Gitlab2

Gitlab is a free git repository management application based on Ruby on Rails and Gitolite. 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 page here.

Note: Throughout the article, sudo is heavily used, assuming that the user that is running the commands is root or someone with equal privileges. There is no need to edit the sudoers file whatsoever. It is only used to change to the appropriate user. For more info read man sudo.

Required packages

Merged with Gitlab page

Create user accounts

Add gitlab-git and gitlab user. gitlab-git is a system user that will be used for gitolite. gitlab user will be used for Gitlab and is part of group gitlab-git.

# useradd --user-group --shell /bin/sh --comment 'git version control' --create-home --system gitlab-git
# useradd --user-group --shell /bin/bash --comment 'gitlab system' --create-home --groups gitlab-git gitlab

Gitolite

Clone the gitolite repository from Gitlab's fork. That way we are sure it will work.

# cd /home/git
# sudo -H -u gitlab-git git clone -b gl-v304 https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitolite.git /home/gitlab-git/gitolite

Generate Gitlab's ssh key to be used with gitolite:

# sudo -H -u gitlab ssh-keygen -q -N '' -t rsa -f /home/gitlab/.ssh/id_rsa

Add the following path to git's .bash_profile:

# sudo -u gitlab-git sh -c 'echo "export PATH=/home/gitlab-git/bin:$PATH" >> /home/gitlab-git/.profile'
# sudo -u gitlab-git sh -c 'gitolite/install -ln /home/gitlab-git/bin'

Copy Gitlab's public key to gitolite's home and change permissions:

# cp /home/gitlab/.ssh/id_rsa.pub /home/gitlab-git/gitlab.pub
# chmod 0444 /home/gitlab-git/gitlab.pub
# sudo -u gitlab-git -H sh -c "PATH=/home/gitlab-git/bin:$PATH; gitolite setup -pk /home/gitlab-git/gitlab.pub"
# sudo -u gitlab-git -H sed -i 's/0077/0007/g' /home/gitlab-git/.gitolite.rc
# sudo -u gitlab-git -H sed -i "s/\(GIT_CONFIG_KEYS\s*=>*\s*\).\{2\}/\1'\.\*'/g" /home/gitlab-git/.gitolite.rc

Change permissions:

# chmod -R g+rwX /home/gitlab-git/repositories/
# chmod g+x /home/gitlab-git
# chown -R gitlab-git:gitlab-git /home/gitlab-git/repositories/

Note: The next step is important to succeed. If not, do not try to proceed any further.

Add Gitlab's ssh key to known hosts:

# sudo -u gitlab -H git clone gitlab-git@localhost:gitolite-admin.git /tmp/gitolite-admin

Answer yes. At this point you should be able to clone the gitolite-admin repository.

Example output

Cloning into '/tmp/gitolite-admin'...
The authenticity of host 'localhost (::1)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is 5a:50:69:47:1f:1c:61:79:08:a8:2c:fa:a1:fb:48:bf.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'localhost' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
remote: Counting objects: 6, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done.
Receiving objects: 100% (6/6), 712 bytes, done.
remote: Total 6 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)

If the repository is cloned successfully, it is safe to remove it:

# rm -rf /tmp/gitolite-admin

Gitlab

Installation

Tip: If you do not want to download any documentation, add gem: --no-rdoc --no-ri to /home/gitlab/.gemrc. Be sure to add it as the gitlab user in order to acquire the appropriate permissions.

Add ruby to Gitlab's PATH:

# sudo -u gitlab -H sh -c 'echo "export PATH=$(ruby -rubygems -e "puts Gem.user_dir")/bin:$PATH" >> /home/gitlab/.bash_profile'

Install bundler and charlock_holmes:

# sudo -u gitlab -H gem install charlock_holmes --version '0.6.8'
# sudo -u gitlab -H gem install bundler

Note: When installing charlock_holmes don't mind any errors that might occur, that's normal.

Clone Gitlab's stable repository:

# cd /home/gitlab
# sudo -H -u gitlab git clone -b stable git://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq.git gitlab
# cd gitlab
# sudo -u gitlab mkdir -pv tmp

Basic configuration

First we need to rename the example file.

