Deploy Hexo

Deploy and Host

Hexo Blog Platform is a complete self-hosted blogging stack on Railway: a fast static blog with a browser-based editor and web terminal, plus a separate self-hosted comment system (Artalk) and S3-compatible object storage (MinIO) — three services, three public URLs, all provisioned with one click.

About Hosting

The template deploys three independent services, each built from its own Dockerfile and each with its own persistent volume at /data:

• hexo — nginx + Hexo 8 + hexo-admin editor + ttyd web terminal (supervisord-managed), PORT=80
• comments — Artalk 2.x comment system (SQLite by default; PostgreSQL/MySQL optional), PORT=8080
• storage — MinIO S3-compatible object storage, PORT=9000

Railway provides compute, TLS at the edge, public URLs, and volumes. New posts auto-regenerate the static site within ~60 seconds. Images pasted into the editor upload straight to MinIO (public-read blog-images bucket), so they survive redeploys.

Why Deploy

• All-in-one blogging platform — blog, browser editor, web terminal, comments, and S3 storage in one deploy
• Self-hosted comments — Artalk with SQLite on a persistent volume; no third-party comment service
• S3-backed image upload — editor images go to your own MinIO bucket, not the local disk
• Web terminal — ttyd shell for hexo, git, and npm maintenance, protected by HTTP Basic Auth
• Persistent volumes — content, generated site, comment DB, and MinIO data survive restarts
• Auto-generated credentials — every deploy form generates admin, moderator, and MinIO passwords for you

Common Use Cases

• Personal blog — write Markdown posts from the browser at /admin/, publish with one click
• Multi-author site — share the editor credentials; moderate comments from the /sidebar/ dashboard
• Self-hosted comments — replace Disqus/utterances with your own Artalk instance wired to any Hexo/static site
• Private image/media storage — use the MinIO service as an S3 endpoint for any app (mc, rclone, AWS SDKs)

Dependencies for Hexo

No external accounts, API keys, or client tools are required. Everything is provisioned by Railway on deploy.

Deployment Dependencies

Railway builds each service from its Dockerfiles (Dockerfile, comments/Dockerfile, storage/Dockerfile). Three volumes are mounted at /data. The deploy form generates all credentials via ${{secret(16)}} placeholders; ARTALK_SITE_URL and MINIO_ENDPOINT are auto-derived from the services' public domains via ${{comments.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}} / ${{storage.RAILWAY_PUBLIC_DOMAIN}}.

Services & URLs

Features

• Hexo static site — Markdown-powered blog (Hexo 8) served by nginx. New posts auto-regenerate within ~60 seconds.
• hexo-admin editor — Write, edit and publish posts from the browser at /admin/. Password-protected (auto-generated credentials on one-click deploy).
• Web terminal — ttyd shell at /terminal/ for hexo, git, npm and any maintenance task. Protected with the same admin credentials (HTTP Basic Auth).
• Artalk comments — Self-hosted comment system with SQLite storage on a persistent volume (PostgreSQL/MySQL optional via ARTALK_DB_TYPE + DATABASE_URL). Moderation dashboard at /sidebar/ on the comments service URL (Artalk 2.x moved the console there).
• MinIO S3 storage — S3-compatible object storage API at the storage service URL root (path-style: /bucket/key). Perfect for images, media, backups. The web console binds an internal port and is not publicly exposed — use mc, rclone or any S3 SDK.
• S3-backed image upload — Images pasted into the hexo-admin editor are uploaded straight to MinIO (auto-created blog-images bucket, public-read policy) instead of the local disk, so they survive redeploys and are served from the storage service URL.
• Persistent volumes — Each service gets its own /data volume keeping content, generated site, comments DB, and MinIO data across restarts.
• Client-side search — /search.xml generated by hexo-generator-searchdb.

Prerequisites

• A Railway account (free tier works).
• Nothing else — the deploy form generates all credentials for you.

Quick Start

1. Click Deploy to Railway (button above).
2. Railway generates all passwords automatically (hexo admin, Artalk moderator, MinIO root).
3. After deploy, note the three service URLs from Railway's dashboard:
   • Blog/Editor/Terminal: hexo service domain
   • Comments: comments service domain → /sidebar/ for moderation
   • MinIO: storage service domain → S3 API endpoint
4. Log in and start writing!

Credentials (auto-generated, read from each service's Variables tab)

Environment

All configuration is via environment variables (see .env.example). Key variables:

• TZ — Timezone for all services (default UTC)
• ADMIN_USERNAME / ADMIN_PASSWORD — hexo-admin editor and terminal login
• ARTALK_SITE_NAME — Display name in comment widget
• ARTALK_DB_TYPE — sqlite (default), pgsql, mysql, mssql
• ARTALK_TRUSTED_DOMAINS — CORS origins for comment API (auto-includes hexo domain)
• ARTALK_LOCALE / ARTALK_TIMEZONE — UI language & timezone
• MINIO_ROOT_USER / MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD — S3 root credentials
• MINIO_ENDPOINT / MINIO_ACCESS_KEY / MINIO_SECRET_KEY / MINIO_BUCKET — S3-backed editor image upload (auto-derived from the storage service)

Writing Posts

1. Open your hexo service URL → /admin/
2. Log in with ADMIN_USERNAME / ADMIN_PASSWORD
3. Create a new post → it appears on the blog within ~60 seconds (auto-regenerate)
4. Or use the web terminal (/terminal/) for npx hexo new "My Post" and npx hexo generate

Comment Moderation

Open the comments service URL → /sidebar/ → log in with ARTALK_ADMIN_EMAIL / ARTALK_ADMIN_PASSWORD

Object Storage (MinIO)

• S3 API: https:/// (path-style access: https:////)
• Credentials: MINIO_ROOT_USER / MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD
• Compatible with mc, rclone, AWS SDKs, etc.
• The web console is bound to an internal port (not publicly exposed) — manage buckets via mc / SDKs.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Railway Project                                            │
├─────────────────┬─────────────────────┬────────────────────┤
│   (repo root)   │    comments/        │    storage/        │
│  nginx+hexo+    │  (artalk/artalk-go  │  (minio/minio +    │
│   ttyd          │   + entrypoint)     │   entrypoint)      │
│  PORT=80        │  PORT=8080          │  PORT=9000         │
│  /data volume   │  /data volume       │  /data volume      │
└────────┬────────┴─────────┬────────────┴────────┬──────────┘
         │                  │                     │
         ▼                  ▼                     ▼
   hexo service       comments service      storage service
   (public domain)    (public domain)       (public domain)

Each service is independent, has its own volume, and scales separately. The blog's comment widget talks to the comments service over HTTPS via ARTALK_SITE_URL (auto-derived from the comments service's public domain).

Local Development

# Build and test hexo service locally (requires podman)
podman build -t hexo-test .
podman run -p 8080:80 -v $PWD/test-data:/data hexo-test
# Open http://localhost:8080/

Deploy

This is a three-service template:

• hexo — built from the repo root Dockerfile (nginx + hexo + hexo-admin + ttyd via supervisord)
• comments — built from comments/Dockerfile (official Artalk image + config entrypoint)
• storage — built from storage/Dockerfile (official MinIO image + entrypoint)

All three get a persistent volume mounted at /data. Click the Deploy button, and Railway provisions everything.

Upstream Sources

• Hexo: https://github.com/hexojs/hexo
• hexo-admin: https://github.com/jaredly/hexo-admin
• Artalk: https://github.com/ArtalkJS/Artalk
• MinIO: https://github.com/minio/minio
• ttyd: https://github.com/tsl0922/ttyd