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GitLab installation on Fedora 16 (with gitolite)

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This is updated version of my tutorial for GitLab 2.1. Old version can be found here

GitLab is a wonderful piece of software made by these guys and I'd like to try and install it on Fedora 16 system, as it is most recent Fedora OS at the time I am writnig this. I will base my tutorial on on found here by Déja. Also on my way to successful install I've stumbled upon this description, so I might have gain some experience from it too.

GitLab is Ruby on Rails application and it takes some experience to get it all working because of many, many, many dependencies and packages it needs. It's nothing like simple PHP on Apache installation. But it works and it's worth it, I assure you :)

Let's begin! (by the way: I perform all as root user - again: test environment)

small edit: For people who only want this to work and not necessarily wish to know how and why, I have prepared easy installation scripts in here
another EDIT: GitLab is under heavy development and now it's stable version is 2.1. This means that my guide might be not entirely accurate. Please be cautious. I'll update it soon.
  1. First of all: I am working on virtual machine with brand new and fresh Fedora 16 installed. Minimal installation, just to make sure nothing messes with GitLab. Consider this a test environment.
  2. Once you have your OS ready, update it with yum update and also install some packages you will need on the way:
    yum install make openssh-clients gcc libxml2 libxml2-devel \
    libxslt libxslt-devel python-devel
  3. Check what version of ruby is available via yum. GitLab needs at least version 1.9.2
    yum info ruby

    on mine it says that the only available version for me is 1.8.7.357 so I have to get it somewhere else.

  4. Using RVM to install Ruby.
    EDIT: I have switched to ruby 1.9.3p0 - it works and starts a lot faster, you can use it instead of 1.9.2-p290 in this guide.

    I will use RVM, which stands for Ruby Version Manager - brilliant tool, which you can use to install and manage your Ruby with ease. Let's check it out, shall we? (you can install Ruby any way you want - I'll just do this RVM way)

    Notice use of --with-openssl switch - without that passenger will complain about Ruby OpenSSL support and won't compile in next step.

    sudo bash -s stable < <(curl -sk https://raw.github.com/wayneeseguin/rvm/master/binscripts/rvm-installer)
    
    source /etc/profile.d/rvm.sh
    
    rvm install ruby-1.9.2-p290 --with-openssl
    
    rvm use ruby-1.9.2-p290 --default
    

    Done. Just like that we have operational Ruby 1.9.2-p290. No RPMs, no going back in time.. nice, huh? :)

  5. Good. Small (nice) surprise: our RPM installed ruby gems for us, so now we only have to get rails gem.
    first, just to make sure everything is up to date, execute:
    rvm all do gem update --system

    now install rails with:

    rvm all do gem install rails
  6. Now we will install apache2 as a webserver and Passenger for ruby apps deployment. I know that most GitLab tutorials use nginx but I really like apache ;)
    yum install -y httpd
    rvm all do gem install passenger

    as I mentioned: I use apache, so I will need passenger module for it:
    first some required packages:

    yum install -y gcc-c++ curl-devel openssl-devel zlib-devel \
    httpd-devel apr-devel apr-util-devel

    an then use

    passenger-install-apache2-module

    in order to install it.it gives you 2 information on how to proceed with apache configuration:

    • add following lines to /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf (at the very end):
      LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-3.0.11/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
      PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-3.0.11
      PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby
      
    • and then create file named default.conf (or gitlab.conf, or something other you like) in /etc/httpd/conf.d/ containing these lines (remember to change to fit your environment):
      <VirtualHost *:80>
      ServerName www.yourhost.com
      DocumentRoot /somewhere/public
      <Directory /somewhere/public>
      AllowOverride all
      Options -MultiViews
      </Directory>
      </VirtualHost>
      

      (don't worry, we'll come back to this one later)

  7. Now it is time for gitolite. I won't use gitosis because it is not actively developed any more and I found that new GitLab works better with gitolite.install it with
    yum install -y gitolite

    now, wasn't that quick? :)

