Gitlab приложение для windows

To install and run GitLab Runner on Windows you need:

• Git, which can be installed from the official site
• A password for your user account, if you want to run it under your user
  account rather than the Built-in System Account.
• The system locale set to English (United States) to avoid character encoding issues.
  For more information, see issue 38702.

Installation

1. Create a folder somewhere in your system, for example, C:\GitLab-Runner.

2. Download the binary for 64-bit or 32-bit and put it into the folder you
   created. The following assumes you have renamed the binary to gitlab-runner.exe (optional).
   You can download a binary for every available version as described in
   Bleeding Edge — download any other tagged release.

3. Make sure to restrict the Write permissions on the GitLab Runner directory and executable.
   If you do not set these permissions, regular users can replace the executable with their own and run arbitrary code with elevated privileges.

4. Run an elevated command prompt:

5. Register a runner.

6. Install GitLab Runner as a service and start it. You can either run the service
   using the Built-in System Account (recommended) or using a user account.

   Run service using Built-in System Account (under the example directory created in step 1, C:\GitLab-Runner)

   cd C:\GitLab-Runner
   .\gitlab-runner.exe install
   .\gitlab-runner.exe start

   Run service using user account (under the example directory created in step 1, C:\GitLab-Runner)

   You have to enter a valid password for the current user account, because
   it’s required to start the service by Windows:

   cd C:\GitLab-Runner
   .\gitlab-runner.exe install --user ENTER-YOUR-USERNAME --password ENTER-YOUR-PASSWORD
   .\gitlab-runner.exe start

   See the troubleshooting section if you encounter any
   errors during the GitLab Runner installation.

7. (Optional) Update the runner’s concurrent value in C:\GitLab-Runner\config.toml
   to allow multiple concurrent jobs as detailed in advanced configuration details.
   Additionally, you can use the advanced configuration details to update your
   shell executor to use Bash or PowerShell rather than Batch.

Voila! Runner is installed, running, and starts again after each system reboot.
Logs are stored in Windows Event Log.

Upgrade

1. Stop the service (you need an elevated command prompt as before):

   cd C:\GitLab-Runner
   .\gitlab-runner.exe stop

2. Download the binary for 64-bit or 32-bit and replace runner’s executable.
   You can download a binary for every available version as described in
   Bleeding Edge — download any other tagged release.

3. Start the service:

   .\gitlab-runner.exe start

Uninstall

From an elevated command prompt:

cd C:\GitLab-Runner
.\gitlab-runner.exe stop
.\gitlab-runner.exe uninstall
cd ..
rmdir /s GitLab-Runner

Windows troubleshooting

Make sure that you read the FAQ section which describes
some of the most common problems with GitLab Runner.

If you encounter an error like The account name is invalid, try:

# Add \. before the username
.\gitlab-runner.exe install --user ".\ENTER-YOUR-USERNAME" --password "ENTER-YOUR-PASSWORD"

If you encounter a The service did not start due to a logon failure error
while starting the service, see the FAQ section to check how to resolve the problem.

If you don’t have a Windows Password, you cannot start the GitLab Runner service but you can
use the Built-in System Account.

For Built-in System Account issues, see
Configure the Service to Start Up with the Built-in System Account
on the Microsoft support website.

Get runner logs

When you run .\gitlab-runner.exe install it installs gitlab-runner
as a Windows service. You can find the logs in the Event Viewer
with the provider name gitlab-runner.

If you don’t have access to the GUI, in PowerShell, you can run
Get-WinEvent.

PS C:\> Get-WinEvent -ProviderName gitlab-runner

   ProviderName: gitlab-runner

TimeCreated                     Id LevelDisplayName Message
-----------                     -- ---------------- -------
2/4/2021 6:20:14 AM              1 Information      [session_server].listen_address not defined, session endpoints disabled  builds=0...
2/4/2021 6:20:14 AM              1 Information      listen_address not defined, metrics & debug endpoints disabled  builds=0...
2/4/2021 6:20:14 AM              1 Information      Configuration loaded                                builds=0...
2/4/2021 6:20:14 AM              1 Information      Starting multi-runner from C:\config.toml...        builds=0...

I get a PathTooLongException during my builds on Windows

This error is caused by tools like npm which sometimes generate directory structures
with paths more than 260 characters in length. To solve the problem, adopt one of the
following solutions.

