GitLab

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From GitLab's homepage:

GitLab offers git repository management, code reviews, issue tracking, activity feeds and wikis. Enterprises install GitLab on-premise and connect it with LDAP and Active Directory servers for secure authentication and authorization. A single GitLab server can handle more than 25,000 users but it is also possible to create a high availability setup with multiple active servers.

An example live version can be found at GitLab.com.

Installation

Note: This article covers installing and configuring GitLab without HTTPS at first. If needed, see #Advanced configuration to set up SSL.

GitLab requires Redis and a database backend. If you plan to run it on the same machine, first install PostgreSQL.

Install the gitlab package.

In order to receive mail notifications, a mail server must be installed and configured. See Category:Mail server for details.

Configuration

Preliminary Notes

GitLab is composed of multiple components, see the architecture overview page.

The gitlab package installs GitLab's files in a manner that more closely follow standard Linux conventions:

Description	GitLab's Official	gitlab
Configuration File GitShell	/home/git/gitlab-shell/config.yml	/etc/webapps/gitlab-shell/config.yml
Configuration File GitLab	/home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml	/etc/webapps/gitlab/gitlab.yml
User (Home Directory)	git (/home/git)	gitlab (/var/lib/gitlab)

Tip: If you are familiar with the Arch Build System you can edit the PKGBUILD and relevant files to change gitlab's home directory to a place of your liking.

GitLab

Edit /etc/webapps/gitlab/gitlab.yml and setup at least the following parameters:

Note: The hostname and port are used for the git clone http://hostname:port as example.

Hostname: In the gitlab: section set host: - replacing localhost to yourdomain.com (note: no 'http://' or trailing slash) - into your fully qualified domain name.

Port: port: can be confusing. This is not the port that the gitlab server (unicorn) runs on; it's the port that users will initially access through in their browser. Basically, if you intend for users to visit 'yourdomain.com' in their browser, without appending a port number to the domain name, leave port: as 80. If you intend your users to type something like 'yourdomain.com:3425' into their browsers, then you would set port: to 3425. You will also have to configure your webserver to listen on that port.

Timezone (optional): The time_zone: parameter is optional, but may be useful to force the zone of GitLab applications.

Finally set the correct permissions to the uploads directory:

# chmod 700 /var/lib/gitlab/uploads

Custom port for Unicorn

GitLab Unicorn is the main component which processes most of the user requests. By default, it listens on the 127.0.0.1:8080 address which can be changed in the /etc/webapps/gitlab/unicorn.rb file:

/etc/webapps/gitlab/unicorn.rb

listen "/run/gitlab/gitlab.socket", :backlog => 1024
listen "127.0.0.1:8080", :tcp_nopush => true

If the Unicorn address is changed, the configuration of other components which communicate with Unicorn have to be updated as well:

• For GitLab Shell, update the gitlab_url variable in /etc/webapps/gitlab-shell/config.yml.

Tip: According to the comment in the config file, UNIX socket path can be specified with URL-escaped slashes (i.e. http+unix://%2Frun%2Fgitlab%2Fgitlab.socket for the default /run/gitlab/gitlab.socket). Additionally, un-escaped slashes can be used to specify the relative URL root (e.g. /gitlab).

• For GitLab Workhorse, edit the gitlab-workhorse.service and update the -authBackend option.

Secret strings

Make sure that the files /etc/webapps/gitlab/secret and /etc/webapps/gitlab-shell/secret files contain something. Their content should be kept secret because they are used for the generation of authentication tokens etc.

For example, random strings can be generated with the following commands:

# hexdump -v -n 64 -e '1/1 "%02x"' /dev/urandom > /etc/webapps/gitlab/secret
# chown root:gitlab /etc/webapps/gitlab/secret
# chmod 640 /etc/webapps/gitlab/secret

# hexdump -v -n 64 -e '1/1 "%02x"' /dev/urandom > /etc/webapps/gitlab-shell/secret
# chown root:gitlab /etc/webapps/gitlab-shell/secret
# chmod 640 /etc/webapps/gitlab-shell/secret

Redis

In order to provide sufficient performance you will need a cache database. Install and configure a Redis instance, being careful to the section dedicated to listening via a socket.

