How to Install GitLab on CentOS 7, RHEL and Scientific Linux - Tutorials and How To

What is GitLab Community Edition?

GitLab Community Edition is an open source git service which you can easily deploy in your cloud server. It includes Git repository management, issue tracking, code review, an IDE, activity streams, wikis, built-in Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment and much more features.

Before You Begin

Make sure your instance meets the recommended requirements for GitLab.

CPU – 2 cores
RAM – 4 GB

Update your instance.

sudo yum update

Install and Configure the Dependencies

You will need to install curl policycoreutils, openssh and a mail server. On CentOS, you might also need to open HTTP access in the system firewall.

Enter the following commands one by one to install and configure the dependencies and configure the firewall.

sudo yum install curl policycoreutils openssh-server openssh-clients
sudo systemctl enable sshd
sudo systemctl start sshd
sudo yum install postfix
sudo systemctl enable postfix
sudo systemctl start postfix
sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http
sudo systemctl reload firewalld

Install GitLab

First, add the GitLab package server.

curl -sS https://packages.gitlab.com/install/repositories/gitlab/gitlab-ce/script.rpm.sh | sudo bash

Now start the installation.

sudo yum install gitlab-ce

Type y at the prompt and press Enter to continue.

Configure and Start GitLab

After the installation is complete, we need to configure GitLab. To do it, run the following command.

sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

Final Steps

Your GitLab installation is now almost complete. You just need to visit it from your browser and change your password. To do this, simply navigate to the hostname or the IP address of your instance from your web browser.

http://your_server_ip

You will be redirected to a page where you’ll be asked to enter a new password. Enter a desired password and click ‘Change your password’.

After you change the password, you will be taken to the login page.

The default username is root. You should be able to log in with the password you set before. It’s recommended to change the username of the default account from root to something else.

That’s it! You now have a functioning git service running on your own cloud instance.