Install GitLab CE Inside Docker Container in Linux

GitLab is an open-source DevOps platform which provides Git repositories management, continuous integration, issue tracking, and other features. Self-managed GitLab can be installed on the own server.

This tutorial explains how to install GitLab Community Edition (CE) inside a Docker container in the Linux. Commands have been tested on Ubuntu.

Prepare environment

Make sure you have installed Docker in your system. If you are using Ubuntu, installation instructions can be found in the post.

Install GitLab CE

• Host network

Run the following command to create a container for GitLab that uses host network:

docker run -d --name=gitlab --restart=always --network=host \
    -v /opt/gitlab/data:/var/opt/gitlab \
    -v /opt/gitlab/config:/etc/gitlab \
    -v /opt/gitlab/logs:/var/log/gitlab \
    gitlab/gitlab-ce

• User-defined bridge network

User-defined bridge network can be used for listening on different port. By default, GitLab web service is listening on port 80 and SSH service is listening on port 22. Both ports can be changed with -p option.

docker network create app-net

docker run -d --name=gitlab --restart=always --network=app-net \
    -p 8080:80 -p 8081:22 \
    -v /opt/gitlab/data:/var/opt/gitlab \
    -v /opt/gitlab/config:/etc/gitlab \
    -v /opt/gitlab/logs:/var/log/gitlab \
    gitlab/gitlab-ce

Note: it might take a while before initialization is finished and the Docker container starts to respond to requests.

Testing GitLab CE

By default, a random password is generated during installation. The password can be found by running the following command:

docker exec -it gitlab cat /etc/gitlab/initial_root_password

Open a web browser and go to http://<IP_ADDRESS>, where <IP_ADDRESS> is the IP address of the system. Use root username and password from a file to log in to the dashboard.

Password can be changed in user settings page:

<GITLAB_URL>/-/profile/password/edit

Uninstall GitLab CE

To completely remove GitLab, remove its container:

docker rm --force gitlab

Remove GitLab image:

docker rmi gitlab/gitlab-ce

You can also remove GitLab data, logs and configuration files:

sudo rm -rf /opt/gitlab

If a user-defined bridge network was created, you can delete it as follows:

docker network rm app-net