A guide on setting up GitLab on Fedora 22

I believe that most developers should have heard of/used GitHub. One of the main issues with GitHub is the lack of private repository for free users(except for student account). In the event that one needs a private repository, some will use BitBucket instead of GitHub. Alternatively, one can host a git server on his/her own machine. Here I am presenting another solution known as GitLab, which is pretty similar to GitHub except that it allows you to host the software on third-party server which is perfect for personal use. As GitLab does not have official support on Fedora. It will take a few more steps than usual to get it up and running on a Fedora server.

1. Installing Pre-requisties

   sudo dnf install sendmail sendmail-cf curl openssh-server
   

2. Starting and Enabling Services

   sudo systemctl start sshd
   sudo systemctl enable sshd
   

3. Downloading GitLab

   curl https://packages.gitlab.com/gitlab/gitlab-ce/packages/el/7/gitlab-ce-8.1.2-ce.0.el7.x86_64.rpm/download
   

4. GitLab Installation

   dnf install gitlab-ce-8.1.2-ce.0.el7.x86_64.rpm
   

5. Configuring and Starting GitLab
   Before running the gitlab, we will need to edit the configuration file.

   sudo -e /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
   

   Change the external url to your domain.

    external_url 'http://mydomain.com'
   

   Run the following to have gitlab reconfigured and restarted.

   sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure
   

6. Configure Firewall Setting

   sudo firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=http
   sudo firewall-cmd --reload
   

7. Configure Sendmail
   In this example, gmail is used as the mailing agent.
   Before you make changes, make sure a back up of sendmail.mc and sendmail.cf is created.

   cd /etc/mail
   sudo cp sendmail.mc sendmail.mc.bak
   sudo cp sendmail.cf sendmail.cf.bak
   

   Add the following lines to the top of the first Mailer in /etc/mail/sendmail.mc

   define(`SMART_HOST',`[smtp.gmail.com]')dnl
   define(`RELAY_MAILER_ARGS', `TCP $h 587')dnl
   define(`ESMTP_MAILER_ARGS', `TCP $h 587')dnl
   define(`confAUTH_OPTIONS', `A p')dnl
   TRUST_AUTH_MECH(`EXTERNAL DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl
   define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS', `EXTERNAL GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl
   FEATURE(`authinfo',`hash -o /etc/mail/authinfo/gmail-auth.db')dnl
   

   Now we will need to create the gmail-auth.db so that sendmail can login to the gmail mailing server with the credentials

   sudo mkdir -m 700 /etc/mail/authinfo/
   sudo cd /etc/mail/authinfo/
   

   Create the file gmail-auth and insert the following line.

   AuthInfo: "U:root" "I:EMAIL ADDRESS" "P:PASSWORD"
   

   Next we will need to create the hash file. (you may wanna delete original gmail-auth for security reason)

   makemap hash gmail-auth < gmail-auth
   

   Next, we will need to have sendmail reconfigured and restarted.

   m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
   sudo service sendmail restart
   

8. Accessing GitLab Web Interface
   Now that everything has been configured, you may try to access the web interface via the external URL that you have specified in the beginning.
   Try making an account and see if you actually receives a confirmation email. If everything works fine, you can start creating code repository on your very own git server.
   In the event that sendmail fails to send the confirmation email. you may want to check the log in /var/log/maillog for more information.
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