SoFunction
Updated on 2025-04-11

How to install gitlab using docker compose

Introduction to GitLab

GitLab is an open source project based on Git, designed to help teams collaborate and develop software more efficiently. It is built using the Ruby on Rails framework and provides a self-hosted Git repository management tool that supports version control, code review, continuous integration and continuous deployment.

Main functions include:

- Version control: Users can create branches, merge code, and handle conflicts to ensure that the code history and change management is properly managed.
- Code review: Team members can comment and discuss submitted code through Pull Requests to ensure the quality of the code.
- Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD): GitLab has built-in CI/CD functions, which support automated construction, testing and deployment processes to improve development efficiency.
- Project Management: Help the team manage project progress and tasks through Issue tracking, kanban, milestone and other functions.

GitLab also provides permission management and audit logs to ensure code security and compliance, suitable for teams of all sizes, from small open source projects to large enterprise-level applications.
GitLab is an implementationDevOPSA classic tool for automated development, operation and maintenance pipelines.

Set the GITLAB_HOME path

Set up one firstGITLAB_HOMEEnvironment variable, working directory for gitlab. There are 2 ways:

  • Write to the environment variable configuration file (recommended). existFile directory creation at the same level.envdocument. WriteGITLAB_HOME=/srv/gitlab
  • Add to the shell's startup configuration file.echo "GITLAB_HOME=/srv/gitlab" >> ~/.bash_profile

After adding configuration in the second way, usesource ~/.bash_profileCommand to make the configuration take effect

Create a docker mount directory

Go to the previous step setting$GITLAB_HOMEIn the directory, create newdata, logs, configfolders.

As shown below:

Host directory

Container internal directory

illustrate

$GITLAB_HOME/data

/var/opt/gitlab

Stores application data.

$GITLAB_HOME/logs

/var/log/gitlab

Stores logs.

$GITLAB_HOME/config

/etc/gitlab

Stores the GitLab configuration files.

Get the available version of GitLab

# Mirror name format:gitlab/gitlab-ce:<version>-ce.0
# Specify a fixed version of the imagegitlab/gitlab-ce:17.6.2-ce.0
# Use the latest version of the imagegitlab/gitlab-ce:latest

Write a file

:

version: '3.6'
services:
  gitlab:
    image: gitlab/gitlab-ce:17.6.2-ce.0
    container_name: gitlab
    restart: always
    hostname: ''
    environment:
      GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG: |
        external_url ':8929'
        gitlab_rails['gitlab_shell_ssh_port'] = 2424
    ports:
      - '8929:8929'
      - '443:443'
      - '2424:22'
    volumes:
      - '$GITLAB_HOME/config:/etc/gitlab'
      - '$GITLAB_HOME/logs:/var/log/gitlab'
      - '$GITLAB_HOME/data:/var/opt/gitlab'
    shm_size: '256m'

passGITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIGEnvironment variables, configurationexternal_urlParameters, set the HTTP address of the repository.

portsport map toGITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIGThe relevant configuration items shall prevail.

Start docker

docker compose up -d

The container starts for the first time and takes several minutes, please be patient.
After successful startup, the container status is(health: starting)Become(healthy). As shown below:

NAME      IMAGE                          COMMAND             SERVICE   CREATED       STATUS                             PORTS
gitlab    gitlab/gitlab-ce:17.6.2-ce.0   "/assets/wrapper"   gitlab    2 hours ago   Up 12 seconds (health: starting)   0.0.0.0:443->443/tcp, :::443->443/tcp, 80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8929->8929/tcp, :::8929->8929/tcp, 0.0.0.0:2424->22/tcp, [::]:2424->22/tcp
NAME      IMAGE                          COMMAND             SERVICE   CREATED       STATUS                    PORTS
gitlab    gitlab/gitlab-ce:17.6.2-ce.0   "/assets/wrapper"   gitlab    3 hours ago   Up 51 minutes (healthy)   0.0.0.0:443->443/tcp, :::443->443/tcp, 80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8929->8929/tcp, :::8929->8929/tcp, 0.0.0.0:2424->22/tcp, [::]:2424->22/tcp

View the container run log:

sudo docker logs -f gitlab

Through the previous configurationexternal_url, access the GitLab project address and log in to the root account.

  • The username is:root
  • User password view file: host machine$GITLAB_HOME/config/initial_root_passwordor inside the container/etc/gitlab/initial_root_password

Note: The password file is automatically deleted in the first container restart after 24 hours.

