Chapter 9: GitHub Actions Hands-On

9.7 Deploy sketch — SSH to one lab VM

By Ravindra Bagale · Last updated: 1 October 2026

Keep this thin. You already launch and secure VMs in the AWS course — we do not rebuild VPC, DNS or EC2 launch here.

Idea only:

1. Store SSH_HOST, SSH_USER, and a private key as secrets (lab keys only; rotate).
2. After image push, a job SSHs to the VM and runs docker pull … && docker compose up -d (or restart a single container with the new tag).
3. Curl a health URL on the VM's published shop counter.
4. On failure, redeploy the previous tag.

Official community SSH actions exist; read their docs and pin versions. For early labs, many students stop at push image and pull manually once — that is still honest CI.

Security. Do not leave a world-open SSH with password auth. Use keys, tight Security Groups (AWS course), and lab-only hosts you can wipe.