• Add the gitlab user to the redis user group.

• Update this configuration file:

/etc/webapps/gitlab/resque.yml

development:
  url: unix:/run/redis/redis.sock
test:
  url: unix:/run/redis/redis.sock
production:
  url: unix:/run/redis/redis.sock

• Append to this configuration file:

/etc/webapps/gitlab-shell/config.yml

# Redis settings used for pushing commit notices to gitlab
redis:
  bin: /usr/bin/redis-cli
  host: 127.0.0.1
  port: 6379
  # pass: redispass # Allows you to specify the password for Redis
  database: 5 # Use different database, default up to 16
  socket: /run/redis/redis.sock # uncomment this line
  namespace: resque:gitlab

Database backend

A database backend will be required before Gitlab can be run. GitLab recommends to use PostgreSQL.

PostgreSQL

Login to PostgreSQL and create the gitlabhq_production database along with its user. Remember to change your_username_here and your_password_here to the real values:

# psql -d template1

template1=# CREATE USER your_username_here WITH PASSWORD 'your_password_here';
template1=# ALTER USER your_username_here SUPERUSER;
template1=# CREATE DATABASE gitlabhq_production OWNER your_username_here;
template1=# \q

Note: The reason for creating the user as a superuser is that GitLab is trying to be "smart" and install extensions (not just create them in its own userspace). And this is only allowed by superusers in Postgresql.

Try connecting to the new database with the new user to verify it works:

# psql -d gitlabhq_production

Copy the PostgreSQL template file before configuring it (overwriting the default MySQL configuration file):

# cp /usr/share/doc/gitlab/database.yml.postgresql /etc/webapps/gitlab/database.yml

Open the new /etc/webapps/gitlab/database.yml and set the values for username: and password:. For example:

/etc/webapps/gitlab/database.yml

#
# PRODUCTION
#
production:
  adapter: postgresql
  encoding: unicode
  database: gitlabhq_production
  pool: 10
  username: your_username_here
  password: "your_password_here"
  # host: localhost
  # port: 5432
  # socket: /tmp/postgresql.sock
...

For our purposes (unless you know what you are doing), you do not need to worry about configuring the other databases listed in /etc/webapps/gitlab/database.yml. We only need to set up the production database to get GitLab working.

MariaDB

Warning: Using GitLab with MariaDB is not recommended. You may run into issues like Specified key was too long; max key length is 767 bytes when trying to use MariaDB.

To set up MySQL (MariaDB) you need to create a database called gitlabhq_production along with a user (default: gitlab) who has full privileges to the database:

$ mysql -u root -p

mysql> CREATE DATABASE `gitlabhq_production` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET `utf8` COLLATE `utf8_unicode_ci`;
mysql> CREATE USER 'gitlab'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
mysql> GRANT ALL ON `gitlabhq_production`.* TO 'gitlab'@'localhost';
mysql> \q

Try connecting to the new database with the new user:

$ mysql -u gitlab -p -D gitlabhq_production

Copy the MySQL template file before configuring it:

# cp /usr/share/doc/gitlab/database.yml.mysql /etc/webapps/gitlab/database.yml

Next you will need to open /etc/webapps/gitlab/database.yml and set username: and password: for the gitlabhq_production:

/etc/webapps/gitlab/database.yml

#
# PRODUCTION
#
production:
  adapter: mysql2
  encoding: utf8
  collation: utf8_general_ci
  reconnect: false
  database: gitlabhq_production
  pool: 10
  username: username
  password: "password"
  # host: localhost
  # socket: /run/mysqld/mysqld.sock # If running MariaDB as socket
...

It should not be set as world readable, e.g. only processes running under the gitlab user should have read/write access:

# chmod 600 /etc/webapps/gitlab/database.yml
# chown gitlab:gitlab /etc/webapps/gitlab/database.yml

For more info and other ways to create/manage MySQL databases, see the MariaDB documentation and the GitLab official (generic) install guide.

