Docker Image for GitHub Pages Authoring

This Docker image lets you easily author sites generated with Jekyll, which powers GitHub Pages. No development environment setup required. When you run a container based on this image, you can edit and browse the files on your host while the container builds and serves the site.

How things work

Docker lets you map the port where Jekyll publishes the site in the container to a port in the host. This allos you to point a browser in your host to something like http://localhost:4000 to see the site and watch your changes.

Docker also lets you map the root folder of a Jekyll project to a predefined path in the container. This allows you to edit your files in the host using your favorite editor. The container will pick up your changes and update the site automatically.

You can even use Jekyll plugins. For example, you can use Hawkins to automatically refresh your browser every time you update a page. No need to hit refresh anymore!

Run the container

docker run --publish [jekyll_port]:[jekyll_port] --volume [jekyll_folder]:/usr/src/app [image]

For example, the following command shows a simple way to run the container:

docker run --publish 4000:4000 --volume $(pwd):/usr/src/app ricalo/jekyll

Setting	Value
Port	4000
Path	Working directory
Command	jekyll serve

You can also specify additional options, such as your own jekyll command.

docker run --tty \
           --name your_container \
           --publish 4000:4000 \
           --publish 35729:35729 \
           --restart unless-stopped \
           --volume $(pwd)/SampleSite:/usr/src/app \
           ricalo/jekyll \
           liveserve --config _config.yml,_config_dev.yml --force_polling

Setting	Definition	Value
--tty	Allocate a pseudo-TTY	true
--name your_container	Assign a name to the container	your_container
--publish	Map the container port to the host port	4000, 35729 (default port for livereload)
--volume	Mount a path from the host to a path in the container	Sample Site folder in the working directory of the host to /usr/src/app in the container
Command	Override the default command in the container	jekyll liveserve --config _config.yml,_config_dev.yml --force_polling

It's worth noting that the command overrides the default serve subcommand with liveserve to allow automatic reloading of the site when a file is edited. The port 35729 allows communication between the browser and the server to enable automatic reloading.

The command also specifies an additional configuration file _config_dev.yml where we can specify a develpment host and port. The SampleSite included in this repo specifies a 0.0.0.0 as the host and 4000 as the port.

Last, the --force_polling flag enables jekyll to watch the files using a polling mechanism. This is useful if you use Docker on a Windows host. The container won't detect changes unless his flag is enabled.