• Use Git with core.longpaths enabled:

  You can avoid the problem by using Git to clean your directory structure.

  1. Run git config --system core.longpaths true from the command line.
  2. Set your project to use git fetch from the GitLab CI project settings page.

• Use NTFSSecurity tools for PowerShell:

  The NTFSSecurity PowerShell module provides
  a “Remove-Item2” method which supports long paths. GitLab Runner
  detects it if it is available and automatically make use of it.

A regression introduced in GitLab Runner 16.9.1 is fixed in GitLab Runner 17.10.0.
If you intend to use the GitLab Runner versions with regressions, use one of the following workarounds:

• Use pre_get_sources_script to re-enable Git system-level settings (by unsetting Git_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM).
  This action enables core.longpaths by default on Windows.

  build:
    hooks:
      pre_get_sources_script:
        - $env:GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM=''

• Build a custom GitLab-runner-helper image:

  FROM registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner/gitlab-runner-helper:x86_64-v17.8.3-servercore21H2
  ENV GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM=

I can’t run Windows bash scripts; I’m getting The system cannot find the batch label specified - buildscript

You need to prepend call to your Batch file line in .gitlab-ci.yml so that it looks like call C:\path\to\test.bat. Here
is a more complete example:

before_script:
  - call C:\path\to\test.bat

For more information, see issue 1025.

How can I get colored output on the web terminal?

Short answer:

Make sure that you have the ANSI color codes in your program’s output. For the purposes of text formatting, assume that you’re
running in a UNIX ANSI terminal emulator (because it is the web interface output).

Long Answer:

The web interface for GitLab CI emulates a UNIX ANSI terminal (at least partially). The gitlab-runner pipes any output from the build
directly to the web interface. That means that any ANSI color codes that are present are honored.

Older versions of Windows’ command prompt terminal (before Windows 10, version 1511) do not support
ANSI color codes. They use win32 (ANSI.SYS) calls instead which are not present in
the string to be displayed. When writing cross-platform programs, developers typically use ANSI color codes by default. These codes are converted
to win32 calls when running on a Windows system, for example, Colorama.

If your program is doing the above, you must disable that conversion for the CI builds so that the ANSI codes remain in the string.

For more information, see GitLab CI YAML documentation
for an example using PowerShell and issue 332.

The service did not start due to a logon failure error when starting service

When installing and starting the GitLab Runner service on Windows you can
meet with such error:

gitlab-runner install --password WINDOWS_MACHINE_PASSWORD
gitlab-runner start
FATA[0000] Failed to start GitLab Runner: The service did not start due to a logon failure.

This error can occur when the user used to execute the service doesn’t have
the SeServiceLogonRight permission. In this case, you need to add this
permission for the chosen user and then try to start the service again.

1. Go to Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools.
2. Open the Local Security Policy tool.
3. Select Security Settings > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment on the
   list on the left.
4. Open the Log on as a service on the list on the right.
5. Select Add User or Group….
6. Add the user (“by hand” or using Advanced…) and apply the settings.

According to Microsoft documentation,
this should work for:

• Windows Vista
• Windows Server 2008
• Windows 7
• Windows 8.1
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows 8

The Local Security Policy tool may be not available in some
Windows versions, for example in “Home Edition” variant of each version.

After adding the SeServiceLogonRight for the user used in service configuration,
the command gitlab-runner start should finish without failures
and the service should be started properly.

Job marked as success or failed incorrectly

Most Windows programs output exit code 0 for success. However, some programs don’t
return an exit code or have a different value for success. An example is the Windows
tool robocopy. The following .gitlab-ci.yml fails, even though it should be successful,
due to the exit code output by robocopy:

test:
  stage: test
  script:
    - New-Item -type Directory -Path ./source
    - New-Item -type Directory -Path ./dest
    - Write-Output "Hello World!" > ./source/file.txt
    - robocopy ./source ./dest
  tags:
    - windows

In the case above, you need to manually add an exit code check to the script:. For example,
you can create a PowerShell script:

$exitCodes = 0,1

robocopy ./source ./dest

if ( $exitCodes.Contains($LastExitCode) ) {
    exit 0
} else {
    exit 1
}

And change the .gitlab-ci.yml file to:

test:
  stage: test
  script:
    - New-Item -type Directory -Path ./source
    - New-Item -type Directory -Path ./dest
    - Write-Output "Hello World!" > ./source/file.txt
    - ./robocopyCommand.ps1
  tags:
    - windows

Also, be careful of the difference between return and exit when using PowerShell
functions. While exit 1 marks a job as failed, return 1 does not.

