Select Version to Install
Make sure you view this installation guide from the branch (version) of GitLab you would like to install. In most cases this should be the highest numbered stable branch (example shown below).
If this is unclear check the GitLab Blog for installation guide links by version.
Important notes
This installation guide was created for and tested on Debian/Ubuntu operating systems. Please read doc/install/requirements.md
for hardware and operating system requirements.
This is the official installation guide to set up a production server. To set up a development installation or for many other installation options please consult the installation section in the readme.
The following steps have been known to work. Please use caution when you deviate from this guide. Make sure you don't violate any assumptions GitLab makes about its environment. For example many people run into permission problems because they changed the location of directories or run services as the wrong user.
If you find a bug/error in this guide please submit a pull request following the contributing guide.
Overview
The GitLab installation consists of setting up the following components:
- Packages / Dependencies
- Ruby
- System Users
- GitLab shell
- Database
- GitLab
- Nginx
1. Packages / Dependencies
sudo
is not installed on Debian by default. Make sure your system is
up-to-date and install it.
# run as root!
apt-get update -y
apt-get upgrade -y
apt-get install sudo -y
Note: During this installation some files will need to be edited manually. If you are familiar with vim set it as default editor with the commands below. If you are not familiar with vim please skip this and keep using the default editor.
# Install vim and set as default editor
sudo apt-get install -y vim
sudo update-alternatives --set editor /usr/bin/vim.basic
Install the required packages:
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential zlib1g-dev libyaml-dev libssl-dev libgdbm-dev libreadline-dev libncurses5-dev libffi-dev curl git-core openssh-server redis-server checkinstall libxml2-dev libxslt-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libicu-dev
Make sure you have the right version of Python installed.
# Install Python
sudo apt-get install -y python
# Make sure that Python is 2.5+ (3.x is not supported at the moment)
python --version
# If it's Python 3 you might need to install Python 2 separately
sudo apt-get install python2.7
# Make sure you can access Python via python2
python2 --version
# If you get a "command not found" error create a link to the python binary
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/python2
# For reStructuredText markup language support install required package:
sudo apt-get install python-docutils
Note: In order to receive mail notifications, make sure to install a mail server. By default, Debian is shipped with exim4 whereas Ubuntu does not ship with one. The recommended mail server is postfix and you can install it with:
sudo apt-get install -y postfix
Then select 'Internet Site' and press enter to confirm the hostname.
2. Ruby
Remove the old Ruby 1.8 if present
sudo apt-get remove -y ruby1.8
Download Ruby and compile it:
mkdir /tmp/ruby && cd /tmp/ruby
curl --progress ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/2.0/ruby-2.0.0-p247.tar.gz | tar xz
cd ruby-2.0.0-p247
./configure
make
sudo make install
Install the Bundler Gem:
sudo gem install bundler --no-ri --no-rdoc
3. System Users
Create a git
user for Gitlab:
sudo adduser --disabled-login --gecos 'GitLab' git
4. GitLab shell
GitLab Shell is a ssh access and repository management software developed specially for GitLab.
# Go to home directory
cd /home/git
# Clone gitlab shell
sudo -u git -H git clone https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlab-shell.git
cd gitlab-shell
# switch to right version
sudo -u git -H git checkout v1.7.0
sudo -u git -H cp config.yml.example config.yml
# Edit config and replace gitlab_url
# with something like 'http://domain.com/'
sudo -u git -H editor config.yml
# Do setup
sudo -u git -H ./bin/install
5. Database
To setup the MySQL/PostgreSQL database and dependencies please see doc/install/databases.md
.
6. GitLab
# We'll install GitLab into home directory of the user "git"
cd /home/git
Clone the Source
# Clone GitLab repository
sudo -u git -H git clone https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq.git gitlab
# Go to gitlab dir
cd /home/git/gitlab
# Checkout to stable release
sudo -u git -H git checkout 5-4-stable
Note:
You can change 5-4-stable
to master
if you want the bleeding edge version, but never install master on a production server!
Configure it
cd /home/git/gitlab
# Copy the example GitLab config
sudo -u git -H cp config/gitlab.yml.example config/gitlab.yml
# Make sure to change "localhost" to the fully-qualified domain name of your
# host serving GitLab where necessary
sudo -u git -H editor config/gitlab.yml
# Make sure GitLab can write to the log/ and tmp/ directories
sudo chown -R git log/
sudo chown -R git tmp/
sudo chmod -R u+rwX log/
sudo chmod -R u+rwX tmp/
# Create directory for satellites
sudo -u git -H mkdir /home/git/gitlab-satellites
# Create directories for sockets/pids and make sure GitLab can write to them
sudo -u git -H mkdir tmp/pids/
sudo -u git -H mkdir tmp/sockets/
sudo chmod -R u+rwX tmp/pids/
sudo chmod -R u+rwX tmp/sockets/
# Create public/uploads directory otherwise backup will fail
sudo -u git -H mkdir public/uploads
sudo chmod -R u+rwX public/uploads
# Copy the example Unicorn config
sudo -u git -H cp config/unicorn.rb.example config/unicorn.rb
# Enable cluster mode if you expect to have a high load instance
# Ex. change amount of workers to 3 for 2GB RAM server
sudo -u git -H editor config/unicorn.rb
# Configure Git global settings for git user, useful when editing via web
# Edit user.email according to what is set in gitlab.yml
sudo -u git -H git config --global user.name "GitLab"
sudo -u git -H git config --global user.email "gitlab@localhost"
sudo -u git -H git config --global core.autocrlf input
Important Note:
Make sure to edit both gitlab.yml
and unicorn.rb
to match your setup.
