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Remove duplicate documentation

Open fulldecent opened this issue 3 years ago • 5 comments

The documentation is currently hosted at:

  • https://podman.io (canonical)
  • https://docs.podman.io (extra copy, with ads)

Please remove the docs.podman.io version and redirect it to the apex domain. Having the documentation in only one place makes it easier to find and maintain.

fulldecent avatar Aug 09 '22 14:08 fulldecent

Actually, I'm not even sure if this is a duplicate or how this website works. But it would be ideal if the entire website was checked into the /docs/ folder in this repository and the whole thing was hosted from GitHub Pages onto one domain name.

fulldecent avatar Aug 09 '22 14:08 fulldecent

@fulldecent, it's a bit messier than that, unfortunately. The documentation lives on readthedocs.org, and with each build, any new updates are moved there from Podman's GitHub repo, https://github.com/containers/podman/tree/main/docs/source. Then via some DNS hackery, we translate docs.podman.io to the ReadTheDocs site.

We've had conversations in the past and haven't landed on a cleaner spot to drop stuff, but still open for suggestions/thoughts. The other thing to consider is we're looking into moving the podman-py docs into the same place eventually.

TomSweeneyRedHat avatar Aug 09 '22 15:08 TomSweeneyRedHat

Ah, okay, so it's:

  • https://github.com/containers/podman.io ----GitHub Pages----> podman.io
  • https://github.com/containers/podman ----ReadTheDocs/tricks ----> docs.podman.io

Here is an option that puts everything on one domain:

  1. In containers/podman add a GitHub Action for each commit to main branch:
    1. Checkout containers/podman and containers/podman.io
    2. Copy podman/docs to podman.io/docs
    3. Commit
  2. Now the docs from the project are published at https://podman.io/docs
  3. Convert RST to MD or make any changes so the site works
  4. Update links to point to the new location.

This can be done incrementally. So step 1 can be done in production and changes can be made into production, cutover can happen after it works.

A downside of this approach is that the Jekyll configuration lives in containers/podman.io but most content lives in containers/podman. This is harder to perfect styles when running locally.


Here's an easier continuing with two domains:

  1. Publish containers/podman using GitHub Pages to the default location of https://containers.github.io/podman
  2. Make everything look good
  3. Publish a "CNAME" file of docs.podman.io into the repo
  4. Cut over DNS to host the documentation from GitHub Pages (like how podman.io is now doing)

fulldecent avatar Aug 09 '22 15:08 fulldecent

@fulldecent I think it's more like:

* https://github.com/containers/podman.io ----GitHub Pages--pushes to--> podman.io
* https://github.com/containers/podman/docs/source ----ReadTheDocs/tricks ---pushes to-> ReadTheDocs
* docs.podman.io --points to--> ReadTheDocs

The last one is through some special settings in DNS and the ReadTheDocs website.

The thought that I had muddling around in my noggins was similar to your last one. Moving the docs directory from the podman repo and putting it in the podman.io GitHub repo. That way I could also potentially move the docs stuff from the podman-py repo into the podman.io repo too.

TomSweeneyRedHat avatar Aug 09 '22 21:08 TomSweeneyRedHat

The problem moving the docs directory somewhere else is it would eliminate PRs from checking to make sure new options are documented. With @edsantiago new changes to how we build the content, there is a chance we could link the man pages across.

rhatdan avatar Aug 10 '22 10:08 rhatdan