Master GitLab: Complete Introduction, Installation & Configuration Guide

GitLab: Detailed Introduction and Installation Guide

1. Introduction

GitLab is an open‑source Git‑based version‑control system and DevOps platform that supports software development, continuous integration (CI), continuous deployment (CD), and project management. It integrates code review, issue tracking, CI/CD pipelines, containerized deployment, and monitoring to improve team collaboration and automation.

2. History

GitLab was created in 2011 by Dmitriy Zaporozhets as a self‑hosted, open‑source Git repository manager. It quickly grew into a community project, releasing the GitLab Community Edition (CE). In 2014 the founders formed GitLab, Inc., adding enterprise features such as advanced CI/CD, permission controls, project management tools, and security scanning (SAST, DAST). Subsequent milestones include 100 000 users in 2016, container‑security features in 2018, and becoming a leading DevOps platform with a public IPO in 2021.

3. Key Features and Innovations

Open‑source and self‑hosted deployment.

Full‑stack DevOps: code hosting, CI/CD, monitoring, and release management.

Scalable architecture suitable for large enterprises.

Enterprise‑grade security with static and dynamic application security testing.

4. Core Functions

4.1 Git Repository Management

Git repository hosting.

Branch management with Git flow support.

Merge Requests for code review and collaboration.

Tag and version management.

4.2 CI/CD

Automated build, test, and deployment pipelines defined in .gitlab-ci.yml.

Parallel job execution and pipeline control.

Automatic deployment to development, testing, and production environments.

Integration with Docker and Kubernetes for containerized workloads.

4.3 Container and Kubernetes Integration

Build and push Docker images to registries.

Deploy directly to Kubernetes clusters.

5. Installation and Configuration on Rocky Linux

5.1 System Requirements

Minimum 4 GB RAM (8 GB recommended).

At least 2 CPU cores.

At least 4 GB free disk space.

Rocky Linux 8.x or CentOS 8.x (compatible with GitLab).

5.2 Installation Steps

Update the system: sudo dnf update -y Install required packages:

sudo dnf install -y curl policycoreutils-python-utils openssh-server

Add the GitLab package repository:

curl https://packages.gitlab.com/install/repositories/gitlab/gitlab-ce/script.rpm.sh | sudo bash

Install GitLab Community Edition: sudo dnf install -y gitlab-ce Reconfigure GitLab to apply the settings: sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure Check the service status: sudo gitlab-ctl status If the firewall is enabled, open port 80:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=80/tcp --permanent && sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Access GitLab via http://<host‑IP>. The default root username is root; retrieve the initial password with: cat /etc/gitlab/initial_root_password After logging in, the GitLab web interface is ready for use.