GitLab

Template:Article summary start Template:Article summary text Template:Article summary heading Template:Article summary wiki Template:Article summary wiki Template:Article summary end Gitlab is a free git repository management application based on Ruby on Rails. It is distributed under the MIT License and its source code can be found on Github. It is a very active project with a monthly release cycle and ideal for businesses that want to keep their code private. Consider it as a self hosted Github but open source. You can try a demo here.

Installation

Note: If you want to use rvm be sure to check out Gitlab#Running GitLab with rvm before starting with the installation

Before installing the gitlab^AUR package from the AUR, you need to choose a database backend if you're planning to host GitLab it on the same machine as the database:

• Use Pacman to install mariadb and libmariadbclient from the official repositories and start the daemon
• or install postgresql and libpqxx. Read PostgreSQL#Installing_PostgreSQL to set it up and start the daemon.

In order to receive mail notifications, make sure to install a mail server. By default, Archlinux does not ship with one. The recommended mail server is postfix, but you can use others such as SSMTP, msmtp, sendmail, etc.

Configuration

Notes Before Configuring

Make sure you perform a system upgrade (pacman -Syu) before installing gitlab from AUR and that you have installed the base-devel group, or you may face problems installing gitlab because base-devel packages are not required to be listed as dependencies in PKGBUILD files.

The gitlab package from AUR organizes GitLab's files in a manner that more closely follows standard linux conventions rather than installing everything in /home/git as you are told to do by GitLab's official install guide.

After you've installed gitlab from AUR, the config file /etc/webapps/gitlab/shell.yml corresponds to the file /home/git/gitlab-shell/config.yml that is mentioned in GitLab's official install guide when installing gitlab-shell. The config file /etc/webapps/gitlab/gitlab.yml corresponds to the file /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml that is mentioned in GitLab's official install guide when configuring GitLab.

Another key difference between gitlab from AUR and the GitLab install guide is that GitLab from AUR uses the gitlab user with /var/lib/gitlab as the home folder instead of the git user with /home/git as the home folder. This ensures that /home contains folders managed only by *real* users.

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.

Basic configuration

Open up /etc/webapps/gitlab/shell.yml and set gitlab_url: to the url where you intend to host GitLab (note the 'http://' and trailing slash). For example, if you will host GitLab at 'yourdomain.com', then it'd look like this:

Snippet from /etc/webapps/gitlab/shell.yml

# GitLab user. git by default
user: gitlab

# Url to gitlab instance. Used for api calls. Should end with a slash.
gitlab_url: "http://yourdomain.com/" # <<-- right here

http_settings:
#  user: someone
#  password: somepass
...

Open up /etc/webapps/gitlab/gitlab.yml and edit where needed. In the gitlab: section set host: (replacing localhost) to 'yourdomain.com', your fully qualified domin name (no 'http://' or trailing slash). 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'd set port: to 3425 (you'll also have to configure your server (apache, nginx, etc) to listen on that port). Those are the minimal changes needed for a working GitLab install. The adventurous may read on in the comment and customize as needed. For example:

Snippet from /etc/webapps/gitlab/gitlab.yml

...
  ## GitLab settings
  gitlab:
    ## Web server settings
    host: yourdomain.com
    port: 80
    https: false
...

Database backend

A Database backend will be required before Gitlab can be run. Currently GitLab supports MariaDB and PostgreSQL. By default, GitLab assumes you will use MySQL. Extra work is needed if you plan to use PostgreSQL.

