In general there are two possibilies to use GoogleAdsense on your GatsbyJS website:
+ **Auto Ads** and
+ custom **ad blocks**.

Depending on whether you choose to include Adsense ads on certain spots or whether you will leave this job to the Google AI, you can choose one/and or the other.

## Auto Ads

With Auto Ads, the optimal positions for an advertising banner are determined using a Google AI and a display ad is automatically switched there. All you have to do is place the following AdSense code in ``html.js``.
```html
<script data-ad-client="ca-pub-0037698828864449" async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
```

![adsense_auto_ads_a296306c19.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/adsense_auto_ads_a296306c19_64d9e7b57b.png)
and activate Auto ads in Adsense.


On GIS-Netzwerk.com I used Auto ads and I'm honestly surprised how well it works.
Ads are displayed in a text every few paragraphs and are also responsive.

### Ad loads

You also have the option of increasing or decreasing the number of ads in the settings.
Unfortunately, you cannot specify a specific number of ads.

![ad_load_f3a8f19537.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/ad_load_f3a8f19537_cc65c9d77d.png)

In my opinion, a lot of ads are shown even when you set it to "min".
You can play around with the ad load and find out the best setting for your purposes.
Somestimes it can take a few minutes until the new ad load is effective.

### Display formats

You can also influence the ad formats.
Basically there are:
+ In-page ads (displayed in the main part of the page)
+ Matched content (tool for content promotion)
+ Anchor ads (mobile ads on the edge of the screen)
+ Vignette ads (mobile full screen display, at page transitions)

I have only deactivated anchor texts, because I personally find them very annoying.

![ad_formats_71b13c9759.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/ad_formats_71b13c9759_a596b280eb.png)

In addition, you can also completely exclude individual pages from advertisements.

## Adsense with GatsbyJS

If you want to use Auto ads on your GatsbyJS page, you can do it super easily with the plugin [gatsby-plugin-google-adsense](https://www.gatsbyjs.com/packageshttps://www.gatsbyjs.com-plugin-google-adsense/ "gatsby-plugin-google-adsense").

**Install**
```bash
npm install --save gatsby-plugin-google-adsense
```
bzw.
```bash
yarn add gatsby-plugin-google-adsense
```
**modify gatsby-config.js**
```js
// In your gatsby-config.js file
plugins: [
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-plugin-google-adsense`,
      options: {
        publisherId: `ca-pub-xxxxxxxxxx`
      },
    },
]
```
The remaining settings can then be adjusted on [Adsense](https://www.google.de/adsense/ "Adsense").

## Ad units
In addition to auto ads, there is also the "classic" option of inserting individual ad units at specific positions.
With the React Component [react-adsense](/github/hustcc/react-adsense "react-adsense") you can insert Google AdSense and Baidu ads in any place.

```bash
npm install --save react-adsense
```
or
```bash
yarn add react-adsense
```

In order for the components to be rendered, you still need the AdSense script code. You can either insert this manually in the `` html.js '' file or, if you want to combine individual ad units with Auto ads, you can also use the plug-in already mentioned to insert the script.

> When auto ads and individual ad units are combined, the individual ad units always have a higher "priority". This means that all ad units that are inserted manually are usually also rendered and, if the text / ads ratio permits, additional ads from Auto ads are automatically inserted.

If the script has been integrated and react-adsense has been installed, you can use
```js
import React from 'react';
import AdSense from 'react-adsense';

// ads with no set-up
<AdSense.Google
  client='ca-pub-7292810486004926'
  slot='7806394673'
/>

// ads with custom format
<AdSense.Google
  client='ca-pub-7292810486004926'
  slot='7806394673'
  style={{ width: 500, height: 300, float: 'left' }}
  format=''
/>

// responsive and native ads
<AdSense.Google
  client='ca-pub-7292810486004926'
  slot='7806394673'
  style={{ display: 'block' }}
  layout='in-article'
  format='fluid'
/>

// auto full width responsive ads
<AdSense.Google
  client='ca-pub-7292810486004926'
  slot='7806394673'
  style={{ display: 'block' }}
  format='auto'
  responsive='true'
  layoutKey='-gw-1+2a-9x+5c'
/>
```
to insert components for the ad units.


The respective client id
```js
client='ca-pub-7292810486004926'
``` 
and the ad slot 
```js
slot='7806394673'
```
**must always be specified**.

The rest is optional.
```
Optional props:
    className:
    style:
    layout:
    layoutKey:
    format:
    responsive:
```

In case you have more questions there is also ad Adsense community where you can get some answers.
[Google AdSense Help Community](https://support.google.com/adsense/community "Google AdSense Help Community")

In general there are two possibilies to use Google Adsense on your GatsbyJS website Auto Ads and custom display blocks.Depending on whether you choose to include Adsense ads on certain spots or whether you will leave this job to the Google AI, you can choose one/and or the other.

Using Google Adsense with GatsbyJS

Since I store blog posts in a self-hosted version of [strapi](https://strapi.io/ "strapi"), I've been looking for a way to automatically generate a table of contents from Markdown for all posts in my Next.js site.

The idea is that during the build process all captions are extracted from the article content (I use [getStaticProps](https://nextjs.org/docs/basic-features/data-fetching/get-static-props) for all articles) and then display them fixed next to the content using a separate component.

## Extracting headers with regex from markdown

After some research and trial and error I decided to use regex to extract the headers from the markdown text using the hash symbol.

Since there are links in the markdown text with anchor elements and codeblocks that also contains hash symbols which will be misinterpreted as headers, these are removed first from the whole text.

```js
  const regexReplaceCode = /(```.+?```)/gms
  const regexRemoveLinks = /\[(.*?)\]$.*?$/g

  const markdownWithoutLinks = markdown.replace(regexRemoveLinks, "")
  const markdownWithoutCodeBlocks =  markdownWithoutLinks.replace(regexReplaceCode, "")
```

Then, using the hash symbol, the headings ```h1``` to ```h6``` are filtered from the text and added to an array named titles.

```js
  const regXHeader = /#{1,6}.+/g
  const titles = markdownWithoutCodeBlocks.match(regXHeader)
```

Next, using the headings, levels of headings, titles, and anchor links are created and added to an array ```toc``` so that the headings can later be nested with child headings and anchor links can be added. The anchor links can then be used to jump from the table of contents to a heading.

```js
let globalID = 0
titles.map((tempTitle, i) => {
      const level = tempTitle.match(/#/g).length - 1
      const title = tempTitle.replace(/#/g, "").trim("")
      const anchor = `#${title.replace(/ /g, "-").toLowerCase()}`
      level === 1 ? (globalID += 1) : globalID

      toc.push({
        level: level,
        id: globalID,
        title: title,
        anchor: anchor,
      })
    })
```

The array toc is returned and I pass this for example as ```post.toc``` to the respective post, where ```post.toc``` in turn is passed as props to the ToC component.

```js
export async function getStaticProps({ params }) {
  const content = (await data?.posts[0]?.content) || ""
  const toc = getToc(content)

  return {
    props: {
      post: {
        content,
        toc
      },
    },
  }
}
```