Job marked as success and terminated midway using Kubernetes executor

For more information, see Job execution.

Docker executor: unsupported Windows Version

GitLab Runner checks the version of Windows Server to verify that it’s supported.

It does this by running docker info.

If GitLab Runner fails to start and displays an error without
specifying a Windows Server version, then the Docker
version might be outdated.

Preparation failed: detecting base image: unsupported Windows Version: Windows Server Datacenter

The error should contain detailed information about the Windows Server
version, which is then compared with the versions that GitLab Runner supports.

unsupported Windows Version: Windows Server Datacenter Version (OS Build 18363.720)

Docker 17.06.2 on Windows Server returns the following in the output
of docker info.

Operating System: Windows Server Datacenter

The fix in this case is to upgrade the Docker version of similar age, or later,
than the Windows Server release.

Kubernetes executor: unsupported Windows Version

Kubernetes executor on Windows might fail with the following error:

Using Kubernetes namespace: gitlab-runner
ERROR: Preparation failed: prepare helper image: detecting base image: unsupported Windows Version:
Will be retried in 3s ...
ERROR: Job failed (system failure): prepare helper image: detecting base image: unsupported Windows Version:

To fix it, add node.kubernetes.io/windows-build node selector in the section [runners.kubernetes.node_selector]
of your GitLab Runner configuration file, For example:

   [runners.kubernetes.node_selector]
     "kubernetes.io/arch" = "amd64"
     "kubernetes.io/os" = "windows"
     "node.kubernetes.io/windows-build" = "10.0.17763"

I’m using a mapped network drive and my build cannot find the correct path

When GitLab Runner runs under a standard user account instead of an administrator
account, it cannot access mapped network drives.
When you try to use mapped network drives, you get the
The system cannot find the path specified. error.
This error occurs because service logon sessions have
security limitations
when accessing resources. Use the UNC path
of your drive instead.

The build container is unable to connect to service containers

To use services with Windows containers:

• Use the networking mode that creates a network for each job.
• Ensure that the FF_NETWORK_PER_BUILD feature flag is enabled.

The job cannot create a build directory and fails with an error

When you use the GitLab-Runner with the Docker-Windows executor, a job might fail with an error like:

fatal: cannot chdir to c:/builds/gitlab/test: Permission denied`

When this error occurs, ensure the user the Docker engine is running as has full permissions to C:\Program Data\Docker.
The Docker engine must be able to write to this directory for certain actions, and without the correct permissions it fails.

Read more about configuring Docker Engine on Windows.

Blank lines for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) STDOUT output in job logs

By default the STDOUT output for the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is not UTF8 encoded and displays as blank lines in the job logs. To display the STDOUT output, you can force UTF8 encoding for WSL by setting the WSL_UTF8 environment variable.

job:
  variables:
    WSL_UTF8: "1"

Last Updated :
16 Sep, 2024

GitLab is a popular DevOps platform that provides a robust solution for source code management, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD), and other development workflows. While GitLab is typically hosted on Linux servers, it can also be installed on Windows using a virtual machine or Docker.

In this article, we will walk you through the steps to install GitLab on Windows using Docker, which provides a manageable and efficient way to run GitLab without needing to configure a full Linux environment.

Prerequisites

Before installing GitLab on Windows, ensure you have the following prerequisites:

• Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or Education: Required for Docker Desktop.
• Docker Desktop: A platform that allows you to run Docker containers on Windows.
• Sufficient System Resources: At least 4 CPU cores and 4GB of RAM for GitLab to run smoothly. Higher specifications are recommended for production environments.

Installing Docker on Windows

To run GitLab on Windows, you’ll need to install Docker Desktop, which enables running containers on Windows systems.

Step 1: Download Docker Desktop

Go to the Docker Desktop website and download the installer for Windows.

Картинка с сайта: www.geeksforgeeks.org

Step 2: Install Docker Desktop

• Run the installer and follow the on-screen instructions.
• When prompted, enable the option for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2) for better performance.