Firewall

If you want to give direct access to your Gitlab installation through an iptables firewall, you may need to adjust the port and the network address:

# iptables -A tcp_inbound -p TCP -s 192.168.1.0/24 --destination-port 80 -j ACCEPT

To enable API-access:

# iptables -A tcp_inbound -p TCP -s 192.168.1.0/24 --destination-port 8080 -j ACCEPT

If you are behind a router, do not forget to forward this port to the running GitLab server host, if you want to allow WAN-access.

Initialize Gitlab database

Start the Redis server and the gitlab-gitaly.service before initializing the database.

Initialize the database and activate advanced features:

# su - gitlab -s /bin/sh -c "cd '/usr/share/webapps/gitlab'; bundle-2.5 exec rake gitlab:setup RAILS_ENV=production"

Finally run the following commands to check your installation:

# su - gitlab -s /bin/sh -c "cd '/usr/share/webapps/gitlab'; bundle-2.5 exec rake gitlab:env:info RAILS_ENV=production"
# su - gitlab -s /bin/sh -c "cd '/usr/share/webapps/gitlab'; bundle-2.5 exec rake gitlab:check RAILS_ENV=production"

Note:

• The gitlab:env:info and gitlab:check commands will show a fatal error related to git. This is OK.
• The gitlab:check will complain about missing initscripts. This is nothing to worry about, as systemd service files are used instead (which GitLab does not recognize).

Adjust modifier bits

(The gitlab check will not pass if the user and group ownership is not configured properly)

# chmod -R ug+rwX,o-rwx /var/lib/gitlab/repositories/
# chmod -R ug-s /var/lib/gitlab/repositories
# find /var/lib/gitlab/repositories/ -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod g+s

Start and test GitLab

Make sure PostgreSQL and Redis are running and setup correctly.

Then start/enable gitlab.target.

Now test your GitLab instance by visiting http://localhost:8080 or http://yourdomain.com, you should be prompted to create a password:

username: root
password: You will be prompted to create one on your first visit.

See #Troubleshooting and log files inside the /usr/share/webapps/gitlab/log/ directory for troubleshooting.

Upgrade database on updates

After updating the gitlab package, it is required to upgrade the database:

# su - gitlab -s /bin/sh -c "cd '/usr/share/webapps/gitlab'; bundle-2.5 exec rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production"

Afterwards, restart gitlab-related services:

# systemctl daemon-reload
# systemctl restart gitlab-sidekiq gitlab-unicorn gitlab-workhorse gitlab-gitaly

Advanced configuration

Basic SSH

After completing the basic installation, set up SSH access for users. Configuration for OpenSSH is described below. Other SSH clients and servers will require different modifications.

For tips on adding user SSH keys, the process is well-documented on the GitLab website. You can check the administrator logs at /var/lib/gitlab/log/gitlab-shell.log to confirm user SSH keys are being submitted properly. Behind the scenes, GitLab adds these keys to its authorized_keys file in /var/lib/gitlab/.ssh/authorized_keys.

The common method of testing keys (ex: $ ssh -T git@YOUR_SERVER) requires a bit of extra configuration to work correctly. The user configured in /etc/webapps/gitlab/gitlab.yml (default user: gitlab) must be added to the server's sshd configuration file, in addition to a handful of other changes:

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

PubkeyAuthentication   yes
AuthorizedKeysFile     %h/.ssh/authorized_keys

After updating the configuration file, restart the ssh daemon:

# systemctl restart sshd

Test user SSH keys (optionally add -v to see extra information):

$ ssh -T gitlab@YOUR_SERVER

Custom SSH connection

If you are running SSH on a non-standard port, you must change the GitLab user's SSH config:

/var/lib/gitlab/.ssh/config

host localhost      # Give your setup a name (here: override localhost)
user gitlab         # Your remote git user
port 2222           # Your port number
hostname 127.0.0.1; # Your server name or IP

You also need to change the corresponding options (e.g. ssh_user, ssh_host, admin_uri) in the /etc/webapps/gitlab/gitlab.yml file.