Configure GitLab DB settings
# Mysql
sudo -u git cp config/database.yml.mysql config/database.yml
or
# PostgreSQL
sudo -u git cp config/database.yml.postgresql config/database.yml
# Make sure to update username/password in config/database.yml.
# You only need to adapt the production settings (first part).
# If you followed the database guide then please do as follows:
# Change 'root' to 'gitlab'
# Change 'secure password' with the value you have given to $password
# You can keep the double quotes around the password
sudo -u git -H editor config/database.yml
# Make config/database.yml readable to git only
sudo -u git -H chmod o-rwx config/database.yml
Install Gems
cd /home/git/gitlab
sudo gem install charlock_holmes --version '0.6.9.4'
# For MySQL (note, the option says "without ... postgres")
sudo -u git -H bundle install --deployment --without development test postgres unicorn aws
# Or for PostgreSQL (note, the option says "without ... mysql")
sudo -u git -H bundle install --deployment --without development test mysql unicorn aws
Initialize Database and Activate Advanced Features
sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:setup RAILS_ENV=production
# Type 'yes' to create the database.
# When done you see 'Administrator account created:'
Install Init Script
Download the init script (will be /etc/init.d/gitlab):
sudo cp lib/support/init.d/gitlab /etc/init.d/gitlab
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/gitlab
Make GitLab start on boot:
sudo update-rc.d gitlab defaults 21
Check Application Status
Check if GitLab and its environment are configured correctly:
sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:env:info RAILS_ENV=production
Start Your GitLab Instance
sudo service gitlab start
# or
sudo /etc/init.d/gitlab restart
Double-check Application Status
To make sure you didn't miss anything run a more thorough check with:
sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:check RAILS_ENV=production
If all items are green, then congratulations on successfully installing GitLab! However there are still a few steps left.
7. Nginx
Note: Nginx is the officially supported web server for GitLab. If you cannot or do not want to use Nginx as your web server, have a look at the GitLab recipes.
Installation
sudo apt-get install -y nginx
Site Configuration
Download an example site config:
sudo cp lib/support/nginx/gitlab /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitlab
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitlab /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/gitlab
Make sure to edit the config file to match your setup:
# Change YOUR_SERVER_FQDN to the fully-qualified
# domain name of your host serving GitLab.
sudo editor /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitlab
Restart
sudo service nginx restart
Done!
Visit YOUR_SERVER for your first GitLab login. The setup has created an admin account for you. You can use it to log in:
admin@local.host
5iveL!fe
Important Note: Please go over to your profile page and immediately change the password, so nobody can access your GitLab by using this login information later on.
Enjoy!
Advanced Setup Tips
Custom Redis Connection
If you'd like Resque to connect to a Redis server on a non-standard port or on
a different host, you can configure its connection string via the
config/resque.yml
file.
# example
production: redis://redis.example.tld:6379
Custom SSH Connection
If you are running SSH on a non-standard port, you must change the gitlab user's SSH config.
# Add to /home/git/.ssh/config
host localhost # Give your setup a name (here: override localhost)
user git # 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 config\gitlab.yml
file.
LDAP authentication
You can configure LDAP authentication in config/gitlab.yml. Please restart GitLab after editing this file.
Using Custom Omniauth Providers
GitLab uses Omniauth for authentication and already ships with a few providers preinstalled (e.g. LDAP, GitHub, Twitter). But sometimes that is not enough and you need to integrate with other authentication solutions. For these cases you can use the Omniauth provider.
Steps
These steps are fairly general and you will need to figure out the exact details from the Omniauth provider's documentation.
-
Stop GitLab
sudo service gitlab stop
-
Add provider specific configuration options to your
config/gitlab.yml
(you can use the auth providers section of the example config as a reference) -
Add the gem to your Gemfile
gem "omniauth-your-auth-provider"
-
If you're using MySQL, install the new Omniauth provider gem by running the following command:
sudo -u git -H bundle install --without development test postgres --path vendor/bundle --no-deployment
-
If you're using PostgreSQL, install the new Omniauth provider gem by running the following command:
sudo -u git -H bundle install --without development test mysql --path vendor/bundle --no-deployment
These are the same commands you used in the Install Gems section with
--path vendor/bundle --no-deployment
instead of--deployment
.
- Start GitLab
sudo service gitlab start
Examples
If you have successfully set up a provider that is not shipped with GitLab itself, please let us know. You can help others by reporting successful configurations and probably share a few insights or provide warnings for common errors or pitfalls by sharing your experience in the public Wiki. While we can't officially support every possible auth mechanism out there, we'd like to at least help those with special needs.