MariaDB

Create the database and do not forget to replace your_password_here with a real one.

mysql -u root -p

mysql> CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `gitlabhq_production`;
mysql> CREATE USER 'gitlab'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password_here';
mysql> GRANT SELECT, LOCK TABLES, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER 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

PostgreSQL

Login to PostgreSQL and remember to change your_password_here to a real one:

psql -d template1

template1=# CREATE USER gitlab WITH PASSWORD 'your_password_here';
template1=# CREATE DATABASE gitlabhq_production OWNER gitlab;
template1=# \q

Try connecting to the new database with the new user:

psql -d gitlabhq_production

Gitlab assumes that a MySQL backend is going to be used, which means that some additional work will be required compared to the MySQL installation. Copy its template file before configuring it:

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

Open /usr/lib/systemd/system/gitlab.target in an editor and change all instances of mysql.service to postgresql.service

Initialize Gitlab database

To configure GitLab database settings, make sure to update username/password in /etc/webapps/gitlab/database.yml. Initialize database and activate advanced features:

$ cd /usr/share/webapps/gitlab
$ sudo -u gitlab bundle exec rake gitlab:setup RAILS_ENV=production

Start and test GitLab

With the following commands we check if the steps we followed so far are configured properly.

$ cd /usr/share/webapps/gitlab
$ sudo -u gitlab bundle exec rake gitlab:env:info RAILS_ENV=production
$ sudo -u gitlab bundle exec rake gitlab:check RAILS_ENV=production

Example output of gitlab:env:info

System information
System:		Arch Linux
Current User:	git
Using RVM:	yes
RVM Version:	1.20.3
Ruby Version:	2.0.0p0
Gem Version:	2.0.0
Bundler Version:1.3.5
Rake Version:	10.0.4

GitLab information
Version:	5.2.0.pre
Revision:	4353bab
Directory:	/home/git/gitlab
DB Adapter:	mysql2
URL:		http://gitlab.arch
HTTP Clone URL:	http://gitlab.arch/some-project.git
SSH Clone URL:	git@gitlab.arch:some-project.git
Using LDAP:	no
Using Omniauth:	no

GitLab Shell
Version:	1.4.0
Repositories:	/home/git/repositories/
Hooks:		/home/git/gitlab-shell/hooks/
Git:		/usr/bin/git

Note: gitlab:check will complain about missing initscripts. Don't worry, we will use ArchLinux' systemd to manage server start (which GitLab does not recognize).

$ systemctl daemon-reload

After starting the database backend (in this case MySQL), we can start Gitlab with its build-in webserver Unicorn:

$ systemctl start redis mysqld gitlab-sidekiq gitlab-unicorn

To automatically launch GitLab at startup, run:

$ systemctl enable gitlab.target gitlab-sidekiq gitlab-unicorn

Now test your Gitlab instance and visit http://localhost:8080 and login with the default credentials, user: admin@local.host and password: 5iveL!fe.

Advanced configuration

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.

Nginx and unicorn

Install nginx from the official repositories.

Run these commands to setup nginx:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitlab /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/gitlab

Edit /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/gitlab and change YOUR_SERVER_IP and YOUR_SERVER_FQDN to the IP address and fully-qualified domain name of the host serving Gitlab.

Restart gitlab.target, resque.service and nginx.

Apache and unicorn

Install apache from the official repositories.

Configure Unicorn

Note: If the default path is not /home/git for your installation, change the below path accordingly

As the official installation guide instructs, copy the unicorn configuration file:

# sudo -u git -H cp /home/git/gitlab/config/unicorn.rb.example /home/git/gitlab/config/unicorn.rb

Now edit config/unicorn.rb and add a listening port by uncommenting the following line:

listen "127.0.0.1:8080"

Tip: You can set a custom port if you want. Just remember to also include it in Apache's virtual host. See below.

Create a virtual host for Gitlab

Create a configuration file for Gitlab’s virtual host and insert the lines below adjusted accordingly. For the ssl section see LAMP#SSL. 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.