# sudo -u gitlab cp config/gitlab.yml.example config/gitlab.yml

The options are pretty straightforward. You can skip this part as it is quite detailed. Open /home/gitlab/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml with your favorite editor and check the settings below.

Web application specific settings

/home/gitlab/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml

host: myhost.example.com
port: 80
https: false

• host: Enter your Fully Qualified Domain Name.

Email used for notification

/home/gitlab/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml

from: notify@example.com

This is how the mail address will be shown for mail notifications. Gitlab needs the sendmail command in order to send emails (for things like lost password recovery, new user addition etc). This command is provided by packages such as msmtp, postfix, sendmail etc, but you can only have one of them installed. First, check whether you already have the sendmail command:

# ls /usr/sbin/sendmail

If you get a ‘cannot access /usr/bin/sendmail’ then install one of the above packages.

Application specific settings

/home/gitlab/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml

default_projects_limit: 10
# backup_path: "/vol/backups"   # default: Rails.root + backups/
# backup_keep_time: 604800      # default: 0 (forever) (in seconds)

• default_projects_limit: As the name suggests, this integer defines the default number of projects new users have. The number can change from within Gitlab by an administrator.
• backup_path: The path where backups are stored. Default location is /home/gitlab/gitlab/backups. The backups folder is created automatically after first backup.
• backup_keep_time: Time to preserve backups. The default option is to never be deleted.

Also check Backup and restore.

Git Hosting configuration

/home/gitlab/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml

admin_uri: gitlab-git@localhost:gitolite-admin
base_path: /home/gitlab-git/repositories/
hooks_path: /home/gitlab-git/share/gitolite/hooks/
# host: localhost
git_user: gitlab-git
upload_pack: true
receive_pack: true
# port: 22

• admin_uri: Do not change it. Leave as is.
• base_path: The path where gitolite's repositories reside. If the repositories directory is different than the default one, change it here.
• hooks_path: change default setting to /home/gitlab-git/share/gitolite/hooks/
• host: Should point to your FQDN.
• git_user: Name of the git user we created.
• upload_pack:
• receive_pack:

• port: ssh port which git should use. Default one is 22. If you want to change it for safety reasons, do not forget to also add the port number to .ssh/config.

/home/gitlab/gitlab/.ssh/config

Host localhost
Port 5000

Git settings

/home/gitlab/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml

path: /usr/bin/git
git_max_size: 5242880 # 5.megabytes
git_timeout: 10

• git_max_size: Max size of git objects like commits, in bytes,.This value can be increased if you have very large commits.
• git_timeout: git timeout to read commit, in seconds.

Database selection

You have two options, either use sqlite or mysql. In case you want to change from sqlite to mysql see #Migrate_to_mysql_from_sqlite.

SQLite

You don't have to create an sqlite database, Gitlab will create it for you.

# sudo -u gitlab cp config/database.yml.sqlite config/database.yml

MySQL

Install mysql from the official repositories and start the daemon. Both sysvinit and systemd are supported. If you are using initscripts you might want to add mysqld to your DAEMONS array in rc.conf. Create the database and do not forget to replace password with a real one.

# mysql -u root -p

mysql> create database gitlabhq_production;
mysql> create user 'gitlab'@'localhost' identified by 'password';
mysql> grant all privileges on gitlabhq_production.* to 'gitlab'@'localhost' with grant option;
mysql> exit;

Copy the example configuration file and make sure to update username/password in config/database.yml at production section:

# sudo -u gitlab cp config/database.yml.example config/database.yml

Install gems

This could take a while as it installs all required libraries.

# cd /home/gitlab/gitlab
# source /home/gitlab/.bash_profile
# sudo -u gitlab -H bundle install --deployment

Note: Using "--without development test" in bundle command line will ignore required packages for database backup and restore

Fix for pygments.rb to work with our python2 (thanks to billyburly).

# sed -i "s/opts = {})/opts = {:python_exe => 'python'})/g" /home/gitlab/gitlab/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/bundler/gems/pygments.rb-2cada028da50/lib/pygments/ffi.rb
# ln -s /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/python

Start redis server

Start the daemon. If you are using initscripts you might want to add redis to your DAEMONS array in rc.conf.

Note: redis might already be running, causing a FAIL message to appear. Check if it is already running with rc.d list redis.

