Last Updated on February 25, 2023
- Launched 01/02/18
- Closed 23/02/23
- Original URL jekyll.rocks
I set this site up as a sort of running fix log while I was trying to learn how to build websites using the Jekyll CMS. Some of these issues were real head-scratchers so I figured I was probably not the only person trying to solve these issues.

Jekyll Rocks archived posts:
Amazon hosting issues
- Connecting your Jekyll domain name to CloudFront
- Jekyll error – access denied
- Using CloudFront to set Amazon S3 permissions policy
- Set up Jekyll on S3 / CloudFront without www
- How to redirect http to https on CloudFront
- Jekyll site hosted on CloudFront & S3 not updating
- Where is Amazon AWS region us-east-1
- Displaying your domain name in CloudFront URLs
- Setting up SSL with Amazon S3 hosted Jekyll
- My base Jekyll hosting configuration
Troubleshooting Jekyll
About Jekyll ROCKS
Static websites built using Jekyll are incredibly fast and very secure. Instead of web pages being rendered by the server when requested by the user they are rendered by a developer on their own computer. The developer then uploads static html files. Because the static html files require very little from a host they can be plonked just about anywhere, including very low cost hosts like Amazon S3.
Because there is almost zero server load when rendering a webpage Jekyll websites are super fast. But there is a reasonably steep learning curve. Like a lot of developers I moved away from static websites at some point around 2002 and started using database facilitated CMS website builders, first Drupal, then WordPress. In late 2017 I decided I had grown so sick of fixing and securing WordPress sites that the time had come to look for a better way of building sites.
One day while out skating with a friend called Anders Fisher who is a proper developer he told me about Jekyll. The concept of building sites locally and deploying from the command line was just too tempting to my geek genes. Two weeks later my first Jekyll site was live, and life would never be the same.
Yeah, that’s all very sweeet, but what is Jekyll Rocks?
Despite the fact the documentation for Jekyll is very good indeed there have been many times when I got stuck. Using Jekyll has been my first experience of anything Ruby, so sometimes when hitting an obstacle I simply didn’t have the vocabulary to adequately search for help.
I figure I can’t be the only person who is fed up with WordPress and is looking for a way out. So I have built Jekyll Rocks to share some of the solutions to Jekyll problems that fellow WordPress refugees might also struggle with.
Please have a look at how I have my Jekyll hosting set up, this naturally informs a lot of the content on this site.
Important footnote!
Please can the post date when reading anything on Jekyll Rocks that you think might be a solution to your problem. This site is infrequently updated. If I’ve dropped a clanger or a solution needs to be updated please feel free to contact me.
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