512MB is too little memory, GitLab will be very slow and you will need 250MB of swap
768MB is the minimal memory size but we advise against this
1GB supports up to 100 users (with individual repositories under 250MB, otherwise git memory usage necessitates using swap space)
2GB is the recommended memory size and supports up to 1,000 users
4GB supports up to 10,000 users

Storage

The necessary hard drive space largely depends on the size of the repos you want to store in GitLab. But as a rule of thumb you should have at least twice as much free space as your all repos combined take up. You need twice the storage because GitLab satellites contain an extra copy of each repo.

If you want to be flexible about growing your hard drive space in the future consider mounting it using LVM so you can add more hard drives when you need them.

Apart from a local hard drive you can also mount a volume that supports the network file system (NFS) protocol. This volume might be located on a file server, a network attached storage (NAS) device, a storage area network (SAN) or on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Elastic Block Store (EBS) volume.

If you have enough RAM memory and a recent CPU the speed of GitLab is mainly limited by hard drive seek times. Having a fast drive (7200 RPM and up) or a solid state drive (SSD) will improve the responsiveness of GitLab.

Supported Web Browsers

Chrome (Latest stable version)
Firefox (Latest released version)
Safari 7+ (Know problem: required fields in html5 do not work)
Opera (Latest released version)
IE 10+

Installation

Pull the latest version of the image from the docker index. This is the recommended method of installation as it is easier to update image in the future. These builds are performed by the Docker Trusted Build service.

docker pull sameersbn/gitlab

Since version 6.5.0, the image builds are being tagged. You can now pull a particular version of gitlab by specifying the version number. For example,

docker pull sameersbn/gitlab:6.6.1

Alternately you can build the image yourself.

git clone https://github.com/sameersbn/docker-gitlab.git
cd docker-gitlab
sudo docker build -t="$USER/gitlab" .

Quick Start

Run the gitlab image

GITLAB=$(sudo docker run -d sameersbn/gitlab)
GITLAB_IP=$(sudo docker inspect $GITLAB | grep IPAddres | awk -F'"' '{print $4}')

Access the GitLab application

xdg-open "http://${GITLAB_IP}"

NOTE: Please allow a minute or two for the GitLab application to start.

username: admin@local.host
password: 5iveL!fe

You should now have GitLab ready for testing. If you want to use GitLab for more than just testing then please read the Advanced Options section.

Configuration

Data Store

GitLab is a code hosting software and as such you don't want to lose your code when the docker container is stopped/deleted. To avoid losing any data, you should mount a volume at,

/home/git/data

Volumes can be mounted in docker by specifying the '-v' option in the docker run command.

mkdir /opt/gitlab/data
docker run -d \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  sameersbn/gitlab

Database

GitLab uses a database backend to store its data.

MySQL

Internal MySQL Server

This docker image is configured to use a MySQL database backend. The database connection can be configured using environment variables. If not specified, the image will start a mysql server internally and use it. However in this case, the data stored in the mysql database will be lost if the container is stopped/deleted. To avoid this you should mount a volume at /var/lib/mysql.

mkdir /opt/gitlab/mysql
docker run -d \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  -v /opt/gitlab/mysql:/var/lib/mysql sameersbn/gitlab

This will make sure that the data stored in the database is not lost when the image is stopped and started again.

External MySQL Server

The image can be configured to use an external MySQL database instead of starting a MySQL server internally. The database configuration should be specified using environment variables while starting the GitLab image.

Before you start the GitLab image create user and database for gitlab.

mysql -uroot -p
CREATE USER 'gitlab'@'%.%.%.%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `gitlabhq_production` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET `utf8` COLLATE `utf8_unicode_ci`;
GRANT SELECT, LOCK TABLES, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER ON `gitlabhq_production`.* TO 'gitlab'@'%.%.%.%';

To make sure the database is initialized start the container with app:db:initialize option.

NOTE: This should be done only for the first run.

Assuming that the mysql server host is 192.168.1.100

docker run -d \
  -e "DB_HOST=192.168.1.100" -e "DB_NAME=gitlabhq_production" -e "DB_USER=gitlab" -e "DB_PASS=password" \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  sameersbn/gitlab app:db:initialize

This will initialize the gitlab database. Now that the database is initialized, start the container without the initialize command.

docker run -d \
  -e "DB_HOST=192.168.1.100" -e "DB_NAME=gitlabhq_production" -e "DB_USER=gitlab" -e "DB_PASS=password" \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  sameersbn/gitlab

PostgreSQL

External PostgreSQL Server

The image also supports using an external PostgreSQL Server. This is also controlled via environment variables.

createuser gitlab
createdb -O gitlab gitlabhq_production

To make sure the database is initialized start the container with app:db:initialize option.

NOTE: This should be done only for the first run.

Assuming that the PostgreSQL server host is 192.168.1.100

docker run -d \
  -e "DB_TYPE=postgres" -e "DB_HOST=192.168.1.100" -e "DB_NAME=gitlabhq_production" -e "DB_USER=gitlab" -e "DB_PASS=password" \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  sameersbn/gitlab app:db:initialize

This will initialize the gitlab database. Now that the database is initialized, start the container without the initialize command.

docker run -d \
  -e "DB_TYPE=postgres" -e "DB_HOST=192.168.1.100" -e "DB_NAME=gitlabhq_production" -e "DB_USER=gitlab" -e "DB_PASS=password" \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  sameersbn/gitlab

Mail

The mail configuration should be specified using environment variables while starting the GitLab image. The configuration defaults to using gmail to send emails and requires the specification of a valid username and password to login to the gmail servers.