HTTPS/SSL

Change GitLab configs

Modify /etc/webapps/gitlab/shell.yml so the url to your GitLab site starts with https://. Modify /etc/webapps/gitlab/gitlab.yml so that https: setting is set to true.

See also Apache HTTP Server#TLS and Let’s Encrypt.

Let's Encrypt

To validate your URL, the Let's Encrypt process will try to access your gitlab server with something like https://gitlab.YOUR_SERVER_FQDN/.well-known/acme-challenge/A_LONG_ID. But, due to gitlab configuration, every request to gitlab.YOUR_SERVER_FQDN will be redirected to a proxy (gitlab-workhorse) that will not be able to deal with this URL.

To bypass this issue, you can use the Let's Encrypt webroot configuration, setting the webroot at /srv/http/letsencrypt/.

Additionally, force the Let's Encrypt request for gitlab to be redirected to this webroot by adding the following:

/etc/http/conf/extra/gitlab.conf

Alias "/.well-known"  "/srv/http/letsencrypt/.well-known"
RewriteCond   %{REQUEST_URI}  !/\.well-known/.*

Web server configuration

If you want to integrate Gitlab into a running web server instead of using its build-in http server Unicorn, then follow these instructions.

Node.js

You can easily set up an http proxy on port 443 to proxy traffic to the GitLab application on port 8080 using http-master for Node.js. After you have created your domain's OpenSSL keys and have gotten you CA certificate (or self signed it), then go to https://github.com/CodeCharmLtd/http-master to learn how easy it is to proxy requests to GitLab using HTTPS. http-master is built on top of node-http-proxy.

Nginx

See Nginx#Configuration for basic nginx configuration and Nginx#TLS for enabling HTTPS. The sample in this section also assumes that server blocks are managed with Nginx#Managing server entries.

Create and edit the configuration based on the following snippet. See the upstream GitLab repository for more examples.

/etc/nginx/servers-available/gitlab

upstream gitlab-workhorse {
  server unix:/run/gitlab/gitlab-workhorse.socket fail_timeout=0;
}

server {
  listen 80;                  # IPv4 HTTP
  #listen 443 ssl http2;      # uncomment to enable IPv4 HTTPS + HTTP/2
  #listen [::]:80;            # uncomment to enable IPv6 HTTP
  #listen [::]:443 ssl http2; # uncomment to enable IPv6 HTTPS + HTTP/2
  server_name example.com;

  #ssl_certificate ssl/example.com.crt;
  #ssl_certificate_key ssl/example.com.key;

  location / {
      # unlimited upload size in nginx (so the setting in GitLab applies)
      client_max_body_size 0;

      # proxy timeout should match the timeout value set in /etc/webapps/gitlab/unicorn.rb
      proxy_read_timeout 60;
      proxy_connect_timeout 60;
      proxy_redirect off;

      proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
      proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
      proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Ssl on;
      proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
      proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

      proxy_pass http://gitlab-workhorse;
  }

  error_page 404 /404.html;
  error_page 422 /422.html;
  error_page 500 /500.html;
  error_page 502 /502.html;
  error_page 503 /503.html;
  location ~ ^/(404|422|500|502|503)\.html$ {
    root /usr/share/webapps/gitlab/public;
    internal;
  }
}

Apache

Install and configure the Apache HTTP Server. You can use these upstream recipes to get started with the configuration file for GitLab's virtual host.

For the SSL configuration see Apache HTTP Server#TLS. If you do not need it, remove it. Notice that the SSL virtual host needs a specific IP instead of generic. Also if you set a custom port for Unicorn, do not forget to set it at the BalanceMember line.