Step 3: Start Docker Desktop

• Once installed, launch Docker Desktop and ensure it is running. You should see the Docker icon in the system tray.

Step 4: Verify Docker Installation

Open Command Prompt or PowerShell and type:

docker --version

You should see the version of Docker installed, confirming that Docker is set up correctly.

Downloading and Running GitLab Using Docker

With Docker installed, you can now download and run GitLab using Docker containers.

Step 1: Pull the GitLab Docker Image

Open PowerShell or Command Prompt and pull the GitLab image from Docker Hub:

docker pull gitlab/gitlab-ee:latest

This command pulls the latest version of GitLab Enterprise Edition. If you prefer the Community Edition, use gitlab/gitlab-ce:latest.

Step 2: Run GitLab in a Docker Container

Create a new directory on your Windows system to store GitLab configuration and data. This ensures data persists even if the container is removed:

mkdir C:\gitlab\data
mkdir C:\gitlab\logs
mkdir C:\gitlab\config

Step 3: Start the GitLab container:

docker run --detach `
  --hostname gitlab.local `
  --publish 443:443 --publish 80:80 --publish 22:22 `
  --name gitlab `
  --restart always `
  --volume C:\gitlab\config:/etc/gitlab `
  --volume C:\gitlab\logs:/var/log/gitlab `
  --volume C:\gitlab\data:/var/opt/gitlab `
  gitlab/gitlab-ee:latest

Options:

• —hostname: Sets the hostname for GitLab (e.g., gitlab.local).
• —publish: Maps ports from the container to the host (HTTP, HTTPS, and SSH).
• —name: Names the container gitlab.
• —restart always: Ensures GitLab restarts automatically if the container stops or the host reboots.
• —volume: Maps local directories to container directories for persistent storage.

Step 3: Wait for GitLab to Initialize:

It may take several minutes for GitLab to initialize. You can monitor the process using:

docker logs -f gitlab

Wait until you see the message indicating that GitLab is ready.

Configuring GitLab

After GitLab starts, you can configure it through the GitLab interface:

Step 1: Access GitLab

• Open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost.
• You should see the GitLab login screen.

Step 2: Set Up the Root Password

The first time you access GitLab, you’ll be prompted to set the root password. Enter a secure password and save it.

Step 3: Log In:

Log in using the username root and the password you just set.

Step 4: Configure GitLab Settings

Navigate to the Admin area to configure GitLab settings, such as email notifications, user management, and project settings.

Accessing GitLab

To access GitLab, simply navigate to the hostname you set during the Docker run command (e.g., http://localhost if using the default setup). If you mapped the ports differently or used a different hostname, adjust the URL accordingly.

Setting Up GitLab Runner (Optional)

GitLab Runner is a tool used for running CI/CD jobs on your GitLab instance. Installing GitLab Runner on Windows allows you to leverage GitLab’s powerful CI/CD pipelines.

Step 1: Download GitLab Runner

Visit the GitLab Runner downloads page and download the binary for Windows.

Step 2: Install GitLab Runner:

• Extract the binary to a directory, for example, C:\GitLab-Runner.
• Open Command Prompt as Administrator and register the runner:

C:\GitLab-Runner\gitlab-runner.exe register

• Follow the prompts to configure the runner with your GitLab instance, including:
  • GitLab URL.
  • Registration token (found in GitLab’s Admin area under Runners).
  • Runner description, tags, and executor type (use shell for simplicity on Windows).

Step 3: Start the Runner

Install and start GitLab Runner as a service:

C:\GitLab-Runner\gitlab-runner.exe install
C:\GitLab-Runner\gitlab-runner.exe start

Introduction to GitLab Desktop

GitLab Desktop is the client application that integrates with GitLab, a web-based Git repository manager. It enhances the Git workflow by providing a graphical interface for managing repositories, branches, commits, and merges. This desktop application is designed to simplify the interaction with Git repositories, making version control more accessible to developers of all skill levels.

Key Features and Benefits

GitLab Desktop offers several features that distinguish it from other Git clients:

Getting Started with GitLab Desktop

To begin using GitLab Desktop, follow these simple steps:

Installation Methods for GitLab: Official and Unofficial Approaches

GitLab, a comprehensive DevOps platform, offers various installation methods tailored to different environments and needs. These methods are divided into official, supported installations and unofficial, unsupported installations. Understanding the nuances of these approaches helps users choose the best option for their specific use cases.

