Ruby and I don’t get along.

I tried several methods to get a proper Jekyll install working on my dev computer. I’m not a ruby person; eventually, I could have figured it out. I wanted a better solution than having to learn enough of the ruby ecosystem and hoping that I would remember enough long-term to keep it stable on my system.

I tried using the macOS default ruby (which is a bit out of date, of course). I tried installing the latest via homebrew (and got close to a working solution) and I didn’t even try installing rbenv or rvm since I only wanted a working jekyll.

Enter: Docker.

Docker allows you to use pre-canned images for all sorts of purposes. I was sure I could find an image that fit my use case – I was sure it wasn’t all that unique.

  1. Install Docker using homebrew:
brew cask install docker

We want a working Docker on our system and the easiest path to that is the Docker Desktop for Mac. As with all my installs, I prefer to use homebrew or homebrew casks when they are available.

  1. Create a new jekyll site in current directory:
docker run --rm --volume="$PWD:/srv/jekyll" -it jekyll/jekyll jekyll new .
  1. Install all jekyll dependencies in the Docker container:
docker run --rm --volume="$PWD:/srv/jekyll" -it jekyll/jekyll jekyll build
  1. Run jekyll server as a Docker container:
docker run --name newblog --volume="$PWD:/srv/jekyll" -p 4000:4000 -it jekyll/jekyll jekyll serve --watch --drafts

The --name option can be any unique string; I chose newblog as the example used here.

  1. Open your browser to http://0.0.0.0:4000 Localhost will also work rather than the Docker specific 0.0.0.0.

  2. Hot reload changes:

docker restart newblog

Since the jekyll container is launched with the --watch flag, it should update as content is modified. However, if there are configuration changes, you might have to restart the container.

  1. Removing the container:
docker rm -f newblog

Most helpful site when trying to achieve this task: https://ddewaele.github.io/running-jekyll-in-docker/