/log/upstart/flynn-host.log` for more information.
  1. Set up your cluster via the next command. Make sure to replace the CLUSTER_DOMAIN value with whatever the domain will be for your web server. If you don’t have a domain yet, you can use the following formula to get a domain name: site.IP_ADDRESS.xip.io. An example of this would be 10.0.0.1.xip.io. Also, make sure you repalce the –discovery URL with the URL that was generated earlier.
sudo \
    CLUSTER_DOMAIN=demo.localflynn.com \
    flynn-host bootstrap \
    --discovery https://discovery.flynn.io/clusters/53e8402e-030f-4861-95ba-d5b5a91b5902
  • If it’s saying it can’t find the cluster, then you should powercycle flynn-host like so:
stop flynn-host && start flynn-host
  • The above command should say “Flynn bootstrapping complete.” if everything finished successfully. It should return a command to run that will look something like this:
flynn cluster add -p REktHVsDrKFed7ACeKJCt9xF3TrMd96d1+N3Nr5BArY= default site.104.131.189.57.xip.io fdf9cdda89785ef655e7e787daec8be2

this means it’s time to install the local Flynn client now on our dev machine! Also, make sure you take note of the dashboard URL and login token listed below. We’ll be needing this URL and password for Part 3.

Part 2: Install the Flynn CLI onto your Dev Machine

The hard part is now over – the installing of Flynn onto the VPS. Next is the easy part –> installing the Flynn CLI locally onto your development machine.

  1. To install the CLI itself, run the following command:
L=/usr/local/bin/flynn && curl -sSL -A "`uname -sp`" https://dl.flynn.io/cli | zcat >$L && chmod +x $L
  1. Next, run the command that was returned above from Part 1, that begins with ‘flynn cluster add ….’. This will associate your local dev machine with your VPS’ Flynn cluster!

The next part is to install your Flynn cluster’s SSL certificate onto your machine, so that way you can securely send your code up to Flynn!

Part 3: Securing your Flynn Connection

In this part, we’ll be installing the Flynn SSL certificate for your cluster onto your machine. Remember the dashboard URL and token from Part 1? We’ll be needing that now. Scroll up in your terminal logs if you don’t have that information at the ready.

  1. Go the URL outputted from the terminal in your web browser. It should start with ‘http://dashboard……’.

  2. At the top of the page, there should be a link to install your Flynn VPS’ SSL certificate. Download those certificates, double click to open, and choose to “Always trust” the certificate.

  3. Close out the window for the certificate, and then select + reopen it again in Keychain Access. Open the trust dialog box, and make sure that “Always trust” is selected. Sometimes the change made earlier doesn’t persist.

That’s all for this part, where you secure your Flynn connection! The last and final part is about creating your Flynn app and pushing it live!

Part 5: Push it up, push it up!

Welcome to the final part of the tutorial! In this part, we’ll be creating our Flynn app, adding a git remote, and then pushing it live for the world to see. Let’s get started!

  1. ‘cd’ into any project you have that has a Procfile in it. If you don’t have one, you can run this in your terminal:
$ git clone https://github.com/flynn-examples/ruby-flynn-example.git
$ cd ruby-flynn-example
  1. Next, we’re going to create a Flynn app, that will power our website. Run the following command below, and substitute APP_NAME with whatever you’d like to call your app.
flynn create APP_NAME
  1. The moment of truth! It’s finally time to git push up to Flynn. The previous command setup a git remote for us, so now all we have to do is just push up to Flynn, and the rest is handled for us!
git push flynn master

That’s all there is to it! Thanks for reading through this tutorial on how to deploy with the Flynn PaaS. You can check out their website, awesome documentation for more information, or even read Flynn’s source code on Github.

If you have any questions or anything you’d like to tell me, you can email me or tweet at me.