freeCodeCamp.org: How to Deploy, Secure, and Automate Full-Stack Web Apps – Course for Beginners

Learn how to take a web application from local development to a secure, live production environment. You will learn how to manually configure an Ubuntu server, set up essential runtimes, establish automated CI/CD pipelines, and secure your site using HTTPS and Cloudflare. By tackling everything hands-on before introducing automation, you will gain a deep, foundational understanding of full-stack deployment and how to reliably host complex systems.

⭐️ Links and resources ⭐️
Course handbook and documentation: https://github.com/ImadSaddik/FullStackDeploymentHandbook
Project source code: https://github.com/ImadSaddik/ImadSaddikWebsite
DigitalOcean ($200 free credit): https://m.do.co/c/4f9010fc5eb3
SSH config documentation: https://www.ssh.com/academy/ssh/config
Porkbun domain registrar: https://porkbun.com/
Let's Encrypt: https://letsencrypt.org/
Certbot: https://certbot.eff.org/
Cloudflare: https://www.cloudflare.com/
Nmap network scanner: https://nmap.org/
Pre-commit framework: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit
Pipx: https://github.com/pypa/pipx
GitHub Actions documentation: https://docs.github.com/en/actions
Meilisearch UI dashboard: https://github.com/eyeix/meilisearch-ui
GoAccess log analyzer: https://goaccess.io/
Btop resource monitor: https://github.com/aristocratos/btop
Locust load testing framework: https://docs.locust.io/
NCDU disk usage analyzer: https://dev.yorhel.nl/ncdu/man
OWASP ZAP scanner: https://www.zaproxy.org/
Crontab Guru: https://crontab.guru/
Mozilla HTTP Observatory: https://observatory.mozilla.org/
Security Headers audit: https://securityheaders.com/
Nginx Playground: https://nginx-playground.wizardzines.com/

To connect with Imad Saddik, check out his social accounts:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imadsaddik/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1VK2jL-sTIBUK2riD0DkKw

❤️ Support for this channel comes from our friends at Scrimba – the coding platform that's reinvented interactive learning: https://scrimba.com/freecodecamp
Links mentioned in the course:

⭐️ Contents ⭐️
- 0:00:00 Introduction
- 0:01:50 Problem statement & philosophy
- 0:06:23 Module overview & roadmap
- 0:16:25 Repo & handbook resources
- 0:17:21 Module 1: Foundation
- 0:20:30 Droplet provisioning
- 0:25:33 SSH keys & ED25519 generation
- 0:35:15 First login & package updates
- 0:40:05 Sudo users & disable root login
- 0:49:56 SSH configs & client shortcuts
- 0:57:00 UFW firewall lockdown
- 1:07:59 Fail2ban defense setup
- 1:14:24 DigitalOcean recovery console
- 1:19:28 Module 2: Application runtime
- 1:21:40 SCP code transfer & permissions
- 1:27:48 Python virtualenv & FastAPI
- 1:34:14 Node.js, NVM & pnpm setup
- 1:38:16 Fix OOM errors with swap memory
- 1:46:53 Local tests via SSH tunneling
- 1:52:01 Gunicorn & Uvicorn workers
- 2:00:46 Supervisord process monitoring
- 2:06:01 Memory & zombie processes via Btop
- 2:21:08 Sync URLs with Vite proxy
- 2:31:58 Nginx reverse proxy installation
- 2:50:28 Fix 502 Gateway & permissions
- 3:01:55 Security headers & CSP
- 3:23:20 Module 3: Data & search
- 3:26:51 Self-host Meilisearch on Ubuntu
- 3:28:30 Standard vs system users
- 3:34:26 DB dumps, snapshots & migration
- 3:41:40 Secure keys & systemd service
- 3:51:55 Seed search & connect FastAPI
- 4:05:40 Automate daily snapshots
- 4:08:45 Meilisearch UI dashboard
- 4:16:52 Module 4: Global delivery
- 4:19:00 Custom domain registration
- 4:23:43 Configure DNS A & CNAME records
- 4:29:07 SSL via Let's Encrypt & Certbot
- 4:36:50 Automate 90-day SSL renewals
- 4:42:09 Cloudflare CDN edge caching
- 4:59:47 Restore real visitor IPs in Nginx
- 5:14:37 Eliminate SPA soft 404 traps
- 5:23:48 Port scanning with Nmap
- 5:29:37 Module 5: Automation pipeline
- 5:34:11 GitHub Rulesets branch protection
- 5:39:14 Local hygiene via pre-commit
- 5:57:31 Modular GitHub Actions CI
- 6:30:07 Software Composition Analysis
- 7:03:15 SAST scanning with Bandit
- 7:13:40 Live Meilisearch integration testing
- 7:26:55 E2E testing via Playwright
- 7:41:48 DAST scanning with OWASP ZAP
- 8:00:43 Frontend build & artifact generation
- 8:03:34 Automated backup & cleanup scripts
- 8:07:28 Passwordless visudo configuration
- 8:11:05 Secrets & manual deployment reviews
- 8:41:35 Sync production files via rsync
- 8:46:26 Dynamic env file generation
- 8:50:26 Atomic venv swap & rollbacks
- 8:58:56 Rolling restarts (Supervisor/Nginx)
- 9:09:23 Module 6: Optimization & maintenance
- 9:10:22 Parsing Nginx logs via GoAccess
- 9:14:58 Password-protected analytics dashboard
- 9:20:51 Solving CSP restrictions via nonces
- 9:29:57 Aggregating compressed logs via zgrep
- 9:33:05 Hourly automated dashboard updates
- 9:34:21 Real-time server monitoring via Btop
- 9:42:26 Block malicious bots with UFW
- 9:50:30 Load testing & latency via Locust
- 10:05:38 Disk usage analysis via NCDU
- 10:08:14 JournalD & Nginx log retention
- 10:10:40 Monthly cron maintenance scripts
- 10:14:10 Scheduled deep DAST scanning
- 10:25:19 Conclusion