I’ve started building a small decentralized, non commercial app with a Rust backend + Node.js frontend running on k8s. I would have my own dedicated server for this. Just mentioning the setup because it might grow and for git there seem to be only GitHub and GitLab around and I prefer GitLab.

I care a lot about security and was wondering if it makes sense to self-host GitLab. I‘m not afraid of doing it, but after setup it shouldn’t take more than 1-2 hours per week for me to maintain it in the long run and I’m wondering if that’s realistic.

Would love to hear about the experience of people who did what I’m planning to do.

EDIT: Thanks for all the answers, trying my best to reply. I want CI/CD, container registry and secrets management that’s what I was hoping to get out of GitLab.

  • @[email protected]OPEnglish
    1•5 months ago

    Thanks! Super helpful and I’d love to have the compose and install script. I also looked into the Helm charts but still wondering if I should go down that route or not eventually.

    • ScottEnglish
      1•5 months ago

      Incoming wall of text

      Here is my install script to set up Ubuntu since it has a bit of extra steps for privileged ports https://gitlab.meme.beer/-/snippets/1

      Docker compose example, note that my config has a shared network with containers in another compose called nginx to keep traffic inside docker.

      name: "gitlab"
services:
  gitlab:
    image: 'gitlab/gitlab-ce:latest'
    #command: update-permissions
    restart: always
    hostname: 'gitlab.example.com'
    environment:
      GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG: |
        external_url 'https://gitlab.example.com'

        pages_external_url 'https://pages.example.com'
        pages_nginx['enable'] = true
        pages_nginx['listen_port'] = 6000
        pages_nginx['listen_https'] = false
        pages_nginx['redirect_http_to_https'] = false

        #puma['per_worker_max_memory_mb'] = 2048 # 2GB

        gitlab_rails['gitlab_email_from'] = '[email protected]'
        gitlab_rails['gitlab_email_display_name'] = 'GitLab'
        gitlab_rails['smtp_enable'] = true
        gitlab_rails['smtp_address'] = "smtp.sendgrid.net"
        gitlab_rails['smtp_port'] = 587
        gitlab_rails['smtp_user_name'] = 'apikey'
        gitlab_rails['smtp_password'] = '$SENDGRID_API_KEY_HERE'
        gitlab_rails['smtp_domain'] = "smtp.sendgrid.net"
        gitlab_rails['smtp_authentication'] = "login"
        gitlab_rails['smtp_enable_starttls_auto'] = true
        gitlab_rails['smtp_tls'] = false

        gitlab_rails['gitlab_default_theme'] = 2

        gitlab_rails['gitlab_shell_ssh_port'] = 2224

        gitlab_rails['gitlab_default_projects_features_container_registry'] = true
        gitlab_rails['registry_enabled'] = true
        gitlab_rails['registry_api_url'] = 'https://registry.example.com'
        gitlab_rails['registry_issuer'] = 'gitlab-issuer'
        registry['log_level'] = 'info'
        registry_external_url 'https://registry.example.com'
        registry_nginx['enable'] = true
        registry_nginx['listen_port'] = 5050
        registry_nginx['listen_https'] = false
        registry_nginx['redirect_http_to_https'] = false

        gitlab_shell['log_level'] = 'INFO'
        letsencrypt['enable'] = false
        nginx['error_log_level'] = 'info'
        nginx['listen_https'] = false
        #nginx['proxy_protocol'] = true
        #nginx['trusted_proxies'] = ["10.0.0.0/8", "172.16.0.0/12", "192.168.0.0/16"]

        # Workhorse
        gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = true
        gitlab_workhorse['ha'] = false
        gitlab_workhorse['listen_network'] = "tcp"
        gitlab_workhorse['listen_addr'] = "127.0.0.1:8181"
        gitlab_workhorse['log_directory'] = "/var/log/gitlab/gitlab-workhorse"

        # Errors
	# for sentry error logging the GitLab service
        #gitlab_rails['sentry_enabled'] = true
        #gitlab_rails['sentry_dsn'] = ''
        #gitlab_rails['sentry_clientside_dsn'] = ''
        #gitlab_rails['sentry_environment'] = 'production'
        # Add any other gitlab.rb configuration here, each on its own line
    networks:
      - nginx
    ports:
      # gitlab loves https on 443
      #- '80:80'
      #- '443:443'
      - '2224:22'
    volumes:
      - ./config:/etc/gitlab
      - ./logs:/var/log/gitlab
      - ./data:/var/opt/gitlab
    shm_size: '256m'
    #deploy:
    #  resources:
    #    limits:
    #      cpus: '6'
    #      memory: 12G
    #    reservations:
    #      cpus: '4'
    #      memory: 6G
    # disable healthcheck for restoring backup
    #healthcheck:
    #  disable: true
networks:
  nginx:
    external: true
    name: nginx