  8. Now we will need to create new gitolite server configuration and in order to do that we have to generate SSH key-pair. But first things first.
    To get us started we will create git user with

    adduser -r -m --shell /bin/bash \
     --comment 'git version control' git
    mkdir /home/git/.ssh
    chown git:git -R /home/git/.ssh
    

    Now we have to create SSH keys pair for him:

    ssh-keygen -q -o -N '' -t rsa -f /home/git/.ssh/id_rsa

    To initialize Gitolite we need to first edit it's default configuration file and change default permissions and then initialize it by using git user:

    sed -i 's/0077/0007/g' /usr/share/gitolite/conf/example.gitolite.rc
    
    su - git -c "gl-setup -q /home/git/.ssh/id_rsa.pub"

    as mentioned here

  9. Just to make sure that git user has all necessary access rights to his own home directory after we have added SSH keys for him:

    chown git:git -R /home/git/
  10. OK, time for next requirements: python Pip, I will go with method from original post and NOT use yum for that.
    curl http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py | python
    

    and then

    easy_install pip
    
  11. Database. We need it. We have it already - it was installed on the way as a dependency. Just to make sure check if you have SQLite at list version 3.6 with:
    yum info sqlite

    I have 3.7.7.1. All we need is SQLite development package, get it with:

    yum install -y sqlite-devel
  12. And now the main event! GitLabHQ!

    I like install web apps in /var/www so we will go there and git clone GitLab:

    cd /var/www
    
    git clone git://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq.git
    
    cd gitlabhq/
    

    we need to use pip to install some python dependencies:

    pip install pygments

    and bundler gem so it can later on do most of the work for us:

    rvm all do gem install bundler

    you will need one more dependency for bundle install

    yum install -y libicu-devel

    finally (remember to be in GitLab directory):

    bundle install

    (go get yourself a coffee or other treat - it takes a while)

  13. Redis installation. More about Redis here
    yum install -y redis

    and start it with:

    service redis start
    
  14. Preparing config files.

    copy database and gitlab config files from example to working copies:

    cp config/gitlab.yml.example config/gitlab.yml
    cp config/database.yml.example config/database.yml
  15. DB setup:
    And now database setup and import:

    RAILS_ENV=production rake db:setup
    RAILS_ENV=production rake db:seed_fu
    

    TIP: if you get errors here, check if you don't have 2 versions of rake installed (I had somehow): 0.8.7 and 0.9.2. If you do, remove older with:

    gem uninstall rake

    and choose appropriate version. If you still have problems try:

    gem install rake

    -> don't know why, but if it installs again same version of rake, it works.

  16. Apache virtual host configuration should look something like this (I told you, we will get back to that):file: /etc/httpd/conf.d/gitlab.conf
    <VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName www.yourhost.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/gitlabhq/public
    <Directory /var/www/gitlabhq/public>
    AllowOverride all
    Options -MultiViews
    </Directory>
    </VirtualHost>
    
  17. enable apache user, co you can su into this account:
    usermod -s /bin/bash -d /var/www/ apache

    prepare SSH key for him (actually use one created for git user)

    mkdir /var/www/.ssh
    
    cp -f /home/git/.ssh/id_rsa /var/www/.ssh/ && chown apache:apache /var/www/.ssh/id_rsa && chmod 600 /var/www/.ssh/id_rsa
    

    add localhost to apache user known_hosts with:

    ssh-keyscan localhost >> /var/www/.ssh/known_hosts

    also give him permissions to his own home directory with:

    chown -R apache:apache /var/www/
  18. add apache user to git group with:
    usermod -a -G git apache
  19. check if repositories directory has correct permissions, it should be 770. You can set it with
    chmod 770 /home/git/repositories/
  20. double check your firewall (for example iptables) if it allows connections on port 80 to your server.
  21. important: Apache won't be able o start with SELinux set to "enforcing". Please set it to permissive.
  22. start apache server with:
    service httpd start
  23. Now it all should work. Fingers crossed.. go to http://www.yourhost.com
  24. Now you should be able to log in using these credentials:

    user: admin@local.host
    pass: 5iveL!fe

    and you're in :)