If you have switched to systemd, there is a service file included in the official package. See daemon how to enable it.

Populate the database

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

Setup gitlab hooks

# cp ./lib/hooks/post-receive /home/gitlab-git/share/gitolite/hooks/common/post-receive
# chown gitlab-git:gitlab-git /home/gitlab-git/share/gitolite/hooks/common/post-receive

Check status

With the following command we check if the steps we followed so far are conigured properly.

# sudo -u gitlab bundle exec rake gitlab:app:status RAILS_ENV=production

Example output

Starting diagnostic
config/database.yml............exists
config/gitlab.yml............exists
/home/gitlab-git/repositories/............exists
/home/gitlab-git/repositories/ is writable?............YES
remote: Counting objects: 6, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done.
Receiving objects: 100% (6/6), 712 bytes, done.
remote: Total 6 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
Can clone gitolite-admin?............YES
UMASK for .gitolite.rc is 0007? ............YES
/home/gitlab-git/share/gitolite/hooks/common/post-receive exists? ............YES

Finished

Server testing and resque process

Resque is a Redis-backed library for creating background jobs, placing those jobs on multiple queues, and processing them later. For the backstory, philosophy, and history of Resque's beginnings, please see this blog post.

Run resque process for processing queue:

# sudo -u gitlab bundle exec rake environment resque:work QUEUE=* RAILS_ENV=production BACKGROUND=yes

or use Gitlab's start script:

# sudo -u gitlab ./resque.sh

Note: If you run this as root, /home/gitlab/gitlab/tmp/pids/resque_worker.pid will be owned by root causing the resque worker not to start via init script on next boot/service restart

Gitlab application can be started with the next command:

# sudo -u gitlab bundle exec rails s -e production

Open localhost:3000 with your favorite browser and you should see Gitlab's sign in page. In case you missed it, the default login/password are:

login.........admin@local.host
password......5iveL!fe

Since this is a thin web server, it is only for test purposes. You may close it with Template:Keypress. Follow instructions below to make Gitlab run with a real web server.

Web server configuration

Unicorn only

Edit /home/gitlab/gitlab/config/unicorn.rb uncomment:

listen 8080 # listen to port 8080 on all TCP interfaces

Create /etc/rc.d/unicorn-gitlab

#!/bin/bash

. /etc/rc.conf
. /etc/rc.d/functions


PID=`pidof -o %PPID /usr/bin/ruby`
case "$1" in
  start)
    stat_busy "Starting unicorn"
    [ -z "$PID" ] && sudo -u gitlab bash  -c  "source /home/gitlab/.bash_profile && cd /home/gitlab/gitlab/ && bundle exec unicorn_rails -c config/unicorn.rb -E production -D"
    if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
      stat_fail
    else
      add_daemon unicorn
      stat_done
    fi
    ;;
  stop)
    stat_busy "Stopping unicorn"
    [ ! -z "$PID" ]  && kill $PID &> /dev/null
    if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
      stat_fail
    else
      rm_daemon unicorn
      stat_done
    fi
    ;;
  restart)
    $0 stop
    sleep 1
    $0 start
    ;;
  *)
    echo "usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"
esac
exit 0

Start unicorn:

# /etc/rc.d/unicorn-gitlab start

Test it http://localhost:8080

Add it to DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf

Redirect http port to unicorn server

# iptables -A PREROUTING -t nat -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8080

And test again, now http://localhost

Nginx and unicorn

Install nginx from the official repositories.

Edit /etc/nginx/nginx.conf. In the http section add:

upstream gitlab {
    server unix:/home/gitlab/gitlab/tmp/sockets/gitlab.socket;
}

server {
   listen YOUR_SERVER_IP:80;         # e.g., listen 192.168.1.1:80;
   server_name YOUR_SERVER_FQDN;     # e.g., server_name source.example.com;
   root /home/gitlab/gitlab/public;

   # individual nginx logs for this gitlab vhost
   access_log  /var/log/nginx/gitlab_access.log;
   error_log   /var/log/nginx/gitlab_error.log;

   location / {
       # serve static files from defined root folder;.
       # @gitlab is a named location for the upstream fallback, see below
       try_files $uri $uri/index.html $uri.html @gitlab;
   }