The following environment variables need to be specified to get mail support to work.

SMTP_HOST (defaults to smtp.gmail.com)
SMTP_PORT (defaults to 587)
SMTP_USER
SMTP_PASS

docker run -d \
  -e "SMTP_USER=USER@gmail.com" -e "SMTP_PASS=PASSWORD" \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  sameersbn/gitlab

If you are not using google mail, then please configure the SMTP host and port using the SMTP_HOST and SMTP_PORT configuration parameters.

NOTE:

I have only tested standard gmail and google apps login. I expect that the currently provided configuration parameters should be sufficient for most users. If this is not the case, then please let me know.

Putting it all together

docker run -d -h git.local.host \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  -v /opt/gitlab/mysql:/var/lib/mysql \
  -e "GITLAB_HOST=git.local.host" -e "GITLAB_EMAIL=gitlab@local.host" -e "GITLAB_SUPPORT=support@local.host" \
  -e "SMTP_USER=USER@gmail.com" -e "SMTP_PASS=PASSWORD" \
  sameersbn/gitlab

If you are using an external mysql database

docker run -d -h git.local.host \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  -e "DB_HOST=192.168.1.100" -e "DB_NAME=gitlabhq_production" -e "DB_USER=gitlab" -e "DB_PASS=password" \
  -e "GITLAB_HOST=git.local.host" -e "GITLAB_EMAIL=gitlab@local.host" -e "GITLAB_SUPPORT=support@local.host" \
  -e "SMTP_USER=USER@gmail.com" -e "SMTP_PASS=PASSWORD" \
  sameersbn/gitlab

Maintenance

Taking backups

Gitlab defines a rake task to easily take a backup of your gitlab installation. The backup consists of all git repositories, uploaded files and as you might expect, the sql database.

Before taking a backup, please make sure that the gitlab image is not running for obvious reasons

docker stop <container-id>

To take a backup all you need to do is pass the "app:backup" command to the container image.

  docker run -i -t -h git.local.host \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  sameersbn/gitlab app:backup

Restoring Backups

Gitlab defines a rake task to easily restore a backup of your gitlab installation. Before performing the restore operation please make sure that the gitlab image is not running.

docker stop <container-id>

To restore a backup, run the image in interactive (-i -t) mode and pass the "app:restore" command to the container image.

  docker run -i -t -h git.local.host \
  -v /opt/gitlab/data:/home/git/data \
  sameersbn/gitlab app:restore

The restore operation will list all available backups in reverse chronological order. Select the backup you want to restore and gitlab will do its job.

Upgrading

If you upgrading from previous version, please make sure you run the container with app:db:migrate command.

Step 1: Stop the currently running image

docker stop <container-id>

Step 2: Backup the application data.

docker run -i -t [OPTIONS] sameersbn/gitlab app:backup

Step 3: Update the docker image.

docker pull sameersbn/gitlab

Step 4: Migrate the database.

docker run -i -t [OPTIONS] sameersbn/gitlab app:db:migrate

Step 5: Start the image

docker run -i -d [OPTIONS] sameersbn/gitlab

Configuration Parameters

Below is the complete list of parameters that can be set using environment variables.

GITLAB_HOST

  The hostname of the GitLab server. Defaults to localhost

GITLAB_EMAIL

  The email address for the GitLab server. Defaults to gitlab@localhost.

GITLAB_SUPPORT

  The support email address for the GitLab server. Defaults to support@localhost.

GITLAB_SIGNUP

  Enable or disable gitlab user signup. Default is false. To enable user signup add '-e GITLAB_SIGNUP="true"' to the docker run command parameters.

REDIS_HOST

  The hostname of the redis server. Defaults to localhost

REDIS_PORT

  The connection port of the redis server. Defaults to 6379.

UNICORN_WORKERS

  The number of unicorn workers to start. Defaults to 2.

UNICORN_TIMEOUT

  Sets the timeout of unicorn worker processes. Defaults to 60 seconds.

SIDEKIQ_CONCURRENCY

  The number of concurrent sidekiq jobs to run. Defaults to 5

DB_TYPE

  The database type. Possible values: mysql, postgres. Defaults to mysql.

DB_HOST

  The database server hostname. Defaults to localhost.

DB_NAME

  The database database name. Defaults to gitlabhq_production

DB_USER

  The database database user. Defaults to root

DB_PASS

  The database database password. Defaults to no password

DB_POOL

  The database database connection pool count. Defaults to 10.

SMTP_HOST

  SMTP server host. Defaults to smtp.gmail.com.

SMTP_PORT
```
  SMTP server port. Defaults to 587.
```
SMTP_USER
```
  SMTP username.
```
SMTP_PASS
```
  SMTP password.
```

README.md

Table of Contents

Introduction

Version

Hardware Requirements

CPU

Memory