forgejo

Self-hosted Forgejo git server for archiving GitHub repos and mirroring active ones. Runs on a single EC2 instance within the Sea Haven VPC, fronted by the seahaven-com ALB for HTTPS.

Architecture

• EC2: t4g.small (arm64), Amazon Linux 2023, 20 GiB gp3 root (no state lives on it) — look up instance ID with:

  aws cloudformation describe-stacks --stack-name forgejo --query 'Stacks[0].Outputs[?OutputKey==`InstanceId`].OutputValue' --output text
  

  The AMI is cached in the committed cdk.context.json (cachedInContext: true) so deploys never pick up a new AL2023 release implicitly — an AMI change forces instance replacement and must be deliberate (cdk context --reset <ami key> && cdk synth).
• Data volume: standalone 50 GiB gp3 encrypted EBS volume (RemovalPolicy.RETAIN) mounted at /var/lib/forgejo — sqlite database, repositories, and logs all live here and survive instance replacement and stack deletion. UserData waits for the volume attachment, mounts the existing filesystem (a blkid guard prevents formatting a disk that has one), and tags it forgejo-backup=true for DLM snapshots.
• Restore-on-boot: if the data volume has no database on boot (first boot or total volume loss), UserData automatically downloads the latest S3 dump and restores it before starting the service — volume loss self-heals to ≤24h-old state with no manual steps.
• Network: Private subnet (us-east-1a), behind seahaven-com ALB for SSL termination
• DNS: forgejo.seahaven.com — Route53 alias record pointing to the seahaven-com ALB (not a direct A record)
• TLS: Wildcard cert on ALB, HTTP internally on port 3000
• Backup: Nightly forgejo dump to S3 + EBS snapshots via DLM (see 3-2-1 Backup Strategy)
• Admin access: SSM Session Manager (no SSH port exposed)
• CI/CD: GitHub Actions with OIDC role githubdeploy-forgejo

Ports

Port	Protocol	Source	Purpose
443	HTTPS	ALB (public)	Web UI + HTTP git clone
3000	HTTP	ALB → instance	Internal traffic from ALB
2222	SSH	VPC + VPN	Git SSH operations

3-2-1 Backup Strategy

All backups follow a 3-2-1 strategy: 3 copies, 2 storage types, 1 offsite provider.

Copy	Location	Type	Retention
Live	Standalone EBS data volume, RETAIN (us-east-1)	Block	N/A
Near-site	S3 replica (us-west-2)	Object	Archive: indefinite, noncurrent versions: 90d
Offsite	GCS forgejo-backups-offsite-seahaven (GCP us-central1)	Object	2-year locked retention

Daily data flow:

Time (UTC)	Event
05:00	forgejo dump → s3://forgejo-backups-328440206208/archive/{date}/
~05:01	S3 CRR replicates to forgejo-backups-replica-328440206208 (us-west-2)
06:00	DLM EBS snapshot (30-day retention)
08:00	Verification Lambda checks all 3 locations, posts to Slack
10:00	GCS Storage Transfer pulls from S3 to GCS offsite

S3 source lifecycle: Standard 30d → Glacier (no expiration).

Immutability layers:

• S3 Versioning on both source and replica buckets
• S3 Object Lock (Governance, 90d) on the replica bucket
• GCS Bucket Lock (2yr, irreversible) on the offsite bucket

Verification

The forgejo-backup-verification Lambda runs daily at 08:00 UTC and checks:

1. S3 source has a recent dump under archive/
2. S3 replica has replicated the latest dump
3. GCS offsite has received the latest transfer
4. EBS snapshots exist within the last 48 hours

On the 1st of each month at 09:00 UTC, it runs a restore test: downloads the latest dump, extracts the archive, and runs SQLite integrity checks.