Official, Supported Installation Methods

Unofficial, Unsupported Installation Methods

Advanced Features and Tips

Explore these advanced features to maximize your GitLab Desktop experience:

Key Takeaway

Conclusion

GitLab Desktop stands out as a powerful tool for version control, offering a user-friendly interface coupled with robust Git capabilities. Whether you’re a solo developer or part of a large team, GitLab Desktop enhances productivity and facilitates efficient collaboration through seamless integration with GitLab repositories. Embrace the future of software development with GitLab Desktop and streamline your workflow today.

FAQ

Q1: Can I use GitLab Desktop with GitLab.com and self-hosted GitLab instances?

Yes, GitLab Desktop supports both GitLab.com and self-hosted GitLab instances, providing flexibility based on your hosting preferences.

Q2: Does GitLab Desktop support SSH authentication for secure repository access?

Yes, GitLab Desktop supports SSH authentication, ensuring secure communication between the desktop client and GitLab repositories.

Q3: Is GitLab Desktop free to use?

Yes, GitLab Desktop is available for free, aligning with GitLab’s commitment to open-source collaboration tools.

Article Sources

In the last article, we saw the various parts of GitLab, its architecture and how GitLab works. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading the previous article first before reading this one. Here is the link

GitLab, A Complete Beginner’s Guide!

In this article lets look at how to set it up locally on your Windows PC, so that you can have your very own GitLab setup running right at your home or organization!

If you are using Mac or Linux, you can follow the links below.

Complete Guide To Setting Up GitLab Locally On Mac.

Complete Guide To Setting Up GitLab Locally On Linux PC..!!

So let’s begin!

Things you will need

All you need are a computer running Windows OS with enough resources (CPU, memory, and disk space) for running the GitLab Server and GitLab Runner. How much resources is enough depends on how much performance you need, the more you have the better it is!

You can also set it up on the cloud over at Gitlab.com, but

• the free plans have some limitations in terms of processing power and hard disk space.
• Also doing it locally gives you more control over the setup and
• it will also be an opportunity to learn you more about GitLab

Hence I suggest taking this route of a local installation.

If you are part of a larger organization, and you wish to install it on the cloud, then you can always take a look at the paid plans of GitLab here link

Approach to install GitLab on Windows

Okay, let’s get back to the task in hand.

As we saw in the previous article GitLab consists of 2 parts.

1. GitLab Server and
2. GitLab Runner

Also, we have learned in the previous article that it is preferable to set the GitLab server and runners on separate computers. But I am going for a home set up, so I will be setting them both upon the same Windows computer.

The GitLab Server relies heavily on Linux technologies and hence it cannot be installed in our Windows PC natively. If you do some research, there are ways you can do it through the Linux subsystem in windows, but we are not going to take that approach.

The
problem with these workarounds are

1. The installation process is a bit complicated and is not recommended for beginners.
2. They are only guaranteed to work on a version to version basis. What I mean by that is you need to have a particular version of Windows and a particular version of GitLab for everything to run smoothly. If you update your Windows or if you wish to upgrade your GitLab then you might break your GtiLab set up. Since both Windows and GitLab updates come frequently, it is not such a good idea to waste time trying to fix things every few months.
3. It is unofficial and hence support for future versions cannot be guaranteed.
4. These unofficial methods will bring their own limitations as opposed to running natively on Linux

Due to these above reasons, we are going to go for a more stable approach of installing the GitLab server in a virtual environment. We will also see in this article the ways to make it run as smoothly and efficiently as possible while making sure it consumes as few resources as possible.

So this
is what we are going to do

1. Install the GitLab Server on a Virtual Box running Ubuntu server
2. Install GitLab runner natively on Windows.

This approach takes away the cons of using unofficial hacks, as it will work on all versions of you Windows and GitLab and you don’t need to worry too much while updating your software either!

By following the step by step guide shown below you should be able to set everything up and running in an hour or 2 (depending upon how good your internet connection is, it can take longer!)

GitLab Installation Process

STEP#1: Download and install VirtualBox

You can download and install VirtualBox from this link

Картинка с сайта: embeddedinventor.com

Just click on the Windows hosts and the download should start automatically. The installation process is pretty straightforward, you can just accept the default options and click through to complete the process.