## Rendering the table of contents

Each element from the ```toc``` array is now added to the table of contents component. The levels variable is used to dynamically create indentation for subordinate headings with margin and the anchor is used for links.

```js
import styled from "styled-components"

const ToCListItem = styled.li`
  list-style-type: none;
  margin-bottom: 1rem;
  padding-left: calc(var(--space-sm) * 0.5);
  border-left: 3px solid var(--secondary-color);
  margin-left: ${(props) => (props.level > 1 ? `${props.level * 10}px` : "0")};
`

export default function TableOfContents({ toc }) {
  function TOC() {
    return (
      <ol className="table-of-contents">
        {toc.map(({ level, id, title, anchor }) => (
          <ToCListItem key={id} level={level}>
            <a href={anchor}>{title}</a>
          </ToCListItem>
        ))}
      </ol>
    )
  }

  return (
    <>
      <p>Table of contents</p>
      <divr>
        <TOC />
      </div>
    </>
  )
}

```

However, the anchor links do not work yet, since the corresponding section IDs still have to be added to the titles in Markdown content. 

For rendering the actual post content I use [react-markdown](https://github.com/remarkjs/react-markdown "react-markdown"). With the help of custom renderers you can now edit all html elements in react-markdown. To add anchor links to the titles I use custom renderers for ```h1``` to ```h6```.

```js
const renderers = {
  h2: { children }) => {
    const anchor = `${children[0].replace(/ /g, "-").toLowerCase()}`
    return <h2 id={anchor}>{children}</h2>
  },
  h3: ({children }) => {.
    const anchor = `${children[0].replace(/ /g, "-").toLowerCase()}`
    return <h3 id={anchor}>{children}</h2>
  },
  h4: ({children }) => {.
    const anchor = `${children[0].replace(/ /g, "-").toLowerCase()}`
    return <h4 id={anchor}>{children}</h2>
  },
  h5: ({children }) => {.
    const anchor = `${children[0].replace(/ /g, "-").toLowerCase()}`
    return <h5 id={anchor}>{children}</h2>
  },
  h6: ({children }) => {.
    const anchor = `${children[0].replace(/ /g, "-").toLowerCase()}`
    return <h6 id={anchor}>{children}</h2>
  },
```

Lastly, I added a little scroll effect with the following css-property ```scroll-behavior: smooth```;

## Github Links

- [getToc function](https://github.com/dietrichmax/mxd-codes-frontend/blob/v2/src/utils/getToc.js)
- [toc component](https://github.com/dietrichmax/mxd-codes-frontend/blob/v2/src/components/article/article-toc/table-of-contents.js)
- [articles page](https://github.com/dietrichmax/mxd-codes-frontend/blob/v2/pages/articles/%5Bslug%5D.js)
- [renderers](https://github.com/dietrichmax/mxd-codes-frontend/blob/v2/src/utils/renderers.js)



How to create a Table of Contents (TOC) from markdown for your React blog with Javascript without any third party dependencies.

Building a Table of Contents (TOC) from markdown for your React blog

Recently I implemented a custom cookie banner solution on my Next.js site which you probably have seen a few seconds before. There are a lot of prebuilt cookie banners you can use for React or Next js sites but i wanted to create a custom cookie banner which also has some personal touch and keeps the design with the website in line.

How to create a custom cookie banner for your React application

Some blogs have these related articles or posts sections where visitors can have a preview at more content after they just read a post. That's what I wanted to create for my personal website which is built with React (Nextjs) and in this article I want to show you how you also can do it for any other react application.

## Related Posts Component

The keypoint to be able to show related Posts is that you somehow have to create a relation between the posts which doesn't exist yet. All my posts have

- a title,
- a description
- a date,
- tags and
- an image.

```md
---
title: "Post about Web-Development with React"
description: "This is a sample description for the post."
date: "2022-05-02"
tags: ["React", "Web-Development"]
image: "../image.jpg"
---
```

I decided to use the tags to create a relation between the posts because it's the only information which all posts can have in common and is related to the actual topic of the post. Therefore i needed data of all posts overall and data about the current posts. The data from the current post will be just passed as props to the component. All post data for my website is created in a CMS which can be accessed via GraphQL. The query to get allPosts looks like this.

```js
export async function getAllPosts() {
  const data = await fetchStrapiAPI(
    `
    {
      posts(sort: "published_at:desc") {
        id
        published_at
        title
        slug
        content
        excerpt
        tags {
          name
        }
        coverImage {
          url
        }
      }
    }
  `
  )
  return data?.posts
}
```

The only relevant information here is the slug and the tags with their names.

Now the current post gets filtered out from the posts array and a variable maxPosts for the maximum number of posts which should be displayed will be created.

```js
// filter out current post
let posts = allPosts.filter((aPost) => aPost.slug !==post.slug);
    
// define maxPosts to display
const maxPosts = 3
```

For better readability I assigned the tasks of the current posts to a variable called currentTags

```js
// get tags of current posts
const currentTags = post.tags.map((tag) => {
  return tag.name
})
```

Now you have to map through posts and the tags post.tags of these posts to check if one of these tags is the same as one of the currentTags. If one tag is the same we will just enumerate a new relevance variable.

```js
    // rate posts depending on tags
    posts.forEach((post) => {
        post.relevance = 0
        post.tags.forEach((tag) => {
            if (currentTags.includes(tag.name)) {
                post.relevance ++
            }
        })
    })
```

The post with the highest relevance will be the post with the most common tags and be the most related post. If you are also using categories you can of course also adjust the relevance depending on the categories and the tags. For example you could add two relevance points for categories and one relevance point for tags.

Then you can sort the array of all posts descending by relevance.

```js
    // sort posts by relevance
    const sortedPosts = posts.sort(function(a, b) {
        return b.relevance - a.relevance;
    });
```

In the end you can slice them with maxPosts and finally render them.

```js
import PostPreview from 'src/components/article/article-preview/article-preview'

export default function RecommendedPosts({ post, allPosts }) {

    // filter out current post
    let posts = allPosts.filter((aPost) => aPost.slug !==post.slug);
    
    // define maxPosts to display
    const maxPosts = 3

    // get tags of current posts
    const tags = post.tags.map((tag) => {
        return tag.name
    })

    // rate posts depending on tags
    posts.forEach((post) => {
        post.relevance = 0
        post.tags.forEach((tag) => {
            if (tags.includes(tag.name)) {
                post.relevance ++
            }
        })
    })

    // sort posts by relevance
    const sortedPosts = posts.sort(function(a, b) {
        return b.relevance - a.relevance;
    });

    return (
        <>
          {sortedPosts.slice(0,maxPosts).map((post, i) => (
            <PostPreview
              key={i} 
              postData={post}
            />
          ))}
        </>
    )
  }
```
  

Some blogs have these related articles or posts sections where visitors can have a preview at more content after they just read a post. That's what I wanted to create for my personal website which is built with React (Nextjs) and in this article I want to show you how you also can do it for any other react application.