Two CloudWatch alarms watch the verification Lambda (both notify the site-alerts SNS topic, ALARM action only):

• forgejo-backup-verification-errors — Errors ≥ 1 in an hour, missing data = not breaching ("when it runs, did it fail")
• forgejo-backup-verification-not-running — Invocations < 1 over 24h, missing data = breaching ("did it run at all")

Manual backup

sudo /usr/local/bin/forgejo-backup.sh

Restore from S3

For backups older than 30 days (Glacier), restore the object first:

aws s3api restore-object --bucket forgejo-backups-328440206208 \
  --key "archive/<date>/forgejo-<date>.tar.gz" \
  --restore-request '{"Days":7,"GlacierJobParameters":{"Tier":"Standard"}}'
# Wait ~3-5 hours for restore to complete, then:

Download and restore:

aws s3 cp s3://forgejo-backups-328440206208/archive/<date>/forgejo-<date>.tar.gz /tmp/
systemctl stop forgejo
mkdir -p /tmp/forgejo-restore && tar -xzf /tmp/forgejo-<date>.tar.gz -C /tmp/forgejo-restore
cd /tmp/forgejo-restore
cp app.ini /etc/forgejo/app.ini
cp gitea-db.sqlite3 /var/lib/forgejo/data/forgejo.db
rm -rf /var/lib/forgejo/data/repositories
cp -a repos /var/lib/forgejo/data/repositories
cp -a data/. /var/lib/forgejo/data/
[ -d lfs ] && cp -a lfs/. /var/lib/forgejo/data/lfs/
[ -d custom ] && cp -a custom/. /var/lib/forgejo/custom/
chown -R forgejo:forgejo /var/lib/forgejo /etc/forgejo/app.ini
systemctl start forgejo
rm -rf /tmp/forgejo-restore /tmp/forgejo-<date>.tar.gz

Restore from GCS (disaster recovery)

gcloud config set project sea-haven-backups
gsutil cp gs://forgejo-backups-offsite-seahaven/archive/<date>/forgejo-<date>.tar.gz /tmp/
# Then follow the same restore steps as S3 above

Autodiscovery

An hourly cron job checks the Sea-Haven-Industries GitHub org for new repositories and mirrors them into Forgejo automatically.

• Active repos are created as mirrors (ongoing sync).
• Archived repos are created as static one-time imports.
• Script: /usr/local/bin/forgejo-autodiscover.sh
• Log: /var/log/forgejo-autodiscover.log

Token Refresh

A daily cron at 4:30 UTC reads the GitHub PAT from Secrets Manager (forgejo/github-pat) and updates the git remote URL on every mirror repository so credentials stay current.

• Script: /usr/local/bin/forgejo-refresh-tokens.sh

PAT Rotation

The GitHub personal access token used for mirroring is a fine-grained PAT scoped to Sea-Haven-Industries with Contents: Read-only permissions and a 1-year expiration. It is stored in Secrets Manager at forgejo/github-pat.

To rotate:

1. Create a new fine-grained PAT on GitHub with the same scope.
2. Update the secret value in Secrets Manager (forgejo/github-pat).
3. The daily token-refresh cron will pick it up automatically.

To force immediate propagation:

sudo /usr/local/bin/forgejo-refresh-tokens.sh

Secrets Manager

Secret	Purpose
forgejo/admin-password	Forgejo admin user password
forgejo/api-token	Forgejo API token (used by autodiscovery and token refresh scripts)
forgejo/github-pat	GitHub fine-grained PAT for mirroring
forgejo/gcs-sa-key	GCP service account key for offsite backup verification
forgejo/gcs-transfer-credentials	AWS IAM credentials for GCS Storage Transfer Service
forgejo/slack-webhook	Slack webhook URL for backup verification alerts

First-time setup

After the stack deploys, connect via SSM and create the admin user:

INSTANCE_ID=$(aws cloudformation describe-stacks --stack-name forgejo --query 'Stacks[0].Outputs[?OutputKey==`InstanceId`].OutputValue' --output text)
aws ssm start-session --target "$INSTANCE_ID"

sudo -u forgejo /usr/local/bin/forgejo admin user create \
  --admin \
  --username adam \
  --password '<password>' \
  --email adam@seahavenind.com \
  --config /etc/forgejo/app.ini

Admin password is stored in Secrets Manager at forgejo/admin-password.

Access the web UI at https://forgejo.seahaven.com.

Migrating repos from GitHub

Archived repos (one-time import)

In the Forgejo web UI: New Migration → GitHub → paste the GitHub repo URL. Use a GitHub personal access token for private repos. These are full imports (code, issues, PRs, releases).

Active repos (mirror sync)

Same migration flow, but check This Repository Will Be A Mirror. Forgejo polls GitHub hourly (DEFAULT_INTERVAL = 1h in app.ini) and keeps the mirror in sync.