   # if a file, which is not found in the root folder is requested, 
   # then the proxy pass the request to the upsteam (gitlab unicorn)
   location @gitlab {
     proxy_redirect     off;

     # you need to change this to "https", if you set "ssl" directive to "on"
     proxy_set_header   X-FORWARDED_PROTO http;
     proxy_set_header   Host              $http_host;
     proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP         $remote_addr;

     proxy_pass http://gitlab;
   }
}

Change YOUR_SERVER_IP and YOUR_SERVER_FQDN to the IP address and fully-qualified domain name of the host serving Gitlab and restart nginx.

Unicorn is an HTTP server for Rack applications designed to only serve fast clients on low-latency, high-bandwidth connections and take advantage of features in Unix/Unix-like kernels. First we rename the example file and then we start unicorn:

# cd /home/gitlab/gitlab
# sudo -u gitlab cp config/unicorn.rb.orig config/unicorn.rb
# sudo -u gitlab bundle exec unicorn_rails -c config/unicorn.rb -E production -D

Apache and unicorn

Install apache from the official repositories.

Configure Unicorn

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

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

# mkdir -pv /etc/httpd/conf/vhosts/

/etc/httpd/conf/vhosts/gitlab

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName gitlab.myserver.com
  ServerAlias www.gitlab.myserver.com
  DocumentRoot /home/gitlab/gitlab/public
  ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/gitlab_error_log
  CustomLog /var/log/httpd/gitlab_access_log combined

  <Proxy balancer://unicornservers>
      BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:8080
  </Proxy>

  <Directory /home/gitlab/gitlab/public>
    AllowOverride All
    Options -MultiViews
  </Directory>

  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ balancer://unicornservers%{REQUEST_URI} [P,QSA,L]

  ProxyPass /uploads !
  ProxyPass / balancer://unicornservers/
  ProxyPassReverse / balancer://unicornservers/
  ProxyPreserveHost on

   <Proxy *>
      Order deny,allow
      Allow from all
   </Proxy>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost MY_IP:443>
  ServerName gitlab.myserver.com
  ServerAlias www.gitlab.myserver.com
  DocumentRoot /home/gitlab/gitlab/public
  ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/gitlab_error_log
  CustomLog /var/log/httpd/gitlab_access_log combined

  <Proxy balancer://unicornservers>
      BalancerMember http://127.0.0.1:8080
  </Proxy>

  <Directory /home/gitlab/gitlab/public>
    AllowOverride All
    Options -MultiViews
  </Directory>

  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
  RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ balancer://unicornservers%{REQUEST_URI} [P,QSA,L]

  ProxyPass /uploads !
  ProxyPass / balancer://unicornservers/
  ProxyPassReverse / balancer://unicornservers/
  ProxyPreserveHost on

   <Proxy *>
      Order deny,allow
      Allow from all
   </Proxy>

  SSLEngine on
  SSLCertificateFile /home/gitlab/gitlab/ssl.cert
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /home/gitlab/gitlab/ssl.key
</VirtualHost>

Enable host and start unicorn

Enable your Gitlab virtual host and reload Apache:

/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Include conf/vhosts/gitlab

Finally start unicorn:

# cd /home/gitlab/gitlab
# sudo -u gitlab bundle exec unicorn_rails -c config/unicorn.rb -E production -D

Useful Tips

Hidden options

Go to Gitlab's home directory

# cd /home/gitlab/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.

# cd /home/gitlab/gitlab
# sudo -u gitlab rake gitlab:app:backup_create

Restore a previously created backup.

# cd /home/gitlab/gitlab
# sudo -u gitlab rake gitlab:app:backup_restore

Note: Backup folder is set in conig.yml. Check #Application_specific_settings.

Update Gitlab

When a new version is out follow the instructions at Github wiki. A new release is out every 22nd of a month.

Migrate to mysql from sqlite

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

Troubleshooting

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

See also

• Official Documentation
• GitLab on an Ubuntu 10.04 server with Apache
• Setting up gitlab on Debian 6
• Installing Gitlab on CentOS 6
• Gist: Install Gitlab on Debian Squeeze
• Gist: Install Gitlab on Archlinux