Skip to content

Install GitLab in a Docker container

DETAILS: Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: Self-managed

Find the GitLab official Docker image at:

The Docker images don't include a mail transport agent (MTA). The recommended solution is to add an MTA (such as Postfix or Sendmail) running in a separate container. As another option, you can install an MTA directly in the GitLab container, but this adds maintenance overhead as you'll likely need to reinstall the MTA after every upgrade or restart.

You should not deploy the GitLab Docker image in Kubernetes as it creates a single point of failure. If you want to deploy GitLab in Kubernetes, the GitLab Helm Chart or GitLab Operator should be used instead.

WARNING: Docker for Windows is not officially supported. There are known issues with volume permissions, and potentially other unknown issues. If you are trying to run on Docker for Windows, see the getting help page for links to community resources (such as IRC or forums) to seek help from other users.

Prerequisites

To use the GitLab Docker images:

  • You must install Docker.
  • You must use a valid externally-accessible hostname. Do not use localhost.

Configure the SSH port

GitLab uses SSH to interact with Git over SSH. By default, GitLab uses port 22.

To use a different port when using the GitLab Docker image, you can either:

  • Change the server's SSH port (recommended).
  • Change the GitLab Shell SSH port.

Change the server's SSH port

You can change the server's SSH port without making another SSH configuration change in GitLab. In that case, the SSH clone URLs looks like ssh://git@gitlab.example.com/user/project.git.

To change the server's SSH port:

  1. Open /etc/ssh/sshd_config with your editor, and change the SSH port:

    Port = 2424

  2. Save the file and restart the SSH service:

    sudo systemctl restart ssh

  3. Open a new terminal session and verify that you can connect using SSH to the server using the new port.

Change the GitLab Shell SSH port

If you don't want to change the server's default SSH port, you can configure a different SSH port that GitLab uses for Git over SSH pushes. In that case, the SSH clone URLs looks like ssh://git@gitlab.example.com:<portNumber>/user/project.git.

For more information, see how to change the GitLab Shell SSH port.

Set up the volumes location

Before setting everything else, create a directory where the configuration, logs, and data files will reside. It can be under your user's home directory (for example ~/gitlab-docker), or in a directory like /srv/gitlab. To create that directory:

sudo mkdir -p /srv/gitlab

If you're running Docker with a user other than root, ensure appropriate permissions have been granted to that directory.

Configure a new environment variable $GITLAB_HOME that sets the path to the directory you created:

export GITLAB_HOME=/srv/gitlab

You can also append the GITLAB_HOME environment variable to your shell's profile so it is applied on all future terminal sessions:

  • Bash: ~/.bash_profile
  • ZSH: ~/.zshrc

The GitLab container uses host mounted volumes to store persistent data:

Local location Container location Usage
$GITLAB_HOME/data /var/opt/gitlab For storing application data.
$GITLAB_HOME/logs /var/log/gitlab For storing logs.
$GITLAB_HOME/config /etc/gitlab For storing the GitLab configuration files.

Find the GitLab version and edition to use

In a production environment, you should pin your deployment to a specific GitLab version. Find the version to use in the Docker tags page:

The tag name consists of the following:

gitlab/gitlab-ee:<version>-ee.0

Where <version> is the GitLab version, for example 16.5.3. It always includes <major>.<minor>.<patch> in its name.

For testing purposes, you can use the latest tag, such as gitlab/gitlab-ee:latest, which points to the latest stable release.

In the following examples, we use a stable Enterprise Edition version, but if you want to use the Release Candidate (RC) or nightly image, use gitlab/gitlab-ee:rc or gitlab/gitlab-ee:nightly instead.

To install the Community Edition, replace ee with ce.

Installation

The GitLab Docker images can be run in multiple ways:

Install GitLab using Docker Engine

You can fine tune these directories to meet your requirements. Once you've set up the GITLAB_HOME variable, you can run the image:

sudo docker run --detach \
  --hostname gitlab.example.com \
  --env GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG="external_url 'http://gitlab.example.com'" \
  --publish 443:443 --publish 80:80 --publish 22:22 \
  --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-ee:<version>-ee.0

This command downloads and starts a GitLab container, and publishes ports needed to access SSH, HTTP and HTTPS. All GitLab data are stored as subdirectories of $GITLAB_HOME. The container automatically restarts after a system reboot.