GCP Offsite Setup (one-time)

Run the setup script to create the GCS offsite bucket, service account, and store credentials:

./scripts/gcp-setup.sh

This creates the sea-haven-backups GCP project with a locked-retention GCS bucket. After running, configure the Storage Transfer job in the GCP Console using the AWS credentials from forgejo/gcs-transfer-credentials.

Infrastructure as Code (CDK)

All AWS infrastructure is defined as an AWS CDK v2 app written in TypeScript. There is no console-managed infrastructure — every resource in the sections above is synthesized from this repo.

Project layout

Path	Purpose
bin/app.ts	CDK app entry point. Instantiates both stacks and wires the dependency between them.
lib/forgejo-stack.ts	Main stack (forgejo, us-east-1): EC2 instance, security groups, IAM, ALB target/DNS, secrets, EBS data volume, DLM snapshots, and the backup-verification construct. Holds the FORGEJO_VERSION constant.
lib/forgejo-replica-stack.ts	Replica stack (forgejo-replica, us-west-2): the S3 CRR replica bucket with versioning, Object Lock (Governance, 90d), and Glacier lifecycle.
lib/constructs/backup-verification.ts	BackupVerification construct — the daily verification Lambda, its schedule, and CloudWatch alarms.
lambda/backup-verification/	Python 3.12 handler (app.py + requirements.txt) bundled via @aws-cdk/aws-lambda-python-alpha.
scripts/gcp-setup.sh	One-time GCP offsite bucket/service-account provisioning (see GCP Offsite Setup).
cdk.json	CDK configuration — the app command and context feature flags.
cdk.context.json	Cached context lookups (VPC + AMI), committed so synth is deterministic.

Stacks

The app defines two stacks, both pinned to account 328440206208 with explicit kebab-case stackNames:

• forgejo-replica (us-west-2) — the S3 replica bucket. Deployed first; exports the replica bucket ARN and name.
• forgejo (us-east-1) — the main stack. Consumes the replica bucket ARN/name and declares a dependency on forgejo-replica, so CDK always deploys the replica first.

cdk.json

cdk.json is the CDK entry configuration, committed to the repo:

• app: tsx bin/app.ts — runs the TypeScript app directly via tsx (a pinned devDependency), so no separate tsc build step is needed for synth.
• watch: include/exclude globs for cdk watch.
• context: CDK feature flags (e.g. @aws-cdk/core:target-partitions). Cached lookup context (VPC subnets, the AL2023 arm64 AMI) lives separately in cdk.context.json — cdk.json holds only feature flags.

aws-cdk-lib is pinned to an exact version (no ^/~) per the CDK version policy; Dependabot keeps it current.

Common commands

npm install
npm run synth        # cdk synth  — emit CloudFormation without deploying
npm run diff         # cdk diff   — diff local app against deployed stacks
npm run deploy       # cdk deploy — deploy (pass -- --all for both stacks)

Deployment

npm install
npx cdk deploy --all

This deploys two stacks:

• forgejo-replica (us-west-2) — S3 replica bucket with Object Lock
• forgejo (us-east-1) — main stack with Forgejo instance, CRR, and verification Lambda

CI/CD is handled by GitHub Actions — PRs run CI, merges to main deploy via the reusable CDK workflow.

Post-deploy: store Slack webhook

Store the Slack webhook URL for backup verification alerts:

aws secretsmanager create-secret --name forgejo/slack-webhook \
  --secret-string "https://hooks.slack.com/services/YOUR/WEBHOOK/URL" \
  --region us-east-1

Updating Forgejo

Update the FORGEJO_VERSION constant in lib/forgejo-stack.ts and deploy. This replaces the instance, so ensure the latest EBS snapshot is available for data recovery if needed. Alternatively, update in-place via SSM:

INSTANCE_ID=$(aws cloudformation describe-stacks --stack-name forgejo --query 'Stacks[0].Outputs[?OutputKey==`InstanceId`].OutputValue' --output text)
aws ssm start-session --target "$INSTANCE_ID"

sudo systemctl stop forgejo
sudo curl -Lo /usr/local/bin/forgejo "https://codeberg.org/forgejo/forgejo/releases/download/v<NEW_VERSION>/forgejo-<NEW_VERSION>-linux-arm64"
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/forgejo
sudo systemctl start forgejo