Monster Remote (gem: monster_remote)

What is this?

A gem to help you publish your jekyll blog via ftp (or any other "plugable" remote machine connection provider).

How is this?

After install the gem

gem install monster_remote

A new executable is gonna be at your service: monster_remote.

Syncing

Enter the jekyll blog root path and type:

monster_remote [--ftp] -h your_server_address -u your_user_here

The --ftp option is default, you could create you own connection provider if you need it.

You will be prompted for your password. To reduce the size of the command by configuring some of these informations on your jekyll configuration file (or in a .monster.yml file inside your jekyll site):

monster:
  remote:
    host: ftp.some_host.com
    user: omg_my_user
    pass: true
    local_dir: _site
    remote_dir:
    verbose: false

Monster will rely on this configurations if you execute it without options. But the command line options overrides the configuration file info.

Filtering specific files

A filter is an object which respond_to? :filter, you can stack filters within the synchronization execution. The code to do that has to stay on a monster_config.rb or a config.rb, create this file on the root directory of your jekyll site:

# monster_config.rb

Monster::Remote::add_filter(my_filter)

monster_remote is shipped with a "name_based_filter", if you want to reject specific files or directories based on the name, you could do something like these:

# monster_config.rb

my_filter = Monster::Remote::Filters::NameBasedFilter.new
my_filter.reject /^.*rc/
my_filter.reject /^not_allowed_dir\//

Monster::Remote::add_filter(my_filter)

Note: the param to #reject can be a valid regex, so you could define some fine grained rules here. The above example will reject any file starting with a "." and ending with "rc", wich is pretty much any "classic" configuration file that you have on your directory. Neither "not_allowed_dir" gonna be synced. You could provide an array if you prefer:

my_filter.reject [/^.*rc/, /ˆnot_allowed_dir\//]`

Or you could use a string:

my_filter.reject ".my_secret_file"

If you need execute more specific or complex logic, you could use a "raw filter". Just provides a block with the logic you need, an array with the dir structure will be passed as argument and a filtered array should be returned. Just files and dirs on the result array will be synced:

my_custom_filter = Monster::Remote::Filters::Filter.new
my_custom_filter.reject lambda { |entries|
  # do whatever you need here, for example:
  entries.reject do |entry|
    entry =~ /^.*rc/ || entry =~ /^not_allowed_dir\//
  end
}

Monster::Remote::add_filter(my_custom_filter)

Since a filter is an object which responds_to? :filter you could implement your filter in a class. The #filter will receive an array with the list of files and dirs in given directory, you need to return a new array with only the allowed files and dirs:

class MyOMGFilter
  def filter(entries)
    // your logic here
    return new_filtered_array
  end
end

Protocol Wrappers

A wrapper is an object with the following methods:

• ::new(driver=Net::FTP)
  • the class from the real connection objects will be generated
• #open(host=nil, user=nil, password=nil, port=nil)
  • called when the synchrony starts
  • if a block is given, it will be yielded and two arguments will be passed to the block:
    • an object that responds_to? :create_dir, and responds_to? :copy_file. This object has an internal reference to the real connection
      • #create_dir(dir) - creates a remote dir
      • #remove_dir(dir) - removes a remote dir
      • #copy_file(from, to) - copies a file to the remote location
      • #remove_file(file) - removes a remote file
    • the real connection object (you can ignore the second argument if you want)
  • this method close the real connection before returns

Internally a wrapper will use a real "thing" (like the default Net::FTP) to replicate the local dir structure to the remote dir.

Programatically Syncing

The Monster::Remote::Sync class has a very well defined interface, and you could use this to write your own sync logic if you need:

• ::new(wrapper, local_dir=nil, remote_dir=nil, verbose=nil)
• start(user = nil, password = nil, host = "localhost", port = 21)
  • calls the wrapper.open method passing a block with instructions to replicate the local configured dir