Self-Hosting selfh.st/icons With Git-Sync

selfh.st/icons is a beautiful collection of open-source icons designed specifically for modern dashboards, websites, and applications. With over 1000+ icons available in SVG, PNG, and WebP formats, it provides a consistent and minimalist design language that can enhance your user interfaces.

What is selfh.st/icons?

The project offers a comprehensive set of icons that are:

• Designed with a consistent style and pixel-perfect precision
• Available in SVG / PNG / WebP formats for maximum scalability
• Open-source and free to use
• Perfect for dashboards, admin panels, and modern web applications
• Regularly updated with new icons

You can browse and use these icons directly from selfh.st/icons, but what if you want to self-host them for better control, reliability, and customization?

Self-hosting selfh.st/icons

The icons collection is available on GitHub at github.com/selfhst/icons. To self-host, you can:

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/selfhst/icons.git

2. Serve the static files using your preferred web server (Nginx, Apache, etc.)

However, the challenge comes when you want to keep your self-hosted instance up-to-date with the upstream repository. As new icons are added or existing ones are improved, you'd want these updates in your self-hosted version.

Automating updates with git-sync

This is where git-sync comes in handy. It's a simple yet powerful tool that helps you keep your repository in sync with an upstream repository automatically.

Setting up git-sync

1. First, install git-sync:

You can install the latest binary from the releases page or use the pre-build Docker image.

2. Setup configuration file:

Once you have git-sync installed, you can create a configuration file to define the sync behavior. Here's an example configuration for keeping selfh.st/icons in sync with your self-hosted instance:

raw_git_urls: ['https://github.com/selfhst/icons']
backup_dir: /path/to/backup
clone_type: full

Save this file as config.yaml under ~/.config/git-sync/ directory.

3. Run git-sync:

Run the following command to start the sync process:

git-sync

This will clone the repository (if not already cloned) and keep it in sync with the cloud repository.

This is a one-time sync process, but if you want to keep it in sync with the cloud repository, you can setup a cron job to run the git-sync command at a regular interval or use the --cron flag to run it periodically and keep the service running in the background (more preferred way if you are running it via Docker).

More details about setting up git-sync can be found in the git-sync documentation.

Benefits of using git-sync

• Automated Updates: No manual intervention needed to stay up-to-date
• Configurable Sync Interval: Choose how frequently you want to check for updates
• Custom Commands: Run additional commands after syncing (e.g., rebuild your site)
• Lightweight: Minimal resource usage while running in the background

Conclusion

Self-hosting selfh.st/icons gives you complete control over your icon collection while git-sync ensures you're always in sync with the latest updates. This setup is perfect for:

• Organizations wanting to ensure icon availability
• Projects requiring offline access to icons
• Teams looking to customize or extend the icon collection
• Applications with high availability requirements

By combining selfh.st/icons with git-sync, you get the best of both worlds: a beautiful, comprehensive icon collection and automated synchronization to keep everything up-to-date.