Setting Up Hugo for Blogging on Your VPS⌗

Introduction⌗

Now that our VPS and web server are configured, it’s time to set up Hugo—a fast and flexible static site generator. This guide walks you through installing Hugo, creating a basic blog structure, and configuring a theme that makes sense for new bloggers.

Step 1: Install Hugo⌗

Hugo provides official binaries that are more up-to-date than the versions available in Linux package managers. Below are installation methods for Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Linux Installation (Snap Package)⌗

The easiest way to install the latest version of Hugo on Linux is via Snap:

sudo snap install hugo --channel=extended --classic

Verify the installation:

hugo version

If Snap isn’t available on your system, refer to Snapcraft to install it first.

Windows Installation⌗

Download the latest Hugo extended binary from Hugo’s GitHub Releases. Extract the .zip file and move the hugo.exe file to a directory in your system’s PATH, such as C:\Program Files\Hugo.

To verify, open PowerShell and run:

hugo version

macOS Installation⌗

On macOS, the recommended way to install Hugo is via Homebrew:

brew install hugo

Alternatively, download the latest release from GitHub, extract the binary, and move it to /usr/local/bin/.

Step 2: Create a New Hugo Site⌗

Navigate to your desired directory and generate a new Hugo site:

hugo new site myblog
cd myblog

This creates the basic structure for a Hugo site.

Step 3: Choose and Install a Theme⌗

For beginners, a clean and simple theme is best. Let’s use PaperMod, a well-maintained and feature-rich theme.

Clone the theme into your Hugo site:

git init
git submodule add https://github.com/adityatelange/hugo-PaperMod.git themes/PaperMod

Enable the theme by editing hugo.toml:

echo 'theme = "PaperMod"' >> hugo.toml

Step 4: Configure Hugo⌗

Starting from Hugo 0.110.0, the default configuration file is hugo.toml, hugo.yaml, or hugo.json. While config.toml is still supported for backward compatibility, it is considered deprecated. It’s recommended to use hugo.toml going forward.

Modify hugo.toml with basic settings:

title = "My Tech Blog"
baseURL = "https://yourdomain.com/"
theme = "PaperMod"
languageCode = "en-us"

[params]
    author = "Your Name"
    description = "A blog about Linux, VPS, and technology."

[markup]
    [markup.highlight]
        style = "monokai"

Step 5: Create Your First Post⌗

Generate a new post:

hugo new posts/welcome.md

Edit the file content/posts/welcome.md and add some content. When ready, build the site:

hugo -D

Start a local preview:

hugo server -D

Visit http://localhost:1313/ to see your blog in action.

Step 6: Deploy Your Hugo Blog⌗

Once satisfied, generate the static files:

hugo

Sync the public/ directory content to your web root over SSH:

rsync -avz -e "ssh -i /path/to/private_key" public/ user@your-vps:/var/www/html/

Make sure to replace /path/to/private_key with the correct path to your SSH private key and user@your-vps with your VPS login details.

Your Hugo blog is now live!

Conclusion⌗

With Hugo installed and configured across Linux, Windows, and macOS, you now have a minimal, efficient blogging platform. In the next post, we’ll automate deployments with rsync and systemd timers. Stay tuned!