It wasn't so hard, wasn't it? ;)

Troubleshooting:

  1. I get error 500 when I enter particular project and try to get into it's "Admin" section. Don't know how to fix it yet.To fix it, check if repositories directory has correct permissions, it should be 770. You can set it with
    chmod 770 /home/git/repositories

    also set this:

    chmod 770 /home/git
  2. If Passenger insists, that we don't have or he can't see grit library (gem actually, as far as I know) even though we have it.

    https://github.com/gitlabhq/grit.git (at master) is not checked out. Please run `bundle install` (Bundler::GitError)

    Only resolution to this problem I have found is to (as root) change /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems ownership to apache user with:

    chown apache:root -R /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p0/gems

    I know that is not great resolution but it worked for me. If you'll happen to know better way - please let me know, so I can update this tutorial and my knowledge of course ;)

    Edit

    I found another solution (instead of changing permissions): after first

    bundle install

    edit Gemfile and in lines containing "git:" remove everything after first comma, for example:

    gem "grit", :git => "https://github.com/gitlabhq/grit.git"

    should be

    gem "grit"

    and so on.

    then do again

    bundle install

    and now passenger shouldn't complain any more.

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Komentarze (35) Trackbacks (0)
  1. Wish this was easy to install, don’t know how many hours i spent trying to get gitlab to work before i gave up :/

    • Hi!
      Have you tried doing it following my tutorial or have you just tried to install it on your own and it took so much time? Maybe I can help somehow? :)

  2. get this error on bundle install http://pastebin.com/ZBDCeeVp
    have centos5

    yum list installed |grep sqlite
    python-sqlite.x86_64 1.1.7-1.2.1 installed
    ruby-sqlite3.x86_64 1.1.0-6.el5 installed
    sqlite.i386 3.3.6-2 installed
    sqlite.x86_64 3.3.6-2 installed
    sqlite.i386 3.3.6-5 installed
    sqlite.x86_64 3.3.6-5 installed
    sqlite-devel.i386 3.3.6-5 installed
    sqlite-devel.x86_64 3.3.6-5 installed

  3. I’ve done everything on this page.
    but I can’t see anything when I access the server via browser besides 403 error.

    I’ve found there’s no index.html in gitlabhq/public so I made dummy and I don’t see 403 anymore. but all I can see is dummy page that I made.

    what should I do more to see that „Git Lab web interface”?

    • I’m not sure what you set-up is, but there shouldn’t be any index.html in public directory. Can you please try posting your Apache error and access log right after you get 403 error? Only lines corresponding needed.
      Also please double check you Apache virtualhost configuration. You know: paths and all.

  4. Hi!

    First of all, thank you for tutorial. Now, everything is working but I can’t add ssh key, I can’t add projects. Can you please advise me on how to continue?

    Thank you!

    • Hi,
      Please check following things:
      1. is your Apache user has localhost added in his .ssh/known_hosts
      2. does your Apache user can log into gitolite account without password (his private key is working with public key added to gitolite user authorized_keys via gitolite)
      3. does directory /var/lib/gitolite/repositories/ have 770 permissions?
      4. is Apache user in gitolite group?

      I’ll think of something else as soon as you’ll check if those things worked or not :)

      • Hi Piotrek,

        Yes, all 4 points are accomplished.
        As apache:
        -bash-4.1$ ssh gitolite@localhost
        PTY allocation request failed on channel 0
        the gitolite config gives you the following access:el6
        R W gitolite-admin
        @R_ @W_ testing
        Connection to localhost closed.

        I don’t understand why adding a ssh key is required and also, I can’t find a proper documentation about gitolite.conf where I think it might also be a problem.

        Thank you for your help!
        Narcis

        • Hi,
          SSH key is needed because this is how any user is authenticating with gitolite. All actions like adding SSH key or repository via GitLab interface rely on this authentication, so Apache user has to have ability to connect without password. Adding ‘localhost’ to known_hosts prevents SSH to ask to accept this host permanently – you can see how it works every time you try to connect to any host for the first time. You just have to do it once.