How to build a related posts component for your React blog

With [Gatsby 4](https://www.gatsbyjs.com/gatsby-4/) bringing in Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and Deferred Static Generation (DSG) you need an alternative methode to just hosting static files. Each page using SSR or DSG will be rendererd after a user requests it so there has be a server in the background which will handle these requests and build the pages if needed.

In this post i will show you how you can deploy your Gatsby site with SSR and/or DSG on your own server with a CI/CD pipeline via PM2 and Github Webhooks.

Therefore i will be using

- Gatsby 4,Nginx,
- Nginx
- PM2 and
- Github webhooks.

## Setup your server

First of all you need an server with root access. I strongly recommend to have a look at the guide ["Initial Server Setup with Ubuntu 18.04"](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/initial-server-setup-with-ubuntu-18-04) from the DigitalOcean community which will lead you through the process of:

- Logging in and set up root user access to your server with SSH
- Creating a new user
- Granting Administrative Privileges to the new user
- Setting up a basic firewall
- Giving your regular user access to the server with SSH key authentication.

After you have done that you can continue by installing all necessary dependencies on your server.
Install Node.js

Again there is an guide by DigitalOcean which will help you [installing Node.js using PPA](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-node-js-on-ubuntu-18-04#installing-using-a-ppa).

After completing

- install Node.js, NPM and
- the "build-essential package"

you will have to change npm's default directory.

Create a ```.npm-global``` directory and set the path to this directory for ```node_modules```:

```bash
cd ~
mkdir ~/.npm-global
npm config set prefix '~/.npm-global'
```

Create (or modify) a ```~/.profile``` and add the following line:

```bash
sudo nano ~/.profile

# set PATH so global node modules install without permission issues
export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH
```

Now you have to update your system variables:

```bash
source ~/.profile
```

Now you should be able to check your installed Node.js version with:

```bash
node -v
```

## Install git

Check if git is already installed with:

```bash
git --version
```

If it isn't installed yet you can install it with

```bash
sudo apt install git
```

and configure Git with

```sbash
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "youremail@domain.com"
```

After git is installed and configured you can deploy your Gatsby site by cloning it from Github.

## Deploy from Github

It is important that you are loggin in as **non-root** user for the following steps.

```bash
cd ~
git clone https://github.com/your-githubuser/your-gatsby-repo.git path your-gatsby-site
```

After you have deployed your project (optionally with environment variables) you can install all dependencies and build your Gatsby site with:

```bash
cd ./your-gatsby-site/
npm install
npm run build
```

Now you should have a copy of your local project/Gatsby site on your remote server.

Next you are going to setup PM2 which will be used to keep your site alive and restart it with every reboot.

## Setup PM2

You can install PM2 with:

```bash
npm install pm2@latest -g
```

You will need to create/configure an ```ecosystem.config.js``` file which will restart the default Gatsby server.

```bash
cd ~
pm2 init
sudo nano ecosystem.config.js
```

Copy/paste the template and replace the content.

```js
module.exports = {
  apps: [
    {
      name: 'gatsby-site',
      cwd: ' /home/your-name/my-gatsby-site',
      script: 'npm',
      args: 'serve',
      env: {
        //NODE_ENV: 'production',
      },
    },
    // optionally a second project
],};
```
With

```bash
cd ~
pm2 start ecosystem.config.js
```

you can start your server which will run on the Port 9000.

You can always check the status with:

```bash
pm2 status
```

After the server reboots this PM2 should be always automatically be restarted. For that you are going to need a small Startup script which you can also copy/paste.
Generate and configure a startup script to launch PM2:

```bash
cd ~
pm2 startup systemd

[PM2] Init System found: systemd
[PM2] To setup the Startup Script, copy/paste the following command:
**sudo env PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin /usr/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2 startup systemd -u your-name --hp /home/your-name**
```

- Copy/paste the generated command:

```bash
**sudo env PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin /usr/lib/node_modules/pm2/bin/pm2 startup systemd -u your-name --hp /home/your-name**

[PM2] Init System found: systemd
Platform systemd

. . .


[PM2] [v] Command successfully executed.
+---------------------------------------+
[PM2] Freeze a process list on reboot via:
   $ pm2 save

[PM2] Remove init script via:
   $ pm2 unstartup systemd
```

- And save the new PM2 process list and environments. Then Start the service with systemctl.

```bash
pm2 save

[PM2] Saving current process list...
[PM2] Successfully saved in /home/your-name/.pm2/dump.pm2
```

If you reboot your server now with ```sudo reboot``` the script should be automatically restart your Gatsby site. Give it a try!

## Setup Github Webhook

One thing missing now is an continuos integration and continuos delivery (CI/CD) pipeline which you will setup using Github webhooks.

Therefore you need to create a new Webhook in your repository.

The following articles provide additional information to the steps below:

- [GitHub Creating Webhooks Guide](https://docs.github.com/en/developers/webhooks-and-events/webhooks/creating-webhooks#setting-up-a-webhook) and
- [DigitalOcean Guide to GitHub WebHooks](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-node-js-and-github-webhooks-to-keep-remote-projects-in-sync).

You need to create a server script which will do something if it is triggered by the Github webhook.

```bash
cd ~
mkdir NodeWebHooks
cd NodeWebHooks
sudo nano webhook.js
```

The script is going to create a server running on Port 8100. (Your Github webhook should be of course sending the webhook to something like http://server-ip:8100.)

If it gets triggered by a webhook it will

- go into your repo ```~/my-gatsby-site/```,
- pull the latest commits,
- install all dependencies,
- build a new version of the site and
- restart the server via the PM2 script.

```js
const secret = "your-secret-key";
const repo = "~/my-gatsby-site/";

const http = require('http');
const crypto = require('crypto');
const exec = require('child_process').exec;

const BUILD_CMD = 'npm run build';
const PM2_CMD = 'pm2 restart gatsby-site';

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
    req.on('data', function(chunk) {
        let sig = "sha1=" + crypto.createHmac('sha1', secret).update(chunk.toString()).digest('hex');

        if (req.headers['x-hub-signature'] == sig) {
            exec('cd ' + repo + ` && git pull && npm install && ${BUILD_CMD} && ${PM2_CMD}`);
        }
    });

    res.end();
}).listen(8100);
```

You will need to allow communication on Port 8100 with:

```bash
sudo ufw allow 8100/tcp
sudo ufw enable
```

Command may disrupt existing ssh connections. Proceed with operation (y|n)? y
Firewall is active and enabled on system startup

Earlier you setup PM2 to restart your Gatsby site whenever the server reboots or is started. You will now do the same for the webhook script.