Gitlab-workhorse

Since 8.0 GitLab uses separate HTTP server gitlab-workhorse for large HTTP requests like Git push/pull. If you want to use this instead of SSH, install the gitlab-workhorse package, enable gitlab-workhorse.service and configure web server for this. gitlab-workhorse should now be preferred over gitlab-unicorn according to the GitLab team: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/22528#note_16036216

Note: Unicorn is still needed so do not disable or stop gitlab-unicorn.service.

By default gitlab-workhorse listens on /run/gitlab/gitlab-workhorse.socket. You can edit gitlab-workhorse.service and change the parameter -listenAddr to make it listen on an address, for example -listenAddr 127.0.0.1:8181. If listening on an address you also need to set the network type to -listenNetwork tcp

When using nginx remember to edit your nginx configuration file. To switch from gitlab-unicorn to gitlab-workhorse edit the two following settings accordingly

/etc/nginx/servers-available/gitlab

upstream gitlab {
   server unix:/run/gitlab/gitlab-workhorse.socket fail_timeout=0;
}

...
      
      proxy_pass http://unix:/run/gitlab/gitlab-workhorse.socket;
  }  
}

Useful tips

Rake tasks

A number of setup/maintenance/etc tasks are available through rake. To list them, go to Gitlab's home directory:

# cd /usr/share/webapps/gitlab

and run:

# rake -T | grep gitlab

rake gitlab:app:check                         # GITLAB | Check the configuration of the GitLab Rails app
rake gitlab:backup:create                     # GITLAB | Create a backup of the GitLab system
rake gitlab:backup:restore                    # GITLAB | Restore a previously created backup
rake gitlab:check                             # GITLAB | Check the configuration of GitLab and its environment
rake gitlab:cleanup:block_removed_ldap_users  # GITLAB | Cleanup | Block users that have been removed in LDAP
rake gitlab:cleanup:dirs                      # GITLAB | Cleanup | Clean namespaces
rake gitlab:cleanup:repos                     # GITLAB | Cleanup | Clean repositories
rake gitlab:env:check                         # GITLAB | Check the configuration of the environment
rake gitlab:env:info                          # GITLAB | Show information about GitLab and its environment
rake gitlab:generate_docs                     # GITLAB | Generate sdocs for project
rake gitlab:gitlab_shell:check                # GITLAB | Check the configuration of GitLab Shell
rake gitlab:import:all_users_to_all_groups    # GITLAB | Add all users to all groups (admin users are added as owners)
rake gitlab:import:all_users_to_all_projects  # GITLAB | Add all users to all projects (admin users are added as masters)
rake gitlab:import:repos                      # GITLAB | Import bare repositories from gitlab_shell -> repos_path into GitLab project instance
rake gitlab:import:user_to_groups[email]      # GITLAB | Add a specific user to all groups (as a developer)
rake gitlab:import:user_to_projects[email]    # GITLAB | Add a specific user to all projects (as a developer)
rake gitlab:satellites:create                 # GITLAB | Create satellite repos
rake gitlab:setup                             # GITLAB | Setup production application
rake gitlab:shell:build_missing_projects      # GITLAB | Build missing projects
rake gitlab:shell:install[tag,repo]           # GITLAB | Install or upgrade gitlab-shell
rake gitlab:shell:setup                       # GITLAB | Setup gitlab-shell
rake gitlab:sidekiq:check                     # GITLAB | Check the configuration of Sidekiq
rake gitlab:test                              # GITLAB | Run all tests
rake gitlab:web_hook:add                      # GITLAB | Adds a web hook to the projects
rake gitlab:web_hook:list                     # GITLAB | List web hooks
rake gitlab:web_hook:rm                       # GITLAB | Remove a web hook from the projects
rake setup                                    # GITLAB | Setup gitlab db

Backup and restore

Create a backup of the gitlab system:

# su - gitlab -s /bin/sh -c "cd '/usr/share/webapps/gitlab'; bundle-2.5 exec rake RAILS_ENV=production gitlab:backup:create"

Restore the previously created backup file /var/lib/gitlab/backups/1556571328_2019_04_29_11.10.2_gitlab_backup.tar:

# su - gitlab -s /bin/sh -c "cd '/usr/share/webapps/gitlab'; bundle-2.5 exec rake RAILS_ENV=production gitlab:backup:restore BACKUP=1556571328_2019_04_29_11.10.2"

Note: Backup folder is set in config/gitlab.yml. GitLab backup and restore is documented here.

