How do I SCP repo files using GitHub Actions?

Question

I'm trying to implement a GitHub action that will SCP my repo files to a server on a push to the master branch. I have a similar setup working on Bitbucket Pipelines, but now that I'm learning to do this with GitHub actions, I'm not having any luck.

My project is a simple Node.js app, where I would like to simply scp all the files to the server, then I will run a post-scp script to npm i once the new files are copied to the server. Just want to keep things simple while I'm learning.

I'm using the scp-files GitHub Action. Here is my file:

name: Deploy to production

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - master
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - master
jobs:
  deploy:
    name: SCP files to server
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: SCP files via ssh key
        uses: appleboy/scp-action@master
        env:
          USERNAME: ${{ secrets.USERNAME }}
          HOST: ${{ secrets.HOST }}
          KEY: ${{ secrets.SSH_DEPLOYMENT_KEY }}
        with:
          source: './*'
          target: '/home/ubuntu/flatbread/'

This action is able to complete the Set up job and Build appleboy/scp-action@master. But it errors out when it runs appleboy/scp-action@master. This is the error I receive:

tar: empty archive
exit status 1
tar all files into /tmp/320558105/i2yG360Zje.tar
##[error]Docker run failed with exit code 1

I'm not quite sure what I am doing wrong. Even if I change the source: './*' to a sample folder (i.e. source: app), it still gives me the same error.

---

Update

If I change the source: './*' to source: '.', that seems to do the trick in terms of no more GitHub action errors:

tar all files into /tmp/719605837/1uYygkf4Vn.tar
scp file to server.
create folder /home/***/flatbread/
untar file 1uYygkf4Vn.tar
remove file 1uYygkf4Vn.tar
================================================
Successfully executed transfer data to all host.
================================================

Unfortunately, upon verifying the files on the server, no changes have been made to it. Any ideas why that is?

Answer 1

Hope this helps!

• First you create a folder outside your repo
• Then you copy all of your repo content into it
• Then you tar it
• Upload to the server

name: CI

# Controls when the action will run. Triggers the workflow on push or pull request
# events but only for the master branch
on:
  push:
    branches: [ master ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ master ]

# A workflow run is made up of one or more jobs that can run sequentially or in parallel
jobs:
  # This workflow contains a single job called "build"
  build:
    # The type of runner that the job will run on
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    # Steps represent a sequence of tasks that will be executed as part of the job
    steps:
    # Checks-out your repository under $GITHUB_WORKSPACE, so your job can access it
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    # Runs a set of commands using the runners shell
    - name: Run a multi-line script
      run: |
        mkdir ../build
        cp -TR . ../build
        tar -cvf deploy.tar ../build/

    - name: copy file via ssh password
      uses: appleboy/scp-action@master
      with:
        host: ${{ secrets.HOST }}
        username: ${{ secrets.USERNAME }}
        key: ${{ secrets.KEY }}
        port: ${{ secrets.PORT }}
        source: "deploy.tar"
        target: "destination/folder"