Whats An Underrated Self-Hosted Tool You Couldnt Live Without

# What’s an Underrated Self-Hosted Tool You Can’t Live Without: Zola

Welcome to our deep dive into one of those smaller, less talked about tools that can make a significant impact in your self-hosted environments - Zola. This static site generator is a game changer for homelab management and content delivery. Today, we will walk you through the installation, configuration, usage, and troubleshooting of Zola, focusing on its features that make it an essential tool for DevOps professionals.

Prerequisites

To get started with Zola, you’ll need:

• A Unix-based operating system (Ubuntu 18.04 or later, CentOS 7 or later)
• Minimum of 2GB RAM and 10GB of free disk space
• Basic understanding of the command line and shell scripting
• A web server (Nginx recommended) for serving the static website

Installation & Setup

Install Zola

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tryzola/zola/master/install.sh | sh

Verify installation:

zola --version

Configure Nginx (if using)

Create a new site configuration file (e.g., /etc/nginx/sites-available/your_site) with the following content:

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name your_domain;

  location / {
    root /path/to/your/zola_site;
    index index.html;
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html =404;
  }
}

Ensure that the site is enabled and symlinked to sites-enabled:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/your_site /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Restart Nginx for changes to take effect:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Configuration

Zola’s configuration is done through a config.toml file located in the root of your project directory. Detailed comments can be found in the official documentation.

Usage & Operations

To create and build your site, navigate to your project folder and run:

zola build

Your static website will now be located in the public directory. You can serve it directly or use a web server like Nginx for better performance.

Troubleshooting

Common issues include permission errors and misconfigurations. Ensure that your project folder has the correct ownership and permissions, and that your configuration files are correctly formatted. Refer to the official documentation for more troubleshooting tips.

Conclusion

In this guide, we’ve covered Zola - an underrated self-hosted tool that can transform your homelab management experience. By understanding its installation, configuration, usage, and troubleshooting, you’ll be well on your way to leveraging this powerful static site generator in your own environment.

For further learning, explore more advanced topics like custom themes and integrating with other services. Happy Zola-ing!