serverAppConfigs/docs/deployment.md

Deployment and Update Process

This page describes how to deploy and update the LLM servers on Dankserver and Dankclaw. The process uses git as the single source of truth. All script edits flow through this repository.

Overview

Two servers run LLM inference services. Each server pulls its scripts from this repository. The deployment process moves a committed change from the repository to a running service.

Target	Host	Runtime	Service	Port
Dankclaw	dank@dankclaw	ROCmFPX llama.cpp	llama-server	8080
Dankserver	dank@dankserver	vLLM (Docker)	vllm-qwen36	8000

Workflow

The deployment workflow has six steps.

graph LR
    A[Edit scripts locally] --> B[Commit]
    B --> C[Push to origin<br>Gitea on Dankclaw]
    C --> D[Pull on target<br>git pull]
    D --> E[Restart systemd service]
    E --> F[Verify health endpoint]

1. Fetch the current script from the target machine.
2. Commit the fetched version in this repository.
3. Edit the script locally in the working tree.
4. Commit and push the change to origin.
5. Pull the change on the target machine.
6. Restart the service and verify that it is healthy.

Deploy Script

The scripts/deploy.sh script executes steps 4 through 6. Run it from the repository root.

Run this command to deploy to Dankclaw:

./scripts/deploy.sh dankclaw

Run this command to deploy to Dankserver:

./scripts/deploy.sh dankserver

Add the --dry-run flag to preview without making changes:

./scripts/deploy.sh dankclaw --dry-run

The script does these actions:

1. Verifies that the local working tree has no uncommitted changes.
2. Pushes the main branch to origin.
3. Pulls the repository on the target machine.
4. Installs or updates the systemd unit.
5. Reloads systemd and restarts the service.
6. Waits for the health endpoint to respond.

Manual Update

If you cannot run the deploy script, update a server manually. Complete each step on the target machine.

Update Dankclaw

1. Pull the repository.
2. Symlink the unit file, if it changed.
3. Reload and restart the service.

Run these commands on Dankclaw:

cd /home/dank/vllmScripts
git pull origin main
sudo ln -sf /home/dank/vllmScripts/scripts/llama-server.service /etc/systemd/system/llama-server.service
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart llama-server
curl -sf http://127.0.0.1:8080/health

Update Dankserver

Run these commands on Dankserver:

cd /home/dank/vLLM
git pull origin main
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart vllm-qwen36
curl -sf http://127.0.0.1:8000/health

Service Units

Dankclaw — llama-server

The active service on Dankclaw runs the ROCmFPX llama.cpp runtime. It serves the Ling-3.0-flash ROCmFP4 MTP model with draft-mtp speculative decoding. The unit file is scripts/llama-server.service in the repository. The machine symlinks it to /etc/systemd/system/llama-server.service.

Dankserver — vllm-qwen36

The vLLM service on Dankserver runs in a Docker container. The unit file is a physical file on the machine, not a symlink into the repository. The vllm-qwen36.sh launcher in the repository passes the model and flags to docker run.

Note: a second unit, vllm-awq-qwen36.service, currently runs the AWQ 4-bit model on port 34401. Verify the intended service before a restart. See the repository git log for the latest decision.

Validation

The deploy script checks the health endpoint after a restart. For deeper checks, run the validation script on the target.

Run this command on Dankserver to test vLLM throughput:

./scripts/validate-vllm.sh

Troubleshooting

If the health check fails after a deploy:

1. Read the service logs with journalctl -u <service> -n 200.
2. Confirm that the model files exist in the cache.
3. Confirm that the GPU has free memory.
4. Check the service status with systemctl status <service>.

See Also

• AGENTS.md — the git workflow rules
• README.md — repository overview
• index.md — knowledge base index