Backup a Github/dwyl Repo to Gitea!

[nelsonic]

Our original reasoning for this project is still very much still a reality.

GitHub still has regular "incidents": https://www.githubstatus.com/history where it's offline for hours ... ⏳

Using GitHub as our Single source of truth means it's "mission critical" and we need access to it pretty much always.

At present this project mirrors issue data to AWS S3 and @RobStallion asked a very valid question about it: #126
That's OK as a "cold" backup but it's not very useful for business continuity.

Starting Point

• Site: https://gogs.io/ https://gitea.io
• Installation: https://gogs.io/docs/installation --> PR: Gogs issue #79 learn-devops#81
• Deploy to Fly.io: https://fly.io/docs/app-guides/git-gogs-server --> https://github.com/dwyl/gitea-server

Todo

• Try the demo: https://try.gogs.io https://try.gitea.io
• GOTO: Gogs: Document localhost Setup (Docker) + Fly.io Deployment learn-devops#79
• Build an interface to connect to the Gogs server from Elixir: https://github.com/dwyl/gitea
• Backup GitHub issues for a sample repo (e.g. this one) to the Gitea server on Fly.io

[nelsonic]

https://github.com/gogs/gogs GitHub repo is very popular and has a healthy number of contributors:

Who is using Gogs? https://gogs.io a lot of CN companies:

Which makes sense as GitHub is partially blocked in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub#China
and it probably makes sense for CN companies to be at least a little paranoid of putting all their code/secrets on a US-owned platform. 💭

[nelsonic]

Also looked at Gitea: https://gitea.io/en-us/ > https://github.com/go-gitea/ > https://try.gitea.io/api/swagger#/repository

It's a Fork of Gogs with a focus on front-end UI/UX.
It looks good, basically a clone of what GitHub used to look like before Microsoft.

[nelsonic]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31033758

[nelsonic]

Gogs server deployed to: https://gogs-server.fly.dev/ 🚀

Documented in: https://github.com/dwyl/gogs-server ✅

[nelsonic]

The work on https://github.com/dwyl/gogs is coming along nicely.
We've shipped most of the core functions we need: https://hexdocs.pm/gogs/api-reference.html

But we are tidying it up a bit first before using it in an App: dwyl/gogs#24 + dwyl/gogs#25 + dwyl/gogs#26

[nelsonic]

really wish I had seen this page earlier: https://docs.gitea.io/en-us/comparison/ ... 🙄 ⏳

[nelsonic]

We've invested a considerable amount of time in: ⌛

• Deploying Gogs: https://github.com/dwyl/gogs-server + https://github.com/dwyl/learn-devops/tree/main/gogs 🚀
• Creating a package to interface with a Gogs instance from Elixir >gogs: https://github.com/dwyl/gogs ⚙️
• and a demo app showcasing that interface: https://github.com/dwyl/gogs-demo ✨

But re-reading the Gitea API I'm being forced to re-consider ... 🙄
I'm suffering from a serious case of "Sunk Cost Bias" ...

Basically 3 things are forcing me consider switching from Gogs to Gitea:

1. More extensive and documented API: https://try.gitea.io/api/swagger#/
2. Ability to create Orgs via the API:
   

• Orgs have a visibility option which allows them to be unlisted
  i.e. not visible even if someone has access to the Gitea instance.

3. Git Diff appears to be available via the API: Feat: Git Diff should return the diff between two commits gogs#27

[nelsonic]

Ok, while it totally sucks to write-off the time we've invested in Gogs and switch to Gitea, ⏳ 🔥 🤦‍♂️
I'm thinking that I will do a Spike to try and replicate the work we've done (deployment, module & demo). 🧑‍💻
It's definitely not a complete waste of effort because all the local_... functions can be recycled ♻️
and my reading is that there is a migration path from Gogs to Gitea: https://docs.gitea.io/en-us/upgrade-from-gogs ...
So all the underlying "DevOps" work should be transferable too. 🤞

Going to start with getting Gitea running on Fly.io: https://github.com/dwyl/gitea-server
Then I will try and simulate the API requests noted above:

1. Create an org that has visibility: hidden
2. Create a PR and attempt to get the diff via the REST API

If those two things work and it doesn't take me too much time I will report back.

Wish me luck! 🍀

[nelsonic]

Not for github-backup, but this is a useful feature for orgs that need privacy:
https://gitea-server.fly.dev/private-org visible to members:

404 for anyone else:

[nelsonic]

We've made substantial progress with this:

• gitea: https://github.com/dwyl/gitea
• gitea-server: https://github.com/dwyl/gitea-server
• gitea-demo: https://github.com/dwyl/gitea-demo

Still #Todo: Backups! dwyl/gitea-server#3 🙏