Run echo $PATH and copy the output for use in the next step.

```bash
echo $PATH

/home/your-name/.npm-global/bin:/home/your-name/bin:/home/your-name/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin
```

Create a webhook.service file:

```bash
cd ~
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/webhook.service
```
    
In the editor, copy/paste the following script, but make sure to replace your-name in two places with your username. Earlier, you ran echo ```$PATH```, copy this to the Environment=PATH= variable, then save and exit:

```bash
[Unit]
Description=Github webhook
After=network.target

[Service]
Environment=PATH=your_path
Type=simple
User=your-name
ExecStart=/usr/bin/nodejs /home/your-name/NodeWebHooks/webhook.js
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
```
    
Enable and start the new service so it starts when the system boots:

```bash
sudo systemctl enable webhook.service
sudo systemctl start webhook
```
    
Check the status of the webhook:

```bash
sudo systemctl status webhook
```

You can test your webhook with these [instructions](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-node-js-and-github-webhooks-to-keep-remote-projects-in-sync#step-4-testing-the-webhook "Test Webhook").

The Gatsby server is now running on your-ip:9000 and you implemented a CI/CD pipeline via PM2 and Github Webhooks but you still can't access your website via a domain because you need to configure a webserver like Nginx.

## Configure Nginx

I am using Cloudflare to manage DNS for my domains but you can do this with every other provider also.

Create two A Records which will point ```your-domain.com``` and ```www.your-domain.com``` to the IP-adress of your server.

After that you will need to configure Nginx.

The following instructions are based on [How To Install Nginx on Ubuntu 18.04 [Quickstart]](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-nginx-on-ubuntu-18-04-quickstart).

- Update your local package index:

```bash
sudo apt update
```

- install Nginx:

```bash
sudo apt install nginx
```
    
and adjust the Firewall:

```bash
sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'
sudo ufw delete allow 'Nginx HTTP'
```

You should now be able to see the Nginx landing page on:

```http://your_server_ip```

## Setting up Server Blocks
    
Create the directory for your-domain.com, using the -p flag to create any necessary parent directories:

```bash
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/your-domain.com/html
```
    
Assign ownership of the directory:

```bash
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/your-domain.com/html
```
    
The permissions of your web roots should be correct if you haven’t modified your umask value, but you can make sure by typing:

```bash
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/example.com
```
    
Make a new server block at /etc/nginx/sites-available/your-domain.com:

```bash
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com
```
    
Copy/Paste the following Gatsby-nginx configuration and update the server_name sections:

```bash
server {
    # Listen HTTP
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;

    server_name your-domain.com www.your-domain.com;

    # Redirect HTTP to HTTPS
    return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

server {
    # Listen HTTP
    listen 443 ssl;
    listen [::]:443 ssl;

    server_name your-domain.com www.your-domain.com;

    # SSL config
    include snippets/self-signed.conf;
    include snippets/ssl-params.conf;

    # Proxy Config
    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:9000
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade";
        proxy_pass_request_headers on;
    }
    location ~ /.well-known {
       allow all;
    }
}
```

Save the file and close it when you are finished.

Enable the file by creating a link from it to the sites-enabled directory:

```bash
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/your-domain.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
```
    
Test for syntax errors:

```bash
sudo nginx -t
```
    
and finally enable the changes:

```bash
sudo systemctl restart nginx
```

Nginx should now be serving your gatsby site on your domain name. That means if you have a look at ```http://your-domain.com``` you should see your Gatsby site.

In the end should deny traffic to Port 9000 because Nginx is handling the requests with:

```bash
cd ~
sudo ufw deny 9000
```

To install SSL, you will need to [install and run Certbot by Let's Encrypt](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-secure-nginx-with-let-s-encrypt-on-ubuntu-18-04).



With Gatsby 4 bringing in Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and Deferred Static Generation (DSG) you need an alternative methode to just hosting static files. Each page using SSR or DSG will be rendererd after a user requests it so there has be a server in the background which will handle these requests and build the pages if needed.

How to deploy your GatsbyJS site on your own server

With Google Cloud (Build) you can automate your whole workflow from building your Gatsby site up to deploying your site to Firebase hosting.

**What will you need?**

+ [Firebase Hosting](https://firebase.google.com/products/hosting "Firebase Hosting")
+ [Cloud Build](/cloud-google/cloud-build "Cloud Build")
+ [Cloud Scheduler](/cloud-google/scheduler "Cloud Scheduler") (optional)

## Firebase Hosting

To set up Firebase you will need an Google Cloud Account which has billing enabled and at least one project.
You can add the Firebase SDK with:

```
npm install --save firebase
```

and configure it with

```
firebase init
```

In the process you can setup a new project which will create a new ```.firebaserc``` file if it doesn't exist yet and enable **Hosting**.

![Firebase_init_1_c3dd56b33d.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/Firebase_init_1_c3dd56b33d_c68c4c50c3.png)

As public directory you have to set your **public** folder. After you have set your public folder you can reject all oncoming messages.

> You can also have a look at the [Google Firebase Docs](https://firebase.google.com/docs/cli#install-cli-windows "Google Firebase Docs") for setting up Firebase.

In the end it will also create a **firebase.json** where you can copy/paste the following to optimize your hosting for a Gatsby site.

```js
{
  "hosting": {
    "public": "public",
    "ignore": [
      "firebase.json", 
      "**/.*", 
      "**/node_modules/**"],
    "headers": [
      {
        "source": "**/*",
        "headers": [
          {
            "key": "cache-control",
            "value": "cache-control: public, max-age=0, must-revalidate"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "source": "static/**",
        "headers": [
          {
            "key": "cache-control",
            "value": "public, max-age=31536000, immutable"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "source": "**/*.@(css|js)",
        "headers": [
          {
            "key": "cache-control",
            "value": "public, max-age=31536000, immutable"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "source": "sw.js",
        "headers": [
          {
            "key": "cache-control",
            "value": "cache-control: public, max-age=0, must-revalidate"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "source": "page-data/**",
        "headers": [
          {
            "key": "cache-control",
            "value": "cache-control: public, max-age=0, must-revalidate"
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
  }
}
```
When you have build your Gatsy site and **public** folder is present you can upload it to your Firebase Hosting with:

```
firebase deploy
```

If you want to use your custom domain (for example gis-netzwerk.com) you have to go to Hosting in the Firebase console where you will find DNS-records to point your domain to your Firebase Hosting.
You can also create a second domain (for example www.gis-netzwerk.com) to redirect automatically to your root domain.

In your project settings you can find your Firebase configurations which look like:

