What We Built: A Complete Modern Blog Infrastructure

This comprehensive guide documents the creation of a fully-featured, decentralized blog platform with cutting-edge features including Bitcoin Lightning payments, Nostr integration, email-to-blog publishing, and automated GitHub deployments.

Infrastructure Overview

Core Components

  • Server: Hetzner Ubuntu VPS (188.34.194.25)
  • Static Site Generator: Hugo with PaperMod theme
  • Web Server: Nginx with SSL (Let’s Encrypt)
  • Domain: emino.app (via Porkbun DNS)
  • Version Control: GitHub with automated deployments
  • Email Server: Postfix + Dovecot for email-to-blog
  • Containers: Docker for services (Alby Hub, Nostr relay)

Features Implemented

1. Lightning Bitcoin Tips ⚡

  • Address: emin@nuri.com
  • Design: Minimalist typography-focused interface
  • Colors: Bitcoin orange (#f7931a), black, and white only
  • WebLN Support: Full integration with Alby browser extension
  • Payment Options:
    • One-click WebLN payments for Alby users
    • Lightning URI deep links for mobile wallets
    • Fallback modal for manual payments

2. Nostr Integration 📡

  • Personal Relay: Running at wss://relay.emino.app
  • Long-form Content: Posts published as NIP-23 events
  • Publishing Script: Automatic cross-posting to Nostr
  • Media Handling: Compressed images and videos
  • Docker Container: nostr-rs-relay for reliability

3. Email-to-Blog Publishing 📧

4. DNS Configuration 🌐

The following DNS records were configured at Porkbun:

A Record:
  Host: @
  Answer: 188.34.194.25
  TTL: 600

A Record:
  Host: www
  Answer: 188.34.194.25
  TTL: 600

MX Record:
  Host: (blank)
  Answer: emino.app
  Priority: 10
  TTL: 600

TXT Record (SPF):
  Host: (blank)
  Answer: v=spf1 ip4:188.34.194.25 ~all
  TTL: 600

TXT Record (DMARC):
  Host: _dmarc
  Answer: v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:post@emino.app
  TTL: 600

5. GitHub Actions Auto-Deployment 🚀

  • Trigger: Any push to main branch
  • Actions:
    • Pull latest changes
    • Clean build directory (removes deleted posts)
    • Rebuild with Hugo
    • Deploy with rsync (–delete flag)
  • Workflow File: .github/workflows/deploy.yml

6. Security & Authentication 🔒

  • SSH Keys: Ed25519 for secure server access
  • Email Authentication: Whitelist of authorized senders
  • SSL/TLS: Let’s Encrypt certificates
  • Firewall: UFW configured for web and email
  • Nostr: Optional NSEC environment variable

7. Media & Asset Handling 🖼️

  • Favicon: Bitcoin-themed with multiple sizes
  • Image Compression: Pillow (Python) for optimization
  • Video Compression: FFmpeg with H.264 codec
  • Static Assets: Served from /static/media/
  • PWA Support: Site manifest with theme colors

Technical Implementation Details

Hugo Configuration (config.toml)

baseURL = "https://emino.app/"
languageCode = "en-us"
title = "emino.app"
theme = "PaperMod"

[params]
env = "production"
defaultTheme = "auto"
ShowShareButtons = true
ShowReadingTime = true
ShowToc = true
ShowBreadCrumbs = true
ShowPostNavLinks = true
ShowCodeCopyButtons = true

Build Script (build.sh)

#!/bin/bash
echo "Cleaning old build..."
rm -rf public/*
echo "Building site with Hugo..."
hugo --minify
echo "Syncing to web root..."
rsync -av --delete public/ /var/www/apps/main/
echo "Build complete!"

