VPS / Home Server

If you're using a Debian-based Server, you can follow these steps to setup smallweb.

These steps will also work on other distributions, but you may need to adjust the package manager commands (ex: dnf install -y instead of apt install -y for Fedora).

If you want to host multiple smallweb instances, you should use on user per instance.

A good practice is to use the smallweb domain as the username (ex: smallweb.run and pomdtr.me).

# connect to your server as root
ssh <root@your-server-ip>

# install some packages required for smallweb
apt update && apt install -y curl unzip

# create user with homedir and default shell
useradd --system --user-group --create-home --shell $(which bash) smallweb

# run user services on login
loginctl enable-linger smallweb

# add your public key to the smallweb user
mkdir -p /home/smallweb/.ssh
cp -r /root/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/smallweb/.ssh/authorized_keys
chown -R smallweb:smallweb /home/smallweb/.ssh

At this point, disconnect from the ssh session and switch to the smallweb user:

Do not use su!

It will prevent you from installing the service.

# connect to your server as smallweb
ssh smallweb@<your-server-ip>

# install deno
curl -fsSL https://deno.land/install.sh | sh # install deno

# install smallweb
curl -sSfL https://install.smallweb.run | sh # install smallweb

# start the smallweb service
/home/smallweb/.local/bin/smallweb service install

To make your service accessible from the internet, you have multiple options:

1. setup a reverse proxy on port 443, mapping http requests to the smallweb service port (default 7777)
2. using cloudflare tunnel (see cloudflare setup)

Syncing files using mutagen

Make sure to follow the Syncing files using mutagen guide to keep your files in sync between your development machine and the server.