```js
const firebaseConfig = {
  apiKey: "apiKey",
  authDomain: "{.firebaseapp.com",
  databaseURL: "https:// projectId.firebaseio.com",
  projectId: " projectId",
  storageBucket: " projectId.appspot.com",
  messagingSenderId: "1",
  appId: "2",
  measurementId: "G-123"
};
```

You probably want to save these as environment variables.

## Cloud Build

To create a CI-/CD-Pipeline you have to activate Cloud Build for your account. The console itself is quite clear in comparison to AWS CodeBuild.
You will see Dashboard which is displaying some basic informations, the history of your Cloud Builds, Triggers and Options.

You just will have to create a new trigger which will trigger a new build everytime new content is pushed to your linked GitHub repository..

First of all you have to connect your repository. After that you can create the trigger.

![Cloud_Build_Trigger_settings_c6be399330.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/Cloud_Build_Trigger_settings_c6be399330_9340cf2334.png)

Important options are:
+ Event: **Push to branch**
+ Branch: **^master$** (or whatever branch you want to build)
+ Cloud Build Configuration file: **cloudbuild.yaml**

After that you can create all environment variables as **Substitution variables**.
You will notice that all variables have to start with an underscore.
Because of that we will need a small workaround in the cloudbuild.yaml configuration file.

For now you can just create your substitions variables and add the underscore to your default variable names.

To be able to deploy via firebase you will need to authorize Firebase with a '$_TOKEN'.
You can retrive this token on your local machine with_
```
firebase login:ci
```

A new page will be opened in your prefered browser where you will have to login with your Google account to get the token.
Once you have the token you can also add it as substition variable.
```
_TOKEN : {TOKEN VALUE}
```

If you have created all substitution variables you can check again if they are inserted correct and create the new trigger.

### Cloudbuild.yaml

Cloud build needs the cloudbuild.yaml to know what it should do.
If you have inserted the path like above mentioned you will need a cloudbuild.yaml in your root directory.

You can copy the following into it:
```js
steps: 
# Install dependencies
  - name: node:10.16.0
    id: Installing dependencies...
    entrypoint: npm
    args: ["install"] 
    waitFor: ["-"] # Begin immediately

# Install Firebase   
  - name: node:10.16.0 
    id: Installing Firebase...
    entrypoint: npm 
    args: ["install", "firebase-tools"]
    waitFor:
      - Install dependencies...

# Create file with env-variables
  - name: node:10.16.0
    id: Creating Envirnonment variables...
    entrypoint: npm
    args: ["run", "create-env"]
    env:
    - "CLIENT_EMAIL=${_CLIENT_EMAIL}"
    - "PRIVATE_KEY=${_PRIVATE_KEY}"
    - "MAIL_CHIMP=${_MAIL_CHIMP}"
    - "GA_ID=${_GA_ID}"
    - "GA_VIEW_ID=${_GA_VIEW_ID}"
    - "IG_TOKEN=${_IG_TOKEN}"
    - "FIREBASE_API_KEY=${_FIREBASE_API_KEY}"
    - "FIREBASE_APP_ID=${_FIREBASE_APP_ID}"
    - "FIREBASE_AUTH_DOMAIN=${_FIREBASE_AUTH_DOMAIN}"
    - "FIREBASE_DB_URL=${_FIREBASE_DB_URL}"
    - "FIREBASE_MEASUREMENT_ID=${_FIREBASE_MEASUREMENT_ID}"
    - "FIREBASE_MESSAGE_SENDER_ID=${_FIREBASE_MESSAGE_SENDER_ID}"
    - "FIREBASE_PROJECT_ID=${_FIREBASE_PROJECT_ID}"
    - "FIREBASE_STORAGE_BUCKET=${_FIREBASE_STORAGE_BUCKET}"
    - "GATSBY_EXPERIMENTAL_PAGE_BUILD_ON_DATA_CHANGES=true"
    waitFor: ["-"] # Begin immediately

# Gatsby build
  - name: node:10.16.0
    id: Building Gatsby site...
    entrypoint: npm
    args: ["run", "build"]
    waitFor:
      - Installing dependencies...
      - Creating Envirnonment variables...

# Deploy
  - name: node:10.16.0 
    id: Deploying to Firebase...
    entrypoint: "./node_modules/.bin/firebase" 
    args: ["deploy", "--project", "$PROJECT_ID", "--token", "$_TOKEN"]
    waitFor:
      - Installing Firebase...
      - Building Gatsby site...
    
timeout: 30m0s
```
The cloudbuild.yaml is basically divided into six parts which will
+ Install dependencies,
+ Install Firebase,
+ Create file with env-variables,
+ Build the Gatsby site and
+ Deploy it to Firebase

As you can see you will create a file with the environment variables which will map the substitutions variables with your "default" variables.
Everything else should be pretty self-explanatory.

> Cloud Build will timeout the build by default after 10 minutes. So if your build is gonna take longer you will have to set up a custom timeout like in the cloudbuild.yaml above. You can also set a timeout for each step.

Another import point is that you will have to add the Plugin for Google Analytics Reporting Api as dynamic plugin like for example the following because otherwise you will get errors during your build.
```js
if (
  process.env.CLIENT_EMAIL &&
  process.env.PRIVATE_KEY &&
  process.env.GA_VIEW_ID
) {
  const startDate = new Date()
  startDate.setMonth(startDate.getMonth() - 3)
  dynamicPlugins.push(
    /*{
      resolve: `gatsby-plugin-guess-js`,
      options: {
        GAViewID: process.env.GA_VIEW_ID,
        jwt: {
          client_email: process.env.CLIENT_EMAIL,
          private_key: process.env.PRIVATE_KEY.replace(/\\n/g, "\n"),
        },
        period: {
          startDate,
          endDate: new Date(),
        },
      }
    },*/
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-source-google-analytics-reporting-api`,
      options: {
        email: process.env.CLIENT_EMAIL,
        key: process.env.PRIVATE_KEY.replace(/\\n/g, "\n"),
        viewId: process.env.GA_VIEW_ID,
        startDate: `2009-01-01`,
      }
    }
  )
}

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    plugins...
  ].concat(dynamicPlugins),
};

Due to the fact that Code Build uses Linux machines small and capital letters are important (Windows doesnt care).
That means if you import a component like
```js
import MyComponent from "../Mycomponent"
```
and the actual folder name is ```MyComponent``` your build will fail.

## Speeding up your builds

+ **Image optimization**

If you aren't using preoptimized images yet you should consider to crop, resize images etc. **before** you will build the site because it can basically save a lot of time (depending on the amount of images).

Before i optimized my images a build on Google Cloud took about ~ 1800 sec.
After i optimized all my images for posts with Python ([Image optimization with Python](/articles/scaling-and-cropping-images-using-python "Image optimization with Python")) the build time went down to ~ 620 sec. So actually just a third.

## Set Cloud Scheduler (optional)

With Cloud Scheduler you can trigger a build automatically after a specific time.
The first 3 jobs a month a free and after that you have to pay $0.10 for every job after that.

(You can also use Cloud Scheduler with your default trigger (Push to branch) or without).

The trigger you created before has an ID and with a POST request you can start the trigger anytime you want.
To get the ID of the trigger you have to open the Cloud Shell, type ```gcloud beta builds triggers list``` and search for **id**. Copy that.

