Propper Purrs Website Publisher

A small, iPad-friendly publisher for a static website hosted on a Linux server. It accepts a website ZIP, validates and safely extracts it, creates a timestamped release, and atomically switches nginx to the new version. The five most recent releases remain available for one-tap rollback.

What the publishing flow looks like

1. Export or download the website as a ZIP.
2. Open the private publisher page on the iPad.
3. Choose the ZIP and tap Publish website.
4. The existing website remains live until the replacement is completely unpacked and validated.

The ZIP must contain index.html either at its root or inside one top-level folder.

Server layout

/opt/sites/propper-purrs/
├── current -> releases/2026-08-26-193015
├── releases/
│   ├── 2026-08-26-190102/
│   └── 2026-08-26-193015/
└── uploads/

The nginx container mounts the whole propper-purrs directory read-only and serves /srv/site/current. Mounting the parent directory is important: it lets nginx see atomic symlink changes without restarting the container.

First-time setup

Clone the repository on the Linux host, then identify the Docker network used by Nginx Proxy Manager:

git clone https://github.com/bytemaster-0xff/siteuploader.git
cd siteuploader
docker network ls
cp .env.example .env

Edit .env if the network is not named npm_default or if the site should live somewhere other than /opt/sites/propper-purrs.

Create the managed directory with the container user's ownership:

sudo install -d -o 1654 -g 1654 /opt/sites/propper-purrs

If the existing website is in a separate directory, import it before replacing the existing nginx container:

chmod +x scripts/bootstrap-existing-site.sh
sudo ./scripts/bootstrap-existing-site.sh /path/to/existing/site /opt/sites/propper-purrs

Then start the two managed containers:

docker compose up -d --build
docker compose ps

If propper-purrs-site already exists as a standalone container, remove that container immediately before the docker compose up command. Its files remain on the host; the bootstrap step above provides the managed copy and rollback point.

Nginx Proxy Manager

Create or update these proxy hosts:

Public host	Forward hostname	Port	Access
propperpurrs.com	propper-purrs-site	80	Public
publish.propperpurrs.com	propper-purrs-publisher	8080	Private Access List

For both hosts, enable SSL and Force SSL. On the publisher host, select an NPM Access List containing only the intended publisher account. Do not expose the publisher container directly with a host port.

NPM may default to a request-size limit smaller than 100 MB. Add this under the publisher proxy host's Advanced configuration:

client_max_body_size 100m;
proxy_request_buffering off;

Security behavior

• Rejects ZIP traversal paths and symbolic links.
• Limits ZIP uploads to 100 MB, expanded content to 500 MB, and archive entries to 10,000.
• Requires a root index.html before a release can go live.
• Extracts into a private staging directory and switches releases atomically.
• Mounts website content read-only in nginx.
• Uses a same-origin request token in addition to the NPM Access List.
• Exposes no general-purpose file browser or shell access.

NPM is the authentication boundary. The publisher should remain reachable only through its password-protected proxy host.

Configuration

ASP.NET Core environment variables use the Publisher__ prefix:

Variable	Default
Publisher__SiteRoot	/sites/propper-purrs
Publisher__MaxUploadBytes	104857600
Publisher__MaxExtractedBytes	524288000
Publisher__MaxArchiveEntries	10000
Publisher__ReleasesToKeep	5

Recovery without the publisher

To inspect releases and point current at a known-good version:

cd /opt/sites/propper-purrs
ls -1 releases
ln -sfn "releases/YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS" .current-next
mv -Tf .current-next current

The second command is an atomic rename, matching the operation used by the application.

Development

dotnet test tests/PropperPurrs.Publisher.Tests/PropperPurrs.Publisher.Tests.csproj
docker build -t propper-purrs-publisher:dev .

siteuploader