If you are on SELinux, then run this instead:

sudo docker run --detach \
  --hostname gitlab.example.com \
  --env GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG="external_url 'http://gitlab.example.com'" \
  --publish 443:443 --publish 80:80 --publish 22:22 \
  --name gitlab \
  --restart always \
  --volume $GITLAB_HOME/config:/etc/gitlab:Z \
  --volume $GITLAB_HOME/logs:/var/log/gitlab:Z \
  --volume $GITLAB_HOME/data:/var/opt/gitlab:Z \
  --shm-size 256m \
  gitlab/gitlab-ee:<version>-ee.0

This command ensures that the Docker process has enough permissions to create the configuration files in the mounted volumes.

If you're using the Kerberos integration, you must also publish your Kerberos port (for example, --publish 8443:8443). Failing to do so prevents Git operations with Kerberos.

The initialization process may take a long time. You can track this process with:

sudo docker logs -f gitlab

After starting the container, you can visit gitlab.example.com. It might take a while before the Docker container starts to respond to queries.

Visit the GitLab URL, and sign in with the username root and the password from the following command:

sudo docker exec -it gitlab grep 'Password:' /etc/gitlab/initial_root_password

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

Install GitLab using Docker Compose

With Docker Compose you can easily configure, install, and upgrade your Docker-based GitLab installation:

  1. Install Docker Compose.

  2. Create a docker-compose.yml file:

    version: '3.6'
services:
  gitlab:
    image: gitlab/gitlab-ee:<version>-ee.0
    container_name: gitlab
    restart: always
    hostname: 'gitlab.example.com'
    environment:
      GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG: |
        # Add any other gitlab.rb configuration here, each on its own line
        external_url 'https://gitlab.example.com'
    ports:
      - '80:80'
      - '443:443'
      - '22:22'
    volumes:
      - '$GITLAB_HOME/config:/etc/gitlab'
      - '$GITLAB_HOME/logs:/var/log/gitlab'
      - '$GITLAB_HOME/data:/var/opt/gitlab'
    shm_size: '256m'

  3. Make sure you are in the same directory as docker-compose.yml and start GitLab:

    docker compose up -d

NOTE: Read the Pre-configure Docker container section to see how the GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG variable works.

Below is another docker-compose.yml example with GitLab running on a custom HTTP and SSH port. Notice how the GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG variables match the ports section:

version: '3.6'
services:
  gitlab:
    image: gitlab/gitlab-ee:<version>-ee.0
    container_name: gitlab
    restart: always
    hostname: 'gitlab.example.com'
    environment:
      GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG: |
        external_url 'http://gitlab.example.com: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'

This configuration is the same as using --publish 8929:8929 --publish 2424:22.

Install GitLab using Docker swarm mode

With Docker swarm mode, you can easily configure and deploy your Docker-based GitLab installation in a swarm cluster.

In swarm mode you can leverage Docker secrets and Docker configurations to efficiently and securely deploy your GitLab instance. Secrets can be used to securely pass your initial root password without exposing it as an environment variable. Configurations can help you to keep your GitLab image as generic as possible.

Here's an example that deploys GitLab with four runners as a stack, using secrets and configurations:

  1. Set up a Docker swarm.

  2. Create a docker-compose.yml file:

    version: "3.6"
services:
  gitlab:
    image: gitlab/gitlab-ee:<version>-ee.0
    container_name: gitlab
    restart: always
    hostname: 'gitlab.example.com'
    ports:
      - "22:22"
      - "80:80"
      - "443:443"
    volumes:
      - $GITLAB_HOME/data:/var/opt/gitlab
      - $GITLAB_HOME/logs:/var/log/gitlab
      - $GITLAB_HOME/config:/etc/gitlab
    shm_size: '256m'
    environment:
      GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG: "from_file('/omnibus_config.rb')"
    configs:
      - source: gitlab
        target: /omnibus_config.rb
    secrets:
      - gitlab_root_password
  gitlab-runner:
    image: gitlab/gitlab-runner:alpine
    deploy:
      mode: replicated
      replicas: 4
configs:
  gitlab:
    file: ./gitlab.rb
secrets:
  gitlab_root_password:
    file: ./root_password.txt

    For simplicity reasons, the network configuration was omitted. More information can be found in the official Compose file reference.

  3. Create a gitlab.rb file:

    external_url 'https://my.domain.com/'
gitlab_rails['initial_root_password'] = File.read('/run/secrets/gitlab_root_password').gsub("\n", "")

  4. Create a file called root_password.txt containing the password:

    MySuperSecretAndSecurePassw0rd!

  5. Make sure you are in the same directory as docker-compose.yml and run:

    docker stack deploy --compose-file docker-compose.yml mystack