The URL for the POST request looks like (without []):
```
https://cloudbuild.googleapis.com/v1/projects/[PROJECT_ID]/triggers/[TRIGGER_ID]:run
```
Now you have to create a new job in Cloud Schedule.

![Cloud_Scheduler_Settings_1d117b6db6.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/Cloud_Scheduler_Settings_1d117b6db6_28caea6e1d.png)

```
0 3 * * *
```
will trigger a build every day at 3 am MESZ. 

The URL for the POST request looks like (without []):
```
https://cloudbuild.googleapis.com/v1/projects/[PROJECT_ID]/triggers/[TRIGGER_ID]:run
```

In Text you will need
```json
{
  "branchName": "master"
}
```
and you will authorize the job with your service account.



Ultimate guide to automate your Gatsby builds with Google Cloud Build, deploying to Firebase and optional Cloud Scheduler.

Build and deploy your Gatsby site with Google Cloud Build to Firebase

With the free [contingent for AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/en/free/free-tier/ "contingent for AWS") you always get an active [AWS code pipeline](https://aws.amazon.com/codepipeline/?did=ft_card&trk=ft_card "AWS Codepipeline") per month and [100 minutes AWS codebuild](https://aws.amazon.com/codebuild/?did=ft_card&trk=ft_card "100 minutes AWS codebuild" ) per month.

So you can set up a continuous integration and continuous delivery pipeline for free or with more than 100 build minutes a month for relatively little money, which triggers a build with every push to a GitHub repository whoch will be automatically deployed to S3 and optionally also invalidate CloudFront Cache.

## CodeBuild

First of all you need a new build project in CodeBuild.
In the project configuration you can assign a name for it and select GitHub as the source provider under **Source**.

Depending on whether the repository is public or not, you then select "Public Repository" and enter the repository URL or you link your GitHub account and give CodeBuild the necessary rights to access the repository.

An environment image must now be selected under **Environment**. For GatsbyJS this would be a "managed image" and the operating system "Amazon Linux 2". "Standard" is selected as the runtime (s) and "aws / codebuild / amazonlinux2-x86_64-standard: 2.0" as the image.

![codebuild_umgebung_e32ebcd3d2.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/codebuild_umgebung_e32ebcd3d2_34c630be29.png)

Now a new service role can be created automatically (which is required) so that CodeBuild has the necessary rights for the AWS account.

> This service role can also be assigned rights for CodePipeline, so that this service role can be used for CodeBuild and CodePipeline.
If environment variables are used, these can be specified under "Additional configuration" in the environment. You can also make sure that "3GB RAM, 2vCPUs" is really selected, since only this option is included in the free contingent.

**Buildspec** now uses a buildspec file in YAML format. For a Gatsby site this should somehow look like the following:
```sh
version: 0.2
phases:
    install:
        runtime-versions:
            nodejs: 12
        commands:
            - 'touch .npmignore'
            - 'npm install -g gatsby'
    pre_build:
        commands:
            - 'npm install'
    build:
        commands:
            - 'npm run build'
    post_build:
        commands:       
            - 'find public -type f -regex ".*\.$htm\|html\|txt\|text\|js\|css\|json$$" -exec gzip -f -k {} \' ## sofern cloudfront nicht automatisch die dateien komprimiert
artifacts:
    base-directory: public
    files:
        - '**/*'
    discard-paths: no
cache:
    paths:
        - '.cache/*'
        - 'public/*'
```

The buildspec.yml file only needs to be placed in the root directory so that CodeBuild can find it.
In addition, the build script must of course still be available in "package.json".

```js
"build": "gatsby build",
```

The default settings can be retained under **Artifacts**.
With CloudWatch you have the possibility to save logs for CodeBuild in an S3 bucket.

> There may be additional costs!

If all settings have now been entered correctly, the build project can be created.
The only thing missing now is the code pipeline that triggers a build and deployed it in the S3 bucket.

## CodePipeline

For this you switch to CodePipeline and create a new pipeline in which a name and a service role are selected first.

At Source you can now log in with a GitHub account and link the respective repository with a branch.
You now have two options to trigger a build.

+ GitHub-Webhooks and
+ AWS CodePipeline

Then you choose the build provider "AWS CodeBuild" and the previously created project or (if you have not already done this) create a new project.

After a build, the public/ folder can also be automatically deployed to an S3 bucket with AWS CodeDeploy.
_Alternatively_ you can also skip this step and [gatsby-plugin-s3](https://github.com/jarizhttps://www.gatsbyjs.com-plugin-s3 "gatsby-plugin-s3"), which also optimizes caching.

```ssh
npm i gatsby-plugin-s3
```
bzw.
```bash
yarn add gatsby-plugin-s3
```

Now the configuration in gatsby-config.js and the deployment script are missing

```js
plugins: [
  {
      resolve: `gatsby-plugin-s3`,
      options: {
          bucketName: 'my-website-bucket'
      },
  },
]
```
```js
"scripts": {
    ...
    "deploy": "gatsby-plugin-s3 deploy --yes"
}
```
The deployment script "npm run deploy" must then of course be added to the buildspec file under post-build commands.
The CodePipeline should now look something like this:

![Code_Pipeline_b8acf52436.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/Code_Pipeline_b8acf52436_43c7fc9910.png)

Experience shows that a build for around 100 pages takes around 10 minutes if you have some pictures per page.

Every time CodePipeline detects a push to the GitHub repository, a build is automatically triggered and made available on an S3 bucket.

With ```aws cloudfront create-invalidation --distribution-id DISTRIBUTION_ID --paths / * ``` the CloudFront cache can also be invalidated.

With the free tier for AWS you always get one active AWS code pipeline per month and 100 minutes of AWS code build per month with which you can create a CI / CD pipeline for a GatsbyJS site.

GatsbyJS with CI/CD Pipeline via Codebuild 

Managing your own newsletter is crucial for creating a sustainable online-business. With E-Mails you can build a relationsship with your audience and engage with them so they will drive some nice traffic to your new post or whatever you just have published and want to promote.

If you are using Mailchimp you can use the plugin [gatsby-plugin-mailchimp](https://github.com/benjaminhoffmanhttps://www.gatsbyjs.com-plugin-mailchimp "gatsby-plugin-mailchimp") to manage your e-mail list.

## Getting started

Simply add the plugin to your package.json with
```
npm
npm install gatsby-plugin-mailchimp
```
or
```
yarn
yarn add gatsby-plugin-mailchimp
```

and implement it in your **gatsby.config.js** like
```js
{
        resolve: 'gatsby-plugin-mailchimp',
        options: {
            endpoint: '', // string; add your MC list endpoint here; see instructions below
            timeout: 3500, // number; the amount of time, in milliseconds, that you want to allow mailchimp to respond to your request before timing out. defaults to 3500
        },
    },
```
If you don't have your Mailchimp endpoint yet i would suggest to have a README of gatsby-plugin-mailchimp. They described every step with images so it's really easy to get your endpoint url.

> Once you have your Mailchimp endpoint you should save it as environment variable in your project.