Enable host and start unicorn

Enable your Gitlab virtual host and reload Apache:

/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

 Include /etc/httpd/conf/extra/gitlab.conf

Finally start unicorn:

systemctl start gitlab-unicorn

Useful Tips

Fix Rake Warning

When running rake tasks for the gitlab project, this error will occur: fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git. This is a bug in bundler, and it can be safely ignored. However, if you want to git rid of the error, the following method can be used:

 cd /usr/share/webapps/gitlab
 sudo -u gitlab git init
 sudo -u gitlab git commit -m "initial commit" --allow-empty

Hook into /var

 sudo mkdir -m700 /var/log/gitlab /var/tmp/gitlab
 sudo chown gitlab:gitlab /var/log/gitlab /var/tmp/gitlab
 sudo -u gitlab -i
 cd ~/gitlab
 d=log; mv $d/* /var/$d/gitlab; rm -f $d/.gitkeep; rm -r $d && ln -s /var/$d/gitlab $d
 d=tmp; mv $d/* /var/$d/gitlab; rm -f $d/.gitkeep; rm -r $d && ln -s /var/$d/gitlab $d

Hidden options

Go to Gitlab's home directory

# cd /usr/share/webapps/gitlab

and run

# rake -T | grep gitlab

These are the options so far:

rake gitlab:app:backup_create      # GITLAB | Create a backup of the gitlab system
rake gitlab:app:backup_restore     # GITLAB | Restore a previously created backup
rake gitlab:app:enable_automerge   # GITLAB | Enable auto merge
rake gitlab:app:setup              # GITLAB | Setup production application
rake gitlab:app:status             # GITLAB | Check gitlab installation status
rake gitlab:gitolite:update_hooks  # GITLAB | Rewrite hooks for repos
rake gitlab:gitolite:update_keys   # GITLAB | Rebuild each key at gitolite config
rake gitlab:gitolite:update_repos  # GITLAB | Rebuild each project at gitolite config
rake gitlab:test                   # GITLAB | Run both cucumber & rspec

Backup and restore

Create a backup of the gitlab system:

# sudo -u gitlab -H rake RAILS_ENV=production gitlab:backup:create

Restore the previously created backup file /home/gitlab/gitlab/tmp/backups/20130125_11h35_1359131740_gitlab_backup.tar:

# sudo -u gitlab -H rake RAILS_ENV=production gitlab:backup:restore BACKUP=/home/gitlab/gitlab/tmp/backups/20130125_11h35_1359131740

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

Migrate from sqlite to mysql

Get latest code as described in #Update_Gitlab. Save data.

# cd /home/gitlab/gitlab
# sudo -u gitlab bundle exec rake db:data:dump RAILS_ENV=production

Follow #Mysql instructions and then setup the database.

# sudo -u gitlab bundle exec rake db:setup RAILS_ENV=production

Finally restore old data.

# sudo -u gitlab bundle exec rake db:data:load RAILS_ENV=production

Running GitLab with rvm

To run gitlab with rvm first you have to set up an rvm:

 curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --ruby=1.9.3

Note: Version 1.9.3 is currently recommended to avoid some compatibility issues.

For the complete installation you will want to be the final user (e.g. git) so make sure to switch to this user and activate your rvm:

 su - git
 source "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm"

Then continue with the installation instructions from above. However, the systemd scripts will not work this way, because the environment for the rvm is not activated. The recommendation here is to create to separate shell scripts for puma and sidekiq to activate the environment and then start the service:

gitlab.sh

#!/bin/sh
source `/home/git/.rvm/bin/rvm 1.9.3 do rvm env --path`
RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec puma -C "/home/git/gitlab/config/puma.rb"

sidekiq.sh

#!/bin/sh
source `/home/git/.rvm/bin/rvm 1.9.3 do rvm env --path`
case $1 in
    start)
        bundle exec rake sidekiq:start RAILS_ENV=production
        ;;
    stop)
        bundle exec rake sidekiq:stop RAILS_ENV=production
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage $0 {start|stop}"
esac

Then modify the above systemd files so they use these scripts. Modify the given lines:

gitlab.service

ExecStart=/home/git/bin/gitlab.sh

sidekiq.service

ExecStart=/home/git/bin/sidekiq.sh start
ExecStop=/home/git/bin/sidekiq.sh stop

Troubleshooting

Sometimes things may not work as expected. Be sure to visit the Trouble Shooting Guide.

See also

• Official Documentation
• Gitlab recipes with further documentation on running it with several webservers