Basic configuration

GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG

GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIGEnvironment variables, allow presetsFile configuration items.
It has the following characteristics:

  • More than in the containerThe configuration file is read first.
  • It will only be loaded when the system starts, and will not be modified directlydocument.
  • Allows multiple configuration items to be set, use;Symbols separated.

The configuration can include GitLab project address, database configuration, etc. For details, please see:File configuration template

external_url: Project homepage. like:":8929"gitlab_rails['gitlab_shell_ssh_port']: SSH port. like:2424gitlab_rails['initial_root_password']: The preset root user password when the project is initialized.

When the project is first started, environment variables can also be injected into the container.GITLAB_ROOT_PASSWORD, preset the login password of the root user.

Docker run commands are as follows:

sudo docker run --detach

–hostname
–env GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG=“external_url ‘:8929’; gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_shell_ssh_port’] = 2424”
–publish 8929:8929 --publish 2424:22
–name gitlab
–restart always
–volume $GITLAB_HOME/config:/etc/gitlab
–volume $GITLAB_HOME/logs:/var/log/gitlab
–volume $GITLAB_HOME/data:/var/opt/gitlab
–shm-size 256m
gitlab/gitlab-ce:-ce.0

Modify configuration

  • Enter the container:sudo docker exec -it gitlab /bin/bash
  • Modify the configuration file:editor /etc/gitlab/
  • Overload configuration:gitlab-ctl reconfigure

​​​​​​​​ Chinese settings

  • Global settings: Menu in the lower left cornerAdmin, click:Settings - Preferences。
  • Page foundLocalization - Default language

User personalization settings: click on the user avatar in the upper left corner and select the drop-down box.Preferences. Page foundLocalization - Language

The current user must have changedUser personalized settings, to take effect:

In the user menu at the top right of the page, select Settings.
After entering the Settings page, click the "Preferences" option in the navigation bar on the left.
In the Preferences page, find the "Localization" area and change the "Language" option to "Simplified Chinese".
Click the "Save changes" button at the bottom of the page to save the language settings.

Database configuration

sinceGitLab 16.0From the beginning, GitLab uses 2 database connections by default. We can disable it, return to the original single-connect mode.

sudo docker exec -it gitlab editor /etc/gitlab/
gitlab_rails['databases']['ci']['enable'] = false
sudo docker restart gitlab

System mailbox configuration

Modify the configuration file:/etc/gitlab/

Reload the configuration to make it effective:gitlab-ctl reconfigure

gitlab_rails[‘smtp_enable’] = true
gitlab_rails[‘smtp_address’] = “”
gitlab_rails[‘smtp_port’] = 465
gitlab_rails[‘smtp_user_name’] = “smtp user”
gitlab_rails[‘smtp_password’] = “smtp password”
gitlab_rails[‘smtp_domain’] = “”
gitlab_rails[‘smtp_authentication’] = “login”
gitlab_rails[‘smtp_enable_starttls_auto’] = true
gitlab_rails[‘smtp_openssl_verify_mode’] = ‘peer’

If your SMTP server does not like the default ‘From: gitlab@localhost’ you can change the ‘From’ with this setting.

gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_email_from’] = ‘gitlab@’
gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_email_reply_to’] = ‘noreply@’

If your SMTP server is using a self signed certificate or a certificate which is signed by a CA which is not trusted by default, you can specify a custom ca file. Please note that the certificates from /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/ are not used for the verification of the SMTP server certificate.

gitlab_rails[‘smtp_ca_file’] = ‘/path/to/your/’

Example: QQ exmail (Tencent Corporate Email)

gitlab_rails['smtp_enable'] = true
gitlab_rails['smtp_address'] = ""
gitlab_rails['smtp_port'] = 465
gitlab_rails['smtp_user_name'] = "xxxx@"
gitlab_rails['smtp_password'] = "password"
gitlab_rails['smtp_authentication'] = "login"
gitlab_rails['smtp_enable_starttls_auto'] = false
gitlab_rails['smtp_tls'] = true
gitlab_rails['gitlab_email_from'] = 'xxxx@'
gitlab_rails['smtp_domain'] = ""

/17.6/ee/install/docker/
Steps after installing GitLab: /17.6/ee/install/next_steps.html

This is the end of this article about installing gitlab using docker compose. For more related content on installing gitlab by docker compose, please search for my previous articles or continue browsing the related articles below. I hope everyone will support me in the future!