Bash - Deployment script for files to a webserver

Question

I am using an old machine as a webserver to host a static, code-generated site (the site serves HTML documentation, JS, PDFs and images). The old machine, along with development PC are on a home network, and connected to a single modem.

General advice that addresses the questions below would be appreciated:

1. How can the bash script below be extended deploy to the old machine on my network?

2. Do any iptables rules need to created? (especially wrt. to #3)

3. How can the script be extended in future to be used in a production environment and/or allow access to the site outside the home network?

---

#! /bin/bash
# deploy.sh

# Note: This script must be run as root or sudo, assumes the user 
# $WEBSERVER is created, and that thttpd is installed.

DEVELOP_ENV="/home/me/www"             # localhost www dir
STAGING_ENV="half_broken_server/www"   # target host www dir to deploy to
WEBSERVER="thttpd"                     # webserver user

function usage {
    printf "deploy [options...] [STAGING|DEVELOP]\n"
}

if [[ "$1" == "STAGING" ]]; then
    # prompt before deploying to staging
    read -p "Deploy to staging server?" -n 1 -r
    echo
    if [[ ! $REPLY =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then
        echo "Abort"
        exit 1
    fi
    echo "TODO: Ask StackExchange for help with this part"
elif [[ "$1" == "DEVELOP" ]]; then
    if [ -d dist ]; then
        # make www directory if it does not exist
        if [ ! -d `dirname $DEV_ENV` ]; then 
           mkdir -p $DEVELOP_ENV
        fi
        # copy all files to be served from dist
        cp -rf dist/* $DEVELOP_ENV 
    fi
    # grant read-only perms to local network users
    chmod -R 744 $DEVELOP_ENV 
    # restart the thttpd webserver process (if it is running)
    killall thttpd         
    $WEBSERVER -u $WEBSERVER -d $DEVELOP_ENV

    echo "Deployment sucessful!"
else
    usage
fi

---

The bash script copies files from a dir called dist to one of DEVELOP or STAGING environments so that on a local network content will be served from this dir and accessed at myuser@hostname or just hostname/ per /etc/host config.

Additional Details

• The files being served are entirely code-generated (HTML/CSS/JS) from C, Lua and Bash, and Make and are constantly changing during builds

• The webserver is thttpd, running on a base installation of Debian Wheezy

• Preferred: standard Unix utilities (e.g. scp, rsync) over other deployment frameworks (e.g. Fabric, Chef, Vagrant) or standard libraries from one of the languages mentioned above

• The webserver is for personal project work, and is not expected to be used by others