Sometimes one is not allowed to, or just don't feel comfortable, putting code into the cloud. However, you still want some way of managing your Git repos locally in the style of GitHub or BitBucket. If that's the case I have a solution for you.

This repo contains a docker compose script to set up and self-host a local instance of GitLab server. It’s an alternative to GitHub able to run locally for free and is very easy to set up. The script was tested on Linux and Windows but should work on any platform able to run Docker.

This repo was originally written for this blog story.

Check out the repo:

$ git clone https://github.com/PhiCygni/gitlab-free-local-server-using-docker-compose.git

Get the local hostname of the machine you want to run GitLab on:

$ hostname

Modify the .env file with a text editor and change the localhost value to your local hostname. For example:

GITLAB_HOSTNAME=mydesktop

Build the container and start it:

$ docker-compose up

While it's building and starting up open another terminal to the same directory and run the command:

$ docker-compose ps

This command will report on the current state of the container. Wait until the State column reports the container to be Up (health: healthy) and not Up (health: starting). This might take about 5 minutes so be patient! This is how we know the building of the container is completed and is ready to be used.

Now retrieve the newly created GitLab root password:

Linux: $ sudo cat ./config/initial_root_password

Windows: $ type .\config\initial_root_password

Example output:

Password: zsFHw3SpgwSTal1+Ufiurw4DaghDIcKlVy+MUctmxwE=

Make sure to write this root password down somewhere because GitLab will delete it in time!

One can now access the GitLab UI using URL http://MY_HOSTNAME:7080/. For instance if the hostname is mydesktop then the URL is http://mydesktop:7080. The username is root and we just found the password in the step above. Log in as root to get started.

Note: URL http://localhost:7080/ will also work to access the server, but the local hostname will be required if one wants to access the server from another computers on the local LAN.

Your GitLab container is now running and you can access the UI. Now do the following to start using it:

1. Log in with the root account and for security reasons make a new user with admin rights and use it for everyday admin tasks. The root account should only be used when needed. It should also the noted the root account can only be used using localhost access and remote access is not allowed. Therefore creating another admin user is recommended.
2. Configure your firewall to open up port TCP 7080 if access to other LAN computers is required.

It should be noted my script design currently does not make of the SSL HTTPS capability of GitLab and uses only the non-encrypted HTTP protocol. This was intentional to keep install steps to a minimum and simplify things as much as possible. In my opinion using HTTP only is not the end of the world given that the recommended use case of my script is for a private local network.

However, it is very possible to generate a SSL certificate for GitLab so that HTTPS can be used instead of just HTTP. One can generate a Certificate Authority and then add it to all the client computers requiring a verified HTTPS connection to the GitLab server. I will expand this repo to incorporate the addition of verified HTTPS access if I see there is enough interest.

Note! The following steps will completely remove the GitLab container and all its repos!

You will only want to do this if you want to do fresh install for some reason or just don't need the container anymore. If that's the case do the following to remove the container, repos and its config files:

Linux: $ ./script-docker-compose-down-remove-everything.sh

Windows: $ script-docker-compose-down-remove-everything.bat

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