Intro: Breaking Up with My Server

Big news: NCC has moved house!

It started when Alibaba Cloud slid into my DMs like a bureaucratic ex, demanding I fix some ICP filing I forgot years ago. I tried to re-apply multiple times, but got rejected every time (turns out I checked the wrong jurisdiction box… massive facepalm).
On top of that, my old 200M server was running like a potato (This server does not being promised with any mininum bandwith, they just tell you the peak is 200Mbps). It was lagging so hard I thought I was on dial-up. So, I found Hostdare’s CN2 GIA route in the US. $12 a month, no lag, and bandwidth that actually works? Stonks. 📈

While backing up, I realized my old WordPress blog was a dinosaur. Every page load was a spinning wheel of death. The PHP backend was working overtime just to render a header. It felt bloated.
Then I remembered the static site gang: Hexo, Hugo, etc. Perfect for CDN caching and speed. Plus, I get to Marie Kondo (delete) all those weird WordPress features I never use. It sparks joy.

NCC chose Hugo.

If WordPress is a slow-motion chef cooking every meal to order, Hugo is a gigafactory. It pre-compiles all your articles into static HTML “Meal Prep.” When a guest arrives, Nginx just serves the plate.
This architecture is so efficient that even a PC from the Windows 95 era could run it. Pair it with a CDN, and you’re looking at zero-cost scaling. Blazingly fast. 🔥

Hugo Initialization

Hugo isn’t high-maintenance like WordPress. It’s just a CLI tool. Run this, and boom, you have a file structure:

hugo new site . --force

For the love of code, please use Git. If you aren’t using version control in 2024, are you even a developer?

git init
git checkout main
git add .
git commit -m "initialize"
git remote add origin https://{Change_This_to_Your_Git_Repository_URL}
git push -u origin main

Picking a Theme: The Tinder of Tech

Choosing a Hugo theme is a whole discipline. Strictly speaking, it’s a template, but Hugo comes naked (no default theme). You have to go shopping on the Hugo Themes site.
But here’s the red flag: A lot of themes are maintained by random people in the open-source community. Quality varies wildy. Don’t just swipe right because it looks pretty. Check the GitHub Stars, Issue activity, and Docs. Otherwise, you’ll end up debugging someone else’s spaghetti code at 3 AM.

NCC swiped right on Hello Friend NG . Clean docs, minimalist vibe.
Pro tip: Install it via Git Submodule. Don’t just download the zip file like a caveman. This way, you can pull updates easily.

git submodule add https://github.com/rhazdon/hugo-theme-hello-friend-ng themes/hugo-theme-hello-friend-ng

The Config File: Go’s “Magic Number”

The config comes after the theme? Yeah, Hugo is quirky like that. You only need to touch hugo.toml.

MAJOR WARNING: There is a date format setting involving Jan 02, 2006.
I thought, “Why is this stuck in 2006? Let me update it to today.” Big mistake.
I broke the entire frontend.
Turns out, Jan 2 2006 at 15:04 is Go language’s specific reference time for formatting. It’s a magic number. DO NOT TOUCH IT.

Here is the production-ready config NCC scraped together after stepping on multiple landmines (includes the fix for the i18n routing nightmare mentioned later):

baseURL = 'https://blog.nancunchild.cn/'
languageCode = 'zh-CN'
title = 'NanCunChild的碎碎念'
theme = 'hugo-theme-hello-friend-ng'
pagination.pagerSize = 10
defaultContentLanguage = 'zh-cn' # just change this into your first language, then it can be the default one
defaultContentLanguageInSubdir = false

[params]
    dateform        = "Jan 02, 2006"
    dateformShort   = "Jan 02"
    dateformNum     = "2006-01-02"
    dateformNumTime = "2006-01-02 15:04"

    subtitle = "NCC的碎碎念"
    description = "NanCunChild的个人博客，包含生活，技术和幻想"
    keywords = "homepage, blog, nancunchild, tech"
    images = ["assets/web_icon.ico"]
    disableReadOtherPosts = false

    enableSharingButtons = false
    enableGlobalLanguageMenu = true

    defaultTheme = "auto"

    [params.author]
        name = "NanCunChild"

    [params.contact]
        email = '[email protected]'
    

[languages]
    [languages.zh-cn]
        languageCode = 'zh-CN'
        languageName = '中文'
        weight = 1
        title = 'NanCunChild的碎碎念'
        [languages.zh-cn.params]
            subtitle = '生活、技术与幻想'
            [languages.zh-cn.params.homeInfoParams]
                Title = "你好 👋"
                Content = "欢迎来到NCC的碎碎念"

