GitLab installation on Ubuntu 22.04

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Introduction

GitLab is a free tool that helps you store and manage your code, like a big digital filing cabinet. It also has extra features for keeping track of issues and tasks related to your code. You can set it up on your own computer system OR You can use it within your team for sharing code, make it public for others to see, or let people host their own code projects.

These are some good reasons why we have to set up Gitlab in own infra.

Data Privacy: Hosting GitLab on your own infrastructure allows you to keep your code and data within your network, enhancing data privacy and reducing the risk of data leaks or unauthorized access. This is particularly important for organizations with strict data protection regulations.

Regular Updates: You can manage and schedule updates and patches for GitLab according to your own maintenance schedule, ensuring that security updates are applied promptly.

Backup and Recovery: You can implement robust backup and disaster recovery strategies to protect your code repositories from data loss due to hardware failures, human errors, or security incidents.

Compliance: Hosting GitLab on your own infrastructure can make it easier to demonstrate compliance with industry regulations or internal security policies since you have direct control over the environment and can implement necessary security controls.

In this lab, we will get to know how to install and set up GitLab Community Edition on an Ubuntu 20.04 server.

The published GitLab hardware requirements recommend using a server with a minimum of:

  • 4 cores for your CPU
  • 4GB of RAM for memory

Step 1 — system update and Install the Dependencies

root@TzoneLabs:~# apt update && apt upgrade -y

Then install the dependencies by entering this command:

root@TzoneLabs:~# apt install -y ca-certificates curl openssh-server tzdata

Step2 – Add the GitLab GPG key to trusted keys:

root@TzoneLabs:~# curl -fsSL https://packages.gitlab.com/gitlab/gitlab-ce/gpgkey | sudo gpg --dearmor -o etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/gitlab.gpg

Step3 – Edit the GitLab repository source list:

root@TzoneLabs:~# vi /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gitlab_gitlab-ce.list

Add the following lines to the file:

deb https://packages.gitlab.com/gitlab/gitlab-ce/ubuntu/ focal main
deb-src https://packages.gitlab.com/gitlab/gitlab-ce/ubuntu/ focal main

Step4 – Install GitLab

root@TzoneLabs:~# apt update
root@TzoneLabs:~# apt install gitlab-ce

Step5 – Edit the GitLab configuration file: 

root@TzoneLabs:~# vi /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb

Add your server’s IP address(or URL which want to configure) to the external_url setting, like this:

external_url 'http://your_server_ip'

Step6 -Configuration and Start

Reconfigure GitLab:

root@TzoneLabs:~# gitlab-ctl reconfigure

Check the status of GitLab components:

root@TzoneLabs:~# gitlab-ctl status

Collect the initial root password:

root@TzoneLabs:~# cat /etc/gitlab/initial_root_password

Manage GitLab using various commands like checking GitLab health:

root@TzoneLabs:~# gitlab-rake gitlab:check

Start, stop, or restart GitLab services as needed:

root@TzoneLabs:~# gitlab-ctl start
root@TzoneLabs:~# gitlab-ctl stop
root@TzoneLabs:~# gitlab-ctl restart logrotate     ## this will restart logrotation git utility

Logging In for the First Time

type http://<your_server_ip>

GitLab installation on Ubuntu 22.04
  • Username: root
  • Password: [the password listed on /etc/gitlab/initial_root_password]
GitLab installation on Ubuntu 22.04

Note — all the above steps I have performed on an EC2 machine on Ubuntu 22.04, so please open the inbound port to access Gitlab from the browser.

Also Read:-

Gitlab Installation : The Best way

GitLab’s Implementation of Group-Based Authorization

Reference:- https://about.gitlab.com/install/

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