Enable fast SSH key lookup

Enable Fast SSH Key Lookup as explained in this page: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/operations/fast_ssh_key_lookup.html

In short, edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config.

Revert all changes done following this wiki (or revert sshd_config from the openssh package) and only add:

AuthorizedKeysCommand /var/lib/gitlab/gitlab-shell/bin/gitlab-shell-authorized-keys-check gitlab %u %k
AuthorizedKeysCommandUser gitlab

Finally restart the sshd.service.

Sending mails from Gitlab via SMTP

You might want to use a gmail (or other mail service) to send mails from your gitlab server. This avoids the need to install a mail daemon on the gitlab server.

Adjust smtp_settings.rb according to your mail server settings:

/usr/share/webapps/gitlab/config/initializers/smtp_settings.rb

if Rails.env.production?
  Gitlab::Application.config.action_mailer.delivery_method = :smtp

  ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
  ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
    address:              'smtp.gmail.com',
    port:                 587,
    domain:               'gmail.com',
    user_name:            'username@gmail.com',
    password:             'application password',
    authentication:       'plain',
    enable_starttls_auto: true
  }
end

Gmail will reject mails received this way (and send you a mail that it did). You will need to disable secure authentication (follow the link in the rejection mail) to work around this. The more secure approach is to enable two-factor authentication for username@gmail.com and to set up an application password for this configuration file.

Troubleshooting

HTTPS is not green (gravatar not using https)

Redis caches gravatar images, so if you have visited your GitLab with http, then enabled https, gravatar will load up the non-secure images. You can clear the cache by doing

cd /usr/share/webapps/gitlab
RAILS_ENV=production bundle-2.5 exec rake cache:clear

as the gitlab user.

Errors after updating

After updating the package from the AUR, the database migrations and asset updates will sometimes fail. These steps may resolve the issue, if a simple reboot does not.

First, move to the gitlab installation directory.

# cd /usr/share/webapps/gitlab

If every gitlab page gives a 500 error, then the database migrations and the assets are probably stale. If not, skip this step.

# su - gitlab -s /bin/sh -c "cd '/usr/share/webapps/gitlab'; bundle-2.5 exec rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production"

If gitlab is constantly waiting for the deployment to finish, then the assets have probably not been recompiled.

# su - gitlab -s /bin/sh -c "cd '/usr/share/webapps/gitlab'; bundle-2.5 exec rake gitlab:assets:clean gitlab:assets:compile cache:clear RAILS_ENV=production"

Finally, restart the gitlab services and test your site.

# systemctl restart gitlab-unicorn gitlab-sidekiq gitlab-workhorse

Gitlab-Unicorn cannot access non-default repositories directory

If a custom repository storage directory is set in /home, disable the ProtectHome=true parameter in the gitlab-unicorn.service (see Systemd#Drop-in files and the relevant forum thread on gitlab.com).

Failed to connect to Gitaly

Sometimes, the Gitaly service will not get started, leaving GitLab unable to connect to Gitaly. The solution is simple:

# systemctl start gitlab-gitaly

Failed to connect via SSH

If git operations (-T, pull, clone, etc.) fails using ssh try changing the shell:

# usermod -s /usr/share/webapps/gitlab-shell/bin/gitlab-shell-ruby gitlab

CSS or styles issue

If you have any issues with styles and CSS not working, you may try to edit /usr/share/webapps/gitlab/config/environments/production.rb and change:

 # Disable Rails's static asset server (Apache or nginx will already do this)
 config.public_file_server.enabled = false

to:

 # Disable Rails's static asset server (Apache or nginx will already do this)
 config.public_file_server.enabled = true

See also

• Official installation documentation
• GitLab recipes with further documentation on running it with several web servers
• GitLab source code