        [[languages.zh-cn.menu.main]]
            identifier = "about"
            name = "关于我"
            url = "/about/"
            weight = 5
        [[languages.zh-cn.menu.main]]
            identifier = "posts"
            name = "文章"
            url = "/posts/"
            weight = 10
        [[languages.zh-cn.menu.main]]
            identifier = "archives"
            name = "归档"
            url = "/archives/"
            weight = 20

    [languages.en]
        languageCode = 'en-US'
        languageName = 'English'
        weight = 2
        title = "NanCunChild's Blog"
        [languages.en.params]
            subtitle = 'Tech, Life and Fantasy'
            [languages.en.params.homeInfoParams]
                Title = "Hi there 👋"
                Content = "Welcome to NCC's Blog"

        [[languages.en.menu.main]]
            identifier = "about"
            name = "About"
            url = "/en/about/"
            weight = 5
        [[languages.en.menu.main]]
            identifier = "posts"
            name = "Posts"
            url = "/en/posts/"
            weight = 10
        [[languages.en.menu.main]]
            identifier = "archives"
            name = "Archives"
            url = "/en/archives/"
            weight = 20

    [languages.ja]
        languageCode = 'ja-JP'
        languageName = '日本語'
        weight = 3
        title = 'NanCunChildのブログ'
        [languages.ja.params]
            subtitle = '生活、技術とファンタジー'
            [languages.ja.params.homeInfoParams]
                Title = "こんにちは 👋"
                Content = "NCCのブログへようこそ"

        [[languages.ja.menu.main]]
            identifier = "about"
            name = "プロフィール"
            url = "/ja/about/"
            weight = 5
        [[languages.ja.menu.main]]
            identifier = "posts"
            name = "記事一覧"
            url = "/ja/posts/"
            weight = 10
        [[languages.ja.menu.main]]
            identifier = "archives"
            name = "アーカイブ"
            url = "/ja/archives/"
            weight = 20

Automating the Deploy: Work Smarter, Not Harder

The goal is an elegant workflow.
Writing happens locally. NCC recommends VS Code (with Markdown extensions) or Obsidian. Obsidian is basically a second brain; the UI is distraction-free, letting you enter a “flow state.”

Now for deployment. We aren’t going to manually upload files via FTP like it’s 1999. We want CI/CD.
The dream: Write locally -> git push -> Server updates automatically.

NCC initially thought building on GitHub would be slow, but it takes literally 5 seconds on a free Linux runner. So I decided to hand the keys to GitHub Actions. It’s way cleaner than having the server poll GitHub constantly.
Here is the workflow file (feel free to steal it):

name: Deploy Hugo to NCC Server

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  build-and-deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          submodules: true
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Setup Hugo
        uses: peaceiris/actions-hugo@v2
        with:
          hugo-version: 'latest'
          extended: true

      - name: Build
        run: hugo --minify

      - name: Setup SSH Key
        uses: shimataro/ssh-key-action@v2
        with:
          key: ${{ secrets.SSH_KEY }}
          known_hosts: 'just-a-placeholder-so-we-dont-get-errors'
          if_key_exists: replace

      - name: Add Known Hosts
        run: ssh-keyscan -H ${{ secrets.HOST }} >> ~/.ssh/known_hosts

      - name: Deploy with rsync
        run: |
          # attention, path problem
          rsync -avz --delete public/ ${{ secrets.USER }}@${{ secrets.HOST }}:/var/www/ncc_sites/ncc_blog/html

Security Check: Create a dedicated, low-privilege user on your server for this. Least Privilege Principle, folks. Don’t let GitHub have root access, or you’re gonna have a bad time.

The Final Boss: i18n

I thought I was done. I thought I could touch grass. But then i18n (internationalization) punched me in the face.
I set up English, Japanese, and Chinese. English worked. Japanese worked. Chinese? 404 Not Found.
I spent 2 hours doom-scrolling through source code and Nginx logs. I eventually asked Gemini (because AI is smarter than me… always).

The culprit?
The Simplified Chinese file is named zh-CN.toml. In the config, I had languageCode = 'zh'. It needed to be zh-cn.
While other languages have 2-letter codes, Chinese needs 4. And I have to append .zh-cn.md to my filenames. Case sensitivity is the real villain here. So, just check if your first language has the same situation like this.

Current Status

Now, NCC’s blog is running inside a Dockerized Nginx container.

  • Performance: 5% CPU usage under load. Instant load times.
  • Security: Static files mean SQL Injection is impossible. Hackers can cry about it.
  • Experience: Write in Obsidian -> Git Push -> Auto-deploy.

It works like a charm. And if GitHub Actions fails, it emails me immediately. It’s the ultimate peace of mind.