Once the installation is completed you can open VirtualBox from the Start menu in Windows.

STEP#2: Install Ubuntu Server as a Virtual Machine in your Windows PC.

The next step is to get a Linux distro to install our GitLab server. For this purpose, I recommend Ubuntu Server. I chose this particular distro for 2 reasons.

1. Ubuntu is known for its stability.
2. GitLab Server software has support for Ubuntu
3. The server edition is chosen so that it will consume fewer resources on your computer.

For this first, you need the Ubuntu Server image. You can download it from this link.

Ubuntu usually offers 2 sets of packages for us to choose from.

1. Long term support version: Has a support period of 5 years
2. Latest Version: has all the latest features.

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I suggest you go for the LTS one, but then the latest version should also work just fine. So click on a “Download” button and your download should start automatically. It will take some time to complete as the iso is around 900MB.

Once the download is complete you can proceed to the installation process on VirtualBox.

STEP#3: Install Ubuntu Server on VirtualBox

Open VirtualBox Application and click on the “New” button

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A window like this should pop up

Картинка с сайта: embeddedinventor.com

Give your virtual machine a name and choose Linux for type and ubuntu 64 bit for version and click “Continue”.

The next screen usually asks for RAM. GitLab recommends 8GB for a GitLab system with 100 users,  I suggest a minimum of 2GB RAM for a home set up, you can give more if you can, just make sure you don’t allot more than 50% of your total available RAM.

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Once you have allocated RAM space, Click “Continue” to the next page.

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Next, you will be prompted for hard disk. Make sure “Create a virtual hard disk now” is selected and click “Create”

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Accept
the default “VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image)” and click
“Continue”

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Accept “Dynamically Allocated” and Press continue. This option allocates hard disk space to the virtual machine on the run, so that as you use the more space, more will be allocated.

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I suggest you allocate at least 25GB of space to the virtual machine, you can allot more if you can. Once you have chosen the disk space click create

Once you have done this, you should be taken back to the main window of VirtualBox and you should see the virtual machine you just created on the left pane of the window as shown in the screenshot below.

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Next click on the “Settings”

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And click on storage -> empty -> disk icon -> “Choose a disk file”

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Select the ubuntu server iso image you have just downloaded and press ok. This is equivalent to inserting the Ubuntu disk in a real machine.

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Next, go to settings->Network and choose “Bridged Adapter” in the “Attached to:” drop-down menu and press “OK”

I have explained the reason behind using these network settings in detail in this article, you can go ahead and read that if you are into computer networks.

The short explanation is, we will not be able to access the GitLab server from our other machines on the network unless we choose this option.

That’s it, the configuration is done!

You can now go ahead and click the start button!

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Now the installation process will start. Since we have chosen to go with “Ubuntu server” in order to minimize the resource consumption (so that GitLab can take up as many resources as it needs) we don’t get a fancy Graphical UI, like in the desktop version of Ubuntu. You need to navigate the menus during installation only using Keyboard (tab, enter and arrow keys) since the Ubuntu server doesn’t come with mouse support. So go through the process and get it done.

STEP#4: Get the IP address of your ubuntu server

Okay now
once you got the Ubuntu server up and running, you need to find its IP address
and make a note of it.

To do that, use the “ifconfig” command on your Ubuntu server’s terminal

Картинка с сайта: embeddedinventor.com

STEP#5: Download and install GitLab server

To download GitLab server, go to the official link on the Gitlab’s Website

Картинка с сайта: embeddedinventor.com

As you can see GitLab official supports several Linux distros, even a Raspberry Pi 2’s Raspbian! We are interested in Ubuntu, so click on the Omnibus Ubuntu Link on as shown in the screenshot above.

Once you click on Ubuntu,  the commands you need to enter to install GitLab server will be shown to you.

I am not showing each instruction here since GitLab updates the information presented on their website all the time and that can make this section of the article outdated. Just follow the step by step instructions given in the link to install the GitLab Server on your VM.

Картинка с сайта: embeddedinventor.com

Just type in the commands shown there on you Ubuntu server’s terminal one by one to get GitLab Server installed.

A couple of tips on the GitLab installation instructions

Tip#1

In the postfix installation step (step 1 last command on the GitLab website)

sudo apt-get install -y postfix

 you can skip the mail option by choosing the “no configuration” option as shown in the screenshot below.