          Please check if your configuration in /var/www/gitlabhq/config/gitlab.yml is correct: please check hostname, git user (gitolite) and path to repositories. If you have typed there other hostname then ‘localhost’, for example my-domain.com – you should su – to apache user and SSH to this host too. Same thing as I described earlier with accepting new host to known_hosts.

          Also you might want to check log files right after trying to add SSH key via GitLab:
          - apache error log
          - /var/www/gitlabhq/log/production.log

          Please note, that apache user with his SSH key has to have admin rights (RW) for gitolite-admin repo in order to manage access by adding SSH keys and repositories entries in gitolite.conf

          As for gitolite.conf documentation, please try here: http://sitaramc.github.com/gitolite/conf.html

          Please let me know if it helped :)

          Piotrek

  5. Hi, and thanks for your tutorial. I faced the same issue as Narcis and managed to fix it by cleaning /tmp/git* (there was a lock file owned by a different user than apache). See https://groups.google.com/group/gitlabhq/browse_thread/thread/4b21eef9a2e72c25 for details.

    My installation was on RHEL 6.1 x86_64, but the concept is similar.

    Is there a way to turn on „verbose” logging for gitlab? production.log just spits out rails log files. There seems to be no „ruby” log file. error_log isn’t much help either.

    • Hi,
      Your resolution to Narcis problem might actually work :) thanks for sharing :)

      As for logs.. I didn’t have to increase debugging, but try changing config.log_level to :debug (simply uncommenting) in file: /var/www/gitlabhq/config/environments/production.rb

      If it won’t work please ask about it on GitLab page here: https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq

      Best regards,
      Piotrek

  6. ok, i have it working and kicking, but the problem is that when i use
    „admin_uri: gitolite@localhost:gitolite-admin”
    i get error that there is no git repo, but when i change to
    „admin_uri: gitolite@localhost:repositories/gitolite-admin”
    it does work, but i can publish anything =[

    • Hi,
      Sorry for late response – I had a lot to take care of :/ Did you have any luck with your problem?

      By publish you mean create a new repository or push files to one?

      Also, I have trouble reproducing this error so I might need some additional info from you. I don’t really know where to start :/

      Can you add SSH key? Are your paths same in file system and in config? This might seem stupid question, but typos happen’ to good people, you know ;)

      Regards,
      Piotrek

      • solved it by adding command=”…..” to authorized keys for apache,
        now i have the problem that after any git command i need to make chmod 770 on repositores directory, the last thing to solve =[

  7. Hi,

    I’ve got error while executing the following step

    RAILS_ENV=production rake db:setup

    error:
    rake aborted!
    Connection refused – Unable to connect to Redis on 127.0.0.1:6379

    • Hi,
      Sorry to say that, but right now I don’t really know how to help you… You see, when you clone from github, you are cloning bleeding edge, newest compilation. This means, that there might be some bugs or it might be messed up completely. I have to update my guide to cover new stable version 2.1 (stable).

      Sorry for that.

      Right now please look at update guide from 2.0 (my guide) to 2.1 (with Redis) in here: https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlabhq/wiki/From-2.0-to-2.1

      I’ll update my guide really soon, promise ;)

      Please

      Piotrek

  8. Thank you very much. You’re awesome !

    My gitlabhq is successfully installed on freshly installed Fedora 16 and Ruby 1.3.9-p0 (using rvm ’cause I couldn’t find the its spec)

    Only one more thing I had to do to make it works is to install git („yum install git”) at the beginning.

  9. any help
    Forbidden

    You don’t have permission to access / on this server.

    Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
    Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS) Server at 192.168.1.12 Port 80

    • Hi,
      It sounds like you have some problem with Apache virtualhost configuration, maybe something misspelled in directory path? On the other hand you might be pointing your webroot (/) to either non-exiting folder, folder with permissions not allowing apache user to access it or your virtualhost configuration is point on wrong directory – I mean, not „public” in GitLab folder.