## Creating a sign-up form

Only thing you will need is to import the **addToMailChimp** method to your newsletter sign-up component which will work like this:
```js
import addToMailchimp from 'gatsby-plugin-mailchimp'
```
(I am actually working with styled components which are stored in a separate file in the same folder. This file is imported with
```
import * as S from './styled'
```
and the components then are used like **S.NewsletterWrapper**. But to make it a bit more clear i declared everything in the same file for this post.)

So now you need some styled (and responsive) components which will create your actual form like:
```js
<NewsletterWrapper>
  <DescriptionWrapper>
    <p>
      Do you want to know when I post something new? <br/> 
      Then subscribe to my newsletter.
      ðŸš€
    </p>
  </DescriptionWrapper>
  <InputWrapper>
    <Input
      type="email"
      name="email"
      id="mail"
      label="email-input"
      placeholder="Your e-mail address"
      onChange={(e) => setEmail(e.target.value)}
    />
  </InputWrapper>
  <ButtonWrapper>
    <Button
      type="button"
      aria-label="Subscribe"
      onClick={() => handleSubmit()}
    >
    Subscribe
    </Button>
  </ButtonWrapper>
</NewsletterWrapper>
```

In this component you will show a different message from the default one after a user has successfully subscribed to your newsletter.
To do so you need a variable which will store the current state (submitted = true or submitted = false). 
This variable will have the default value **false**, which will be set to **true** after a user has subscribed successfully.

So if a user clicks on the "Subscribe-Button" the function **handleSubmit** will be executed which does the following:

+ input data will be send to the Mailchimp endpoint with ```addToMailchimp(email)```,
+ if the returned property from the Mailchim API has the value "error" your error handling function will handle the event,
+ otherwise the subscribe is being tracking with a custom Google Analytics event and submitted will be set to true.

> The Mailchimp API will always return a object with the properties **result** and **msg**.

```js
{
    result: string; // either `success` or `error` (helpful to use this key to update your state)
    msg: string; // a user-friendly message indicating details of your submissions (usually something like "thanks for subscribing!" or "this email has already been added")
}
```

Finally you just have to check the value of **submitted** and render the relevant content like the following:

```js
  return (
    <>
      {submitted ? (
        <NewsletterWrapper>
          <DescriptionWrapper>
            <h2>
              ðŸŽ‰ Successfully subscribed! ðŸŽ‰
            </h2>
            <p>
            Thank your for your interest in my content.
            </p>
          </DescriptionWrapper>
        </NewsletterWrapper>
      ) : (
        <NewsletterWrapper>
            <DescriptionWrapper>
              <p>
                Do you want to know when I post something new? <br/> 
                Then subscribe to my newsletter.
                ðŸš€
              </p>
            </DescriptionWrapper>
          <InputWrapper>
            <Input
              type="email"
              name="email"
              id="mail"
              label="email-input"
              placeholder="Your e-mail address"
              onChange={(e) => setEmail(e.target.value)}
            />
          </InputWrapper>
          <ButtonWrapper>
            <Button
              type="button"
              aria-label="Subscribe"
              onClick={() => handleSubmit()}
            >
              "Subscribe"
            </Button>
          </ButtonWrapper>
        </NewsletterWrapper>
      )}
    </>
  )
}
```
If you want to learn more about sign-up forms i suggest to have a look at [Non-Invasive Sign Up Forms](https://sld.codes/articles/Non-Invasive-Sign-Up-Forms "Non-Invasive Sign Up Forms") from Slarsen Disney. He is creating super UX-friendly websites and is sharing the code for it.

```js
import addToMailchimp from "gatsby-plugin-mailchimp"
import React, { useState } from "react"
import ConfettiAnimation from "../Animations/ConfettiAnimation"
import { trackCustomEvent } from "gatsby-plugin-google-analytics"
import styled from 'styled-components';

export const NewsletterWrapper = styled.form`
    display: flex;
    flex: 0 1 auto;
    flex-direction: row;
    flex-wrap: wrap;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    max-width: 750px;
    justify-content: center;
`
export const DescriptionWrapper = styled.div`
    text-align: center;
    flex-grow: 0;    
    flex-shrink: 0;
    flex-basis: 100%;    
    max-width: 100%;
`

export const InputWrapper = styled.div`
    flex-direction: column;
    justify-content: center;
    display: flex;
    flex-grow: 0;
    flex-shrink: 0;
    flex-basis: 50%;
    max-width: 66.66667%;
`

export const Input = styled.input`
    padding-top: 15px!important;
    padding-bottom: 15px!important;
    padding: 12px 20px;
    margin: 8px 0;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    border: 2px solid hsla(0,0%,90.2%,.95);
    :invalid {
        border: 1px solid red;
    }
`

export const ButtonWrapper = styled.div`
    flex-direction: column;
    justify-content: center;
    display: flex;
    flex-grow: 0;
    flex-shrink: 0;
    flex-basis: 50%;
    max-width: 33.33333%;
`

export const Button = styled.button`
    box-sizing: border-box;
    border: 2px solid ${props =>
        props.background ? props.background : 'white'};
    color: white;
    text-transform: uppercase;
    position: relative;
    padding-top: 15px!important;
    padding-bottom: 15px!important;
    outline: none;
    overflow: hidden;
    width: 100%;
    transition: all .2s ease-in-out;
    text-align: center;
    background: ${props =>
        props.background ? props.background : 'hsla(0,0%,90.2%,.95)'};
    :hover {
        box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5) 0px 8px 16px 0px;
        transform: translateY(0) scale(1);
`

export default ({ }) => {
  const [email, setEmail] = useState("")
  const [submitted, setSubmitted] = useState(false)   


  function errorHandling(data) {
    // your error handling
  }
  
  const handleSubmit = () => {
    addToMailchimp(email).then((data) => {

      if (data.result == "error") {
        errorHandling(data)
      } else {
        trackCustomEvent({
          category: "Newsletter",
          action: "Click",
          label: `Newsletter Click`,
        })
        setSubmitted(true)
      }
    })
  }

  return (
    <>
      {submitted ? (
        <NewsletterWrapper>
          <DescriptionWrapper>
            <h2>
              ðŸŽ‰ Successfully subscribed! ðŸŽ‰
            </h2>
            <p>
            Thank your for your interest in my content.
            </p>
          </DescriptionWrapper>
        </NewsletterWrapper>
      ) : (
        <NewsletterWrapper>
            <DescriptionWrapper>
              <p>
                Do you want to know when I post something new? <br/> 
                Then subscribe to my newsletter.
                ðŸš€
              </p>
            </DescriptionWrapper>
          <InputWrapper>
            <Input
              type="email"
              name="email"
              id="mail"
              label="email-input"
              placeholder="Your e-mail address"
              onChange={(e) => setEmail(e.target.value)}
            />
          </InputWrapper>
          <ButtonWrapper>
            <Button
              type="button"
              aria-label="Subscribe"
              onClick={() => handleSubmit()}
            >
              "Subscribe"
            </Button>
          </ButtonWrapper>
        </NewsletterWrapper>
      )}
    </>
  )
}
```

Managing your own newsletter is crucial for creating a sustainable online-business. With E-Mails you can build a relationsship with your audience and engage with them so they will drive some nice traffic to your new post or whatever you just have published and want to promote.

