GitLab CE 18.11

GitLab Community Edition is a complete DevOps platform delivered as a single application. It provides Git repository hosting, CI/CD pipelines, issue tracking, a container registry, and more. Everything runs on your own infrastructure.

Software included

Component	Version
GitLab CE	18.11.x
Ubuntu	24.04 LTS

Getting started

1. Connect to your VM

ssh ubuntu@<your-vm-ip>

2. Wait for first-boot configuration

On the first boot, a setup script runs automatically. It configures the external URL and runs gitlab-ctl reconfigure to initialise all GitLab services. This takes 3–5 minutes.

Track progress:

journalctl -u gitlab-first-boot.service -f

The MOTD on login will confirm when GitLab is ready.

3. Retrieve the initial root password

sudo cat /etc/gitlab/initial_root_password

4. Access the GitLab UI

Open a browser and navigate to your VM’s IP or hostname:

http://<your-vm-ip>

Field	Value
Username	`root`
Password	From `/etc/gitlab/initial_root_password`

Change your password immediately after first login.

Optional: set a custom external URL

If GitLab will be served at a domain name, provide the URL at deploy time using cloud-init userdata. Without it, GitLab defaults to http://<hostname>.

Add this to your VM’s userdata at deploy time:

#cloud-config
write_files:
  - path: /run/gitlab-external-url
    content: 'https://gitlab.example.com'
    permissions: '0600'
    owner: root:root

To change the URL after deployment, edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

external_url 'https://gitlab.example.com'

Then run:

sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

Managing GitLab

# Check all service statuses
sudo gitlab-ctl status

# Restart all services
sudo gitlab-ctl restart

# View logs (all services)
sudo gitlab-ctl tail

# View logs for a specific service
sudo gitlab-ctl tail nginx
sudo gitlab-ctl tail puma

Configuration file: /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb

After editing gitlab.rb, always run sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure to apply changes.

Security

Port 80 is open by default. UFW is enabled.

To enable HTTPS with Let’s Encrypt, edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

external_url 'https://gitlab.example.com'
letsencrypt['enable'] = true
letsencrypt['contact_emails'] = ['admin@example.com']