Quick Guide to Deploying a Hexo Blog on a Lighthouse Server

Many developers choose existing blog systems such as WordPress, Hexo, or Halo when building their own blogs. Hexo, as a fully static blog generator, has no database, consumes minimal server resources, and is highly customizable. This article walks developers through quickly setting up a Hexo blog on a lightweight Lighthouse server.

Hexo is a Node.js‑based static blog system. With Hexo, configuration files and Markdown posts are compiled into static HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files. Each article generates a real .html file and DOM element, unlike Vue’s hash or history routing.

Example Hexo project structure:

├── _config.fluid.yml       # theme configuration file
├── _config.yml            # Hexo configuration file
├── node_modules
├── package-lock.json
├── package.json
├── scaffolds
├── source                 # user source files
└── themes                 # theme files

Running hexo generate creates a public folder that contains the static files ready for deployment.

Required tools

Local machine: a computer with Node.js and Git installed (Windows, macOS, or Linux).

Server: a Lighthouse server (Linux recommended, e.g., Debian or CentOS).

Optional: CDN nodes and a domain name.

If Git is not installed locally, Windows users can download it from https://git-scm.com/download/win . For Node.js, using NVM is recommended; see the tutorial at https://cloud.tencent.com/developer/article/1812323 .

Server initialization

After SSH‑ing into the server, install the Baota (BT) panel, open port 8888, and install Nginx through the panel.

Git setup on the server

Create a dedicated git user:

# as root
useradd git
passwd git

Create the user’s home directory and set permissions:

mkdir /home/git
chown git:git /home/git -R

Switch to the git user:

su - git

Create bare repositories for the blog and image host:

# Blog repository
mkdir -p ~/mySource/myBlog
cd ~/mySource/myBlog
git init --bare

# Image host repository
mkdir -p ~/mySource/myImageHost
cd ~/mySource/myImageHost
git init --bare

Configure post-receive hooks to checkout the repository into the web root. Example for the blog:

git --work-tree=/www/wwwroot/myHexo/blog \
    --git-dir=/home/git/mySource/myBlog checkout -f

Make the hook executable:

chmod +x ~/mySource/myBlog/hooks/post-receive

Repeat the same steps for the image host, adjusting the paths accordingly.

Deploying Hexo

1. Initialize Hexo locally – ensure Node.js is installed, then run:

npm install -g hexo

Create a new Hexo project:

hexo init my-blog
cd my-blog

2. Run Hexo – start the local server for preview:

hexo s

3. Package and push – install the Git deployer, configure _config.yml , then generate and deploy:

npm install hexo-deployer-git --save
hexo g -d   # generate and push

After deployment, the static site is accessible via the server’s domain.

Deploying the image host

Create a local Git repository for images, add files, and push to the remote bare repository:

# Initialize local repo
mkdir imageHost
cd imageHost
git init
# Add remote (replace IP with your server)
git remote add origin git@
:/home/git/mySource/myImageHost
# Add files and push
git add .
git commit -m "update"
git push --set-upstream origin main

If you encounter remote: fatal: You are on a branch yet to be born , add git checkout -f to the server’s post-receive hook.

Nginx reverse proxy for the image host

To serve images under /imagehost on the same domain, add a location block in the Nginx configuration:

location /imagehost/ {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/myHexo/imageHost/;
}

This allows blog posts to reference images with URLs like https://yourdomain.com/imagehost/0.jpg .

Backup and FAQ

Backup the Hexo project (excluding node_modules and public ) and the image host folder. Restoring on a new machine involves extracting the archive and running hexo g -d again.

Q&A: Hexo runs smoothly on the lowest‑spec Lighthouse instance, but for heavier CMS like WordPress, a higher‑spec (e.g., 2C 4G) is recommended.