How to create a Mailchimp newsletter sign-up-form for your Gatsby Site

With [AWS](https://aws.amazon.com/ "AWS") (and in particular the [free AWS contingent](https://aws.amazon.com/en/free/ "free AWS account")) you have the option of a static website with a custom domain for a few Hosting cents a month including CDN via CloudFront and CI / CD integration.

Before I switched completely to AWS, I had a common shared hosting option that cost me around € 72 a year. With this option I had
+ 250 GB SSD storage space,
+ free unlimited traffic,
+ 6 domains included,
+ 250 GB SSD mail storage space,
+ 25 MySQL databases,
+ and, and, and.

On the whole, much more than I need to run my static [GatsbyJS](https://www.gatsbyjs.com/) website.

So why shouldn't I only use and pay for resources that I ultimately need and also get some cloud computing experience?

## Creating S3-Buckets 

The basis for hosting on AWS is formed by [S3 Buckets](https://s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/home "S3 Buckets"). 
Buckets are "containers" on the web where you can save files.
In order for redirects from subdomains such as **www.mxd.codes** to **mxd.codes** to work, you need a bucket for each domain.

First of all, you create an S3 bucket for the root domain. In my case, the bucket name is the domain name mxd.codes and you select a region (for example EU (Frankfurt)).
The default settings can be kept under Options, unless you want to save different versions or access protocols.
So that everyone can access the website content later, remove the tick that is present by default at "Block *any* public access", check the bucket settings again and finally create it.

In each bucket you can or should enter a bucket policy that further defines access.
To do this, click on the name of the bucket and go to "Permissions" -> "Bucket Policy".

The following guideline must then be saved for public access.
```json
{
    "Version": "2008-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "AllowPublicRead",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Principal": {
                "AWS": "*"
            },
            "Action": "s3:GetObject",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::mxd.codes/*"
        }
    ]
}
```
**"mxd.codes" has to be replace with your bucket name!**

If everything was done correctly, the permissions should now look something like this:

![bucket_richtline_d32ff17da6.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/bucket_richtline_d32ff17da6_173be5d676.png)

In the bucket settings you have to activate the "hosting a static website" and specify an index document and an error document.
For GatsbyJS that would be **index.html** and **404.html**.

![bucket_hosting_6f40697460.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/bucket_hosting_6f40697460_500bdd971a.png)

Now the S3 bucket for the subdomain **www.mxd.codes** is still missing.
So create a new bucket with the name of the subdomain **www.mxd.codes** with public access and add the bucket policy.

In the settings for "hosting a static website" you use "redirect requests" and enter the target bucket **mxd.codes** and you can enter **https** as a protocol, because later on the content of the static website is delivered via CloudFront, which can be encrypted with SSL certificates.

![bucket_redirect_740544f6d5.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/bucket_redirect_740544f6d5_5b708ee0ba.png)

The buckets are now created and correctly configured for the operation of a static website including redirect.

## CloudFront Distributions

With the free AWS contingent, 50 GB of data transfer can be burned per month in Cloudflare.

With a page size of generous 4 MB, this is enough for 12,500 page views per month and should therefore be more than sufficient for a website with average traffic. So why not take a free CDN with you?

If the costs incurred after the free year should deter someone, you still have the option to switch to another CDN provider such as [CloudFlare](https://www.cloudflare.com "CloudFlare").

At [CloudFront](https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/ "CloudFront") you have to create a web distribution for **each** bucket.
As the origin domain name, a bucket can **not** be selected from the dropdown list, but the end point of the bucket from S3 must be copied.

![cloudfront_origin_f1e2731789.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/cloudfront_origin_f1e2731789_3f2eb47d64.png)

In the distribution for the bucket **mxd.codes**, for example "mxd.codes.s3-website.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com" is specified as origin.
"Origin ID" will then be filled in automatically. In "Viewer Protocol Policy" **Redirect HTTP to HTTPS** is selected because users should only be able to access the website via HTTPS.  "Compress Objects Automatically" **Yes** can be selected, so that CloudFront will zip all files automatically.
Under "Alternate Domain Names (CNAMES)" you have to specify the bucket for the root domain for the distribution for the root domain. For example mxd.codes

At "SSL-Certifacte" you can now create for the two domains **mxd.codes** and **www.mxd.codes** two free Amazon SSL certificate via the [Certificate Manager (ACM )](https:/https://aws.amazon.com.amazon.com/en/certificate-manager/ "Certificate Manager (ACM)"). To do this, add your two domains in ACM.

![acm_domain_ee3a548091.png](https://cms.mxd.codes/uploads/acm_domain_ee3a548091_38bd644d47.png)

You can now have this validated using a DNS or email method. If you have included your domain in Route 53, you can do it more or less automatically by simply following the instructions.

Back in the CloudFront Distribution Creation you only have to specify a "Default Root Object". -> index.html
If you don't do this, CloudFront always shows an "Access Denied" message in XML format when you access your domain (atleast that was my case).

Finally, the distribution must of course still be activated under "Distribution State".

First distribution finished. The same procedure now for the subdomain **www.mxd.codes** with the corresponding "Origin Domain Name" (**Bucket end point!**)

_This can take up to 20 minutes_
(If you want to clear your CloudFront cache and have already installed AWS CLI, you can do this with the following command:

```shell
aws cloudfront create-invalidation --distribution-id DEINE_DISTRIBUTION ID --paths "/*"
```

In the meantime, you can create the redirects for Cloudfront in Route 53.

## Route 53 DNS settings

In [Route 53]("Route 53") you need a hosted zone (= 0.50€ per month). Then A (and provided that in the CLoudFrontDistribution IPv6 is
activated (which it is by default), as well as an AAAA) data record can be created.

That means you basically need 4 "alias" data sets:
+ mxd.codes A "CloudFront URL for root domain"
+ mxd.codes AAAA "CloudFront URL for root domain"
+ www.mxd.codes A "CloudFront URL for subdomain"
+ www.mxd.codes AAAA "CloudFront URL for subdomain"

Exceptionally, you can select the CDN url from the dropdown list.
With "Routing Guideline" and "Assess the state of the target" you can leave the default settings, unless you want to experiment.

Now if you wait a little you should be redirect from
+ http://wwww.mxd.codes,
+ https://wwww.mxd.codes,
+ wwww.mxd.codes,
+ http://mxd.codes and
+ mxd.codes
to **https://mxd.codes** .


With AWS (and in particular the free AWS contingent) you have the option of a static website with a custom domain for a few Hosting cents a month including CDN via CloudFront and CI/CD integration.

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