Email Processing Flow

  1. Email sent to post@emino.app with subject “BLOG: Title”
  2. Cron job runs email_to_blog.py every 15 minutes
  3. Script checks sender authorization
  4. Processes markdown or plain text content
  5. Compresses and embeds media files
  6. Creates Hugo-formatted markdown post
  7. Rebuilds site and syncs to GitHub
  8. Optionally publishes to Nostr

Nostr Publishing Flow

  1. Parse Hugo markdown post
  2. Create NIP-23 long-form content event
  3. Add tags (title, published_at, d-tag for replaceability)
  4. Sign with private key (NSEC)
  5. Publish to multiple relays:
    • wss://relay.emino.app (own relay)
    • wss://relay.damus.io
    • wss://nos.lol
    • wss://relay.nostr.band

Services Running

Docker Containers

# Alby Hub (Lightning)
docker run -d --name alby-hub \
  -p 8080:8080 -p 9735:9735 \
  ghcr.io/getalby/hub:latest

# Nostr Relay
docker run -d --name nostr-relay \
  -p 8081:8080 \
  scsibug/nostr-rs-relay:latest

Nginx Virtual Hosts

  • emino.app: Main blog (port 443/80)
  • hub.emino.app: Alby Hub interface (proxy to 8080)
  • relay.emino.app: Nostr relay WebSocket (proxy to 8081)

Cron Jobs

# Email checking every 15 minutes
*/15 * * * * cd /var/www/emino-blog && \
  ./nostr-env/bin/python scripts/email_to_blog.py \
  >> /var/log/email-to-blog.log 2>&1

File Structure

/var/www/emino-blog/
├── config.toml
├── build.sh
├── content/posts/
├── themes/PaperMod/
├── static/
│   ├── media/
│   ├── favicon.ico
│   └── site.webmanifest
├── scripts/
│   ├── email_to_blog.py
│   ├── nostr_publisher.py
│   └── email_auth.txt
├── nostr-env/ (Python venv)
└── .github/workflows/deploy.yml

/var/www/apps/main/ (deployed site)
/var/www/nostr-relay/ (relay config)
/var/www/alby-hub/ (Lightning hub)

Environment Variables Required

# For email-to-blog
BLOG_EMAIL="post@emino.app"
BLOG_EMAIL_PASSWORD="Kilimanjaro##8"

# For Nostr publishing (optional)
NOSTR_NSEC="your-nostr-private-key"

Monitoring & Maintenance

Health Checks

  • Blog availability: curl -I https://emino.app
  • Lightning tips: Check address at hub.emino.app
  • Nostr relay: wss://relay.emino.app connection test
  • Email: Check /var/log/email-to-blog.log

Common Tasks

# Manual rebuild
cd /var/www/emino-blog && ./build.sh

# Check email processing
./nostr-env/bin/python scripts/email_to_blog.py

# View Docker containers
docker ps

# Check Nginx status
systemctl status nginx

Security Considerations

  1. Email Whitelist: Only authorized senders can post
  2. No Public Email Relay: Server only accepts mail for configured domains
  3. SSL Everything: All services use HTTPS/WSS
  4. Key Management: NSEC keys stored as environment variables
  5. Regular Updates: Automated security updates enabled

Performance Optimizations

  1. Static Site: No database, instant loading
  2. Image Compression: All images optimized before serving
  3. Video Compression: H.264 with web-optimized settings
  4. CDN Ready: Static files can be easily CDN-cached
  5. Minified Output: Hugo minification enabled

Future Enhancements Possible

  • Automated image generation with AI
  • Nostr comments system
  • Lightning paywall for premium content
  • IPFS backup and distribution
  • Analytics without tracking
  • Automated social media cross-posting

Conclusion

This infrastructure represents a modern, decentralized approach to blogging that combines:

  • Traditional web (Hugo static site)
  • Web3 payments (Lightning Bitcoin)
  • Decentralized social (Nostr protocol)
  • Email convenience (post-by-email)
  • Developer workflow (GitHub CI/CD)

The entire stack is self-hosted, privacy-respecting, and built with open-source technologies. It demonstrates how individual creators can own their complete publishing infrastructure while maintaining modern conveniences and integrations.

Resources & Links

This post was created to document the complete infrastructure build process. If you can read this, all systems are working correctly! ⚡🚀