      Please see what is showing in apache logs (access/error) for your virtualhost – maybe you’ll find a clue there.

      Piotrek

  10. I’m getting a 404 when trying to add a project, it works sometimes and sometimes it doesn’t. Seems to be related to files in /tmp. I’ve installed using the new ruby and followed this how-to to the letter.

    • Hi,
      It might sound obvious, but try clearing /tmp folder. It worked for me and I think someone on GitLab support forum as well. Also please check your apache logs for this 404 error and see if there is any info about what exactly is causing it. It might help to check GitLab production log also.

      Piotrek

  11. I’m see this error in the apache error log and can’t figure out what I need to do. I have rerun bunlde install and bundle update and it makes no difference.

    Exception PhusionPassenger::UnknownError in PhusionPassenger::Rack::ApplicationSpawner (https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitolite-client.git (at master) is not checked out. Please run `bundle install` (Bundler::GitError)) (process 1895, thread #):

    • Hi. This is what worked for me: in your GitLab directory find file named Gemfile and edit it. Search for lines which have reference to package download path and duplicate them, comment out original and delete this reference from copy so it will look like all other package entries. There is one for git/grit and 2 or 3 more. You can disable them one by one to see which are problematic.

      Good luck :)

      Piotrek

  12. Hi Piotrek,

    you have made a wonderful work here. Installation went fine.

    When I try to create a new project I am having this error:

    Application cant get access to your gitolite system.
    1. Check ‘config/gitlab.yml’ for correct settings.
    2. Make sure web server user has access to gitolite. Setup tutorial
    3. Try:
    sudo chmod -R 770 /home/git/repositories/
    sudo chown -R git:git /home/git/repositories/

    I do not understand how to proceed here. Any thoughts?
    I am running Fedora 15.

  13. Hi,
    Check your file gitlab.yml, which is located in (according to my tutorial) in /var/www/gitabhq/config directory. There is line saying: host: localhost
    In my installation it works for me, but you may have to change ‘localhost’ to your_hostname.

    Directory /home/git/repositories has to be accessible by Apache user, who should be in ‘git’ system group. To make it accessible you have to set directory permissions, so they will allow that. This is what chmod does. Chown just makes sure that this directory (and subdirectories) are owned by git user and his group.

    Application (GitLab) is run by Apache user, so you have to make sure that this user can log in via SSH to git user account with SSH key. To check it, please log in as Apache user or if you are root:
    su – apache
    and try command: ssh git@localhost or ssh git@{your_hostname}

    If it succeeds and does not prompt for password, then it is working correctly and I would have to have more details to help you.

    I hope you’ll get it working in no time :)

    Best Regards,
    Piotrek

  14. Would you mind having a look at this page http://66.84.10.89/

    after more than 20 hours I still cant figure out what’s the problem.

    I’ve tried both your solutions with giving rights to apache and „edit Gemfile and in lines containing „git:” remove everything after first comma, for example:” but it dont make any difference.

    Thanks

  15. Thanks for writing this up. I started with installing gitosis and that is working just fine.

    As I am also working with openshift.redhat.com, they use ruby and I am concerned that in pulling in the version of ruby that you’ve described here for gitlab, I don’t want to have to worry about the newer version not working with openshift.

    I will experiment with this anyway, and report back here (and on my blog).

    Thanks for documenting this.

    Harish

  16. Has anyone ever encountered „uninitialized constant Linguist::BlobHelper”. I am doing this on a Media Temple DV4 box which is CentOS 5.

    I did a Google search and someone else is having this same problem within the last 24 hours, but they just posted their error anonymously in pastebin. You can see their post here: http://pastebin.com/SKrqnEC3

  17. I may also be worth mentioning that if you are doing this in an environment that uses Plesk Panel the only directory and its contents that need chown apache:apache is the /var/www/gitlabhq directory. Otherwise, if you follow these instructions all your Plesk controlled virtual hosts will loose their Plesk assigned owner:group permissions.


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