FTP Deployment: GitHub Action

This GitHub action copies the files via FTP from your Git project to your server in a specific path.

Usage Example

Add this code in ./.github/workflows/your_action.yml.

More about GitHub "secrets" in this article: Creating and storing encrypted secrets.

name: CI -> Deploy to My website
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main, development ]
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      # Here is the deployment action
      - name: Upload from public_html via FTP
        uses: airvzxf/ftp-deployment-action@latest
        with:
          server: ${{ secrets.FTP_SERVER }}
          user: ${{ secrets.FTP_USERNAME }}
          password: ${{ secrets.FTP_PASSWORD }}
          local_dir: "./public_html"

Optionally, you can get the live version which has the last commits using the master branch like this: uses: airvzxf/ftp-deployment-action@master.

Settings

Usually the zero values mean unlimited or infinite. This table is based on the default values on lftp-4.9.2.

Option	Description	Required	Default	Example
server	FTP Server.	Yes	N/A	rovisoft.net
user	FTP Username.	Yes	N/A	myself@rovisoft.net
password	FTP Password.	Yes	N/A	ExampleOnlyAlphabets
local_dir	Local directory.	No	"./"	"./public_html"
remote_dir	Remote directory.	No	"./"	"/www/user/home"
max_retries	Times that the lftp command will be executed if an error occurred.	No	10	N/A
delete	Delete all the files inside of the remote directory before the upload process.	No	false	N/A
no_symlinks	Do not create symbolic links.	No	false	N/A
mirror_verbose	Mirror verbosity level.	No	1	N/A
ftp_ssl_allow	FTP - Allow SSL encryption	No	true	N/A
ftp_use_feat	FTP - FEAT: Determining what extended features the FTP server supports.	No	true	N/A
ftp_nop_interval	FTP - Delay in seconds between NOOP commands when downloading tail of a file.	No	2	N/A
net_max_retries	NET - Maximum number of operation without success. 0 unlimited. 1 no retries.	No	1	N/A
net_persist_retries	NET - Ignore hard errors. When reply 5xx errors or there is too many users.	No	5	N/A
net_timeout	NET - Sets the network protocol timeout.	No	15s	N/A
dns_max_retries	DNS - 0 no limit trying to lookup an address otherwise try only this number of times.	No	8	N/A
dns_fatal_timeout	DNS - Time for DNS queries. Set to "never" to disable.	No	10s	N/A
lftp_settings	Any other settings that you find in the MAN pages for the LFTP package.	No	""	"set cache:cache-empty-listings true; set cmd:status-interval 1s; set http:user-agent 'firefox';"

More information on the official site for lftp - Manual pages.

Example with NO DEFAULT settings:

name: CI -> Deploy to My website
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main, development ]
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      # Here is the deployment action
      - name: Upload from public_html via FTP
        uses: airvzxf/ftp-deployment-action@latest
        with:
          server: ${{ secrets.FTP_SERVER }}
          user: ${{ secrets.FTP_USERNAME }}
          password: ${{ secrets.FTP_PASSWORD }}
          local_dir: "./public_html"
          remote_dir: "/www/sub-domain/games/myself"
          delete: "true"
          max_retries: "7"
          no_symlinks: "false"
          ftp_ssl_allow: "true"
          ftp_use_feat: "true"
          ftp_nop_interval: "9"
          net_max_retries: "0"
          net_persist_retries: "11"
          net_timeout: "13s"
          dns_max_retries: "17"
          dns_fatal_timeout: "never"
          lftp_settings: "set cache:cache-empty-listings true; set cmd:status-interval 1s; set http:user-agent 'firefox';"

NOTES

Main features:

• Copy all the files inside the specific folder from your GitHub repository to the specific folder in your server.
• Option to delete all the files in the specific remote folder before the upload.
• Using Alpine container means small size and faster creation of the container.
• Show messages in the console logs for every executed command.

TODOs:

• Add options for exclude delete files.
• Take all the logs from the Linux container then attach all into the Workflow Artifacts, to review unknown errors.