# Requesting Assistance with Gitlab Port



## AGitlabUser (May 21, 2017)

Hello,

I have installed a Gitlab instance on FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE through the ports tree.

While basic features are functional, there are a few errors which I am unable to resolve.
I have searched online regarding the various issues but I have not been able to find any solutions.
I have documented the issues on Gitlab's issue tracker:
https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/32429

Please take a look.
Thank you


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## pming (May 23, 2017)

I have tried to set up Gitlab on FreeBSD multiple times (through ports and through source) without much success.
As soon as I installed it and went to the admin page, it said I need to upgrade asap, same thing on the newest available version 8.17.
The current version is somewhere around 9.1 if I am not mistaken.

IMO, the Gitlab port on FreeBSD has gotten better, but it's still messy at the current time.
I'd recommend you rather use a supported OS or switch to something like Gogs. AFAIK this works better on FreeBSD. I wanted to try it myself but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Greetings
Philipp


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## ShelLuser (May 23, 2017)

Why anyone would seriously want to use Gitlab is way beyond me. These are the "geniuses" who set up backups, then never even bothered to check if anything happened _at all_. Cynical? You betcha! Because it wasn't one, it wasn't two: but 5 out of 5 of their backups failed, see here. And the reason was none other than not even bothering to check if something had actually happened (the famous comment: "*Our backups to S3 apparently don’t work either: the bucket is empty*").

AGitlabUser do yourself a favor: devel/git is all you need. Host your project(s) on GitHub and optionally utilize devel/github-backup-utils. You don't have to pay, and you can still be ensured that your data will be a whole lot more safer than in the hands of those incompetent Gitlab idiots.

And yes: I say that while I seriously dislike name calling or mudslinging. But charging customers to pay for your services and to make sure you keep their data (and effort!) safe, then not even bothering yourself to simply look at the results of your backup schemes? I can't come up with any other description than the one I mentioned above.

You're better off ignoring Gitlab best as you can. Unless of course data security is of no concern to you.


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## AGitlabUser (May 24, 2017)

I'm running this on I2P. I have not paid Gitlab for any of their services, I have merely installed the port and I am managing backups on my own through ZFS snapshots etc.

_Edit_: But, thanks for your comments nonetheless.



pming said:


> I have tried to set up Gitlab on FreeBSD multiple times (through ports and through source) without much success.
> As soon as I installed it and went to the admin page, it said I need to upgrade asap, same thing on the newest available version 8.17.
> The current version is somewhere around 9.1 if I am not mistaken.
> 
> ...



Thank you for your comments, Philipp. I had also tried to install Gitlab from source before the port was made available. I do not think I was successful at that. Once I found out about the port, I switched over and was able to get it running in a reasonable amount of time. There are numerous moving parts however, many of which can be fragile. I do have a functional installation, save for a few issues which do not impact basic functionality.


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## pming (May 24, 2017)

AGitlabUser said:


> There are numerous moving parts however, many of which can be fragile.



Exactly. My installation(s) probably had "basic functionality" as well, but I'm not really comfortable with software that a) spits out errors and warnings while installing / starting services (especially with so many dependencies) or b) tells me I have to upgrade immediately just after installing. Basic functionality would probably be enough for me as well but the things I pointed out are basically a No-Go for me. When I have time I will try Gogs and if I don't like it at all, I'll rather install something like a CentOS or Ubuntu VM. Installation of GitLab on these systems is as dead simple as described on their website, I tried it in a VM once.


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## pming (Apr 25, 2018)

There's news on this issue, if anyone cares about this.
Try this guide: https://gitlab.fechner.net/mfechner/Gitlab-docu/blob/master/install/10.6-freebsd.md
I had to adjust some commands and the guide is missing some things, but with a bit of additional googling I managed to install Gitlab 10.6 in a jail with iocage (on FreeBSD 11.1).
Also, I haven't used that instance yet... So I can't tell how well Gitlab itself *really* works.


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## Oko (Apr 25, 2018)

ShelLuser said:


> Why anyone would seriously want to use Gitlab is way beyond me.


I think we went through this drill before in the other thread

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/updating-gitlab-from-a-source-installation.65459/#post-384146

Because you can't self host GitHub and very often contract or internal company regulations stipulate that not a single line of the code can be put on GitHub even as a private account. Those people also happen to have requirements beyond pure version control system. They for example need integration with LDAP, bug tracking, Wiki, code review, continuous integration (integration with Jenkins) etc.

We could argue whether the GitLab is good or bad.  I did careful evaluation of both GitLab and devel/gogs before they were in the ports tree. I found GitLab overly complex, cumbersome to deploy, maintain, and backup. GitLab was very resources hungry and just not worth the trouble for about 100 people team like mine. On the positive side it was at the time more mature than  devel/gogs and if you had to happen the need of one of those features there was no really alternative.

On the another hand devel/gogs have matured really nicely and apart of the little internal political turmoil which lead to its "fork" www/gitea it really paid big time for us. I would strongly urge people to look devel/gogs before considering GitLab.

Just for the record my preferred distributed version control system is Fossil but Git for better or worse is becoming "industry standard".



ShelLuser said:


> These are the "geniuses" who set up backups, then never even bothered to check if anything happened _at all_. Cynical? You betcha! Because it wasn't one, it wasn't two: but 5 out of 5 of their backups failed, see here. And the reason was none other than not even bothering to check if something had actually happened (the famous comment: "*Our backups to S3 apparently don’t work either: the bucket is empty*").
> 
> AGitlabUser do yourself a favor: devel/git is all you need. Host your project(s) on GitHub and optionally utilize devel/github-backup-utils. You don't have to pay, and you can still be ensured that your data will be a whole lot more safer than in the hands of those incompetent Gitlab idiots.
> 
> ...



I understand your experience and I 100% agree with your recommendation when self hosting is not a project requirement. Since you are a nice guy I would like to end this post on the positive note.

I have been sitting for almost 3 year on the 80% finished article about Gogs and Jankins running from FreeBSD jail which I was asked to write for BSD Magazine. I am super busy and getting a non per-reviewed technical publications for me is not a big deal. However maybe you can help me finish the article that we can publish as co-authors.


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## pming (Apr 26, 2018)

Oko said:


> On the another hand devel/gogs have matured really nicely and apart of the little internal political turmoil which lead to its
> "fork" www/gitea it really paid big time for us. I would strongly urge people to look devel/gogs before considering GitLab.



I wanted to try Gogs but haven't gotten around to it for a long time, so I started with GitLab again... seems to work fine so far.
Which one did you actually go for then? Gitea or Gogs? Which would you recommend for a "