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Tip#2

In the last command of step 2 at GitLab website

sudo EXTERNAL_URL="https://gitlab.example.com" apt-get install gitlab-ee

Make sure you replace the URL with the IP address of the VM that we have made a note of in Step 5 above like this

sudo EXTERNAL_URL="192.168.0.116" apt-get install gitlab-ee

Or to be more precise just place the VM’s IP address that we obtained in Step#4 in its appropriate place

sudo EXTERNAL_URL=”<Your VM’s IP address>” apt-get install gitlab-ee

This step will take a while, so be patient. In my machine it took 4 minutes 48 seconds as shown in the screenshot below, yours can vary depending on the processing power it has.

Once done it will show u something like in the screenshot below.

Картинка с сайта: embeddedinventor.com

Once it’s done, you can go ahead to your favorite browser and type in the IP address of your VM and check if the installation has succeeded.

Картинка с сайта: embeddedinventor.com

And voila! GitLab server installation has succeeded!

Go ahead and follow the onscreen instructions to set up your password, accounts and everything else!

STEP#6: Download GitLab runners

Before installing GitLab runners you need to install Git on your Windows PC. You can download the latest version of Git in this link.

Now that we have set up the Gitlab server and Git, the next step is to set up the GitLab runner!

At the time of writing this article, the installation process goes like this:

Make a folder on your computer and go to either this link for 32bit version or this link for 64bit version to download the binaries and put them in the folder you created

For getting the most up to date instruction, I am gonna ask you to follow the process given in the GitLab website

STEP#7: Connect the GitLab server to the GitLab runner

GitLab
calls this process of connecting the Server to Runner as “Registering the
GitLab Runner to the Server”

You can follow the instructions for Windows in this link to do the same.

Scroll down to the windows section and you will see something similar to this

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Step# 7.1: Start the registration process

To enter these commands you need to open a command prompt with administrator privileges. For this just type cmd on the search menu, right-click on Command prompt and choose run as administrator

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After that, just go to the folder to which you have downloaded the Gitlab Runner to and copy the path to that folder

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Next, go back to the command line and give the following command

cd <path you copied>

Run the following command to start the registration process

gitlab-runner-windows-amd64.exe register

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As shown in the screenshots above, enter your Virtual Machine’s  IP address when prompted. Make sure you add “http://” before the IP address.

Once the IP address is entered, the next prompt appears asking you to enter a token, so let’s first go get a token from our GitLab server.

Step#7.2: Obtain token from GitLab Server

Go to your browser and enter the GitLab Server’s IP address. Once you have logged in you can create your first project by clicking on the respective pane as shown in the screenshot below.

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Just give the project a name and click on the create project button. The other field should get populated automatically.

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Once you click the button as shown in the screenshot above, you will be taken to your project page.

From there just click on Settings->CI/CD and scroll down a bit and click the “Expand” button next to “Runners” and you will find the token you need as shown in the screenshot below.

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This token basically connects your project on the GitLab Server to the GitLab runner.

Step#7.3: Enter the token

Now that we have the token let’s enter it on the Command prompt

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Once
entering the token, you will be prompted to give the runner a description, go
ahead and do that.

After that, you will be asked to enter some tags.

What are tags? Why are they needed for GitLab runners?

The
better term for tags can be capabilities.

Consider
this scenario.

Assume you are working in a large team of 1000 developers, who are doing say 50 different projects and your GitLab system has 100 different runners set up with several capabilities to do specific tasks. Some projects may need C compilers, while others may need python interpreters.

Now in order to connect a given project with a free-runner, we need some sort of parameter to tell the GitLab server that this particular free runner is capable of running the scripts needed for that particular job.

This is where tags come into the picture. By giving tags like “C” or “Python” a single runner can be connected to multiple projects and a single project can execute its jobs on several runners to ensure the best possible performance.

Using
these tags the Gitlab server can find a runner with the specific capability to
use for a given job. So give some suitable tags that will imply the
capabilities of your runner.

Once that is done, you will be prompted to enter “executor”.

Executors are programs that run our CI/CD scripts. Type shell and press enter

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This will end the registration process the Runner to the server

Once registered you can start the GitLab runner as a Service (background task) by issuing the commands

gitlab-runner-windows-amd64.exe install
gitlab-runner-windows-amd64.exe start

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As you can see in the screenshot below, in the task manager app we can see that our gitlab-runner service is running!

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Test to see if everything works

By following the 7 steps above, you should have a set up with GitLab Server and Runner running on your system. Its time to test and see if everything works the way it is supposed to work!

First, let’s test the GitLab server by creating a repo and pushing it to the server.

Testing GitLab Server

STEP#1: Make a test git repo

Let’s make a simple git repo on a new folder on our Desktop and push it to the GitLab server.

So open your Git-Bash app, which got installed as you were installing git.

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Once opened type in the following commands

cd 
cd Desktop
mkdir test_project
cd test_project
touch test.c

The above lines of command are just the fancy way of creating a folder named test_project on your Desktop and a file named test.c inside it. You can also do it through the Graphical User Interface if you want to.

So next, please open the C file using your favorite text editor and type in a simple program for testing, something like the following.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
	printf("Hello Embedded Inventors!");
	return 0;
}

Next, let’s initialize a git repository on our test_project folder. So go back to the terminal  cd into the test_project folder and type in the following command

You should receive a reply saying “Initialized empty Git repository”

STEP#2: Push it to the server

Now that we have our git repo ready, let’s push it to our git server. To do that login to your GitLab and go to the project we created earlier. There GitLab shows us the commands needed to push our repo to the server.

First, let’s configure our name and email on the git repository to the ones set on the GitLab server

So enter
the following command.

git config --global user.name "<enter your name here>"
git config --global user.email "<enter your email here>"

Next, we need to connect our server and our repository. To do that just enter the following commands

git remote add origin <your project URL>.git

In my case it is

git remote add origin http://192.168.0.115/EI/test-project.git 

To find your project URL, just copy the address bar of your browser while you are on your project’s page in GitLab

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Then add our test.c file and commit the changes using the following commands

git add .
git commit -m"first commit"

Then push
your git repo onto the GitLab using the command

git push -u origin master

You will be prompted to enter the user name and password of your GitLab account, once done go to your browser and just refresh the page and you should be able to see your test project page in GitLab!

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Testing GitLab Runner

STEP#3: Make a simple bash script to build the test.c
file

Create a bash script on your project folder

cd
cd Desktop/test_project
touch build.ps1

Edit it so that it looks something like this

gcc test.c -o test
echo "Build completed"

STEP#4: Create and edit .gitlab_ci.yml to run the
above script

What is .gitlab-ci.yml and why it is needed? This is the file that contains the instructions for the GitLab runners to execute the CI/CD tasks. It should be present in the project’s root folder. It can be used to test if a commit builds correctly, passes some unit tests and if it needs packaging and deployment.

You can
learn more about how to configure it from the official quick start tutorial
here

For the
purpose of testing our installation let’s create a file named .gitlab-ci.yml in
the test_project folder and put the following lines in there.

Make sure you are in the right directory

cd 
cd Desktop/test_project

Create the file using the command

Open it with your favorite text editor and type the following lines into it.

build:
  script:
    - powershell -File build.ps1
  tags:
    - test

The last line tells the GitLab server to use the GitLab runner with the tag named “test”. If you gave your GitLab runner installation a different tag, make sure you make the appropriate change to the above lines.

Also,
make sure you use spaces instead of tabs at the beginning of the above lines.

Now add it to the git repository and push it to the Gitlab server

git add .
git commit -m"gitlab yml added"
git push

Now let’s get back to our GitLab server’s URL and see if it worked. Go to the project page and click on CI/CD

You will
be taken to the pipeline page which shows the result of your latest commit.

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It will
take a minute or so before it completes the pipeline and as you can see in the
screenshot above, mine took 41 seconds to complete and the status is
“passed”

If you
click on “jobs” under the CI/CD menu, you will be taken to another
page which shows you more information about the execution of our yml file

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Next click on “passed” as shown in the screenshot above, this will take you to another page which will look something like this.

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As you can see, our build.ps1 gets executed by the GitLab runner and it succeeds to compile our project.

And with that, I will conclude this tutorial!

I leave the rest to you to play, explore, experiment and learn GitLab!

I hope you guys enjoyed this article and learned something useful. 

You can email us or contact us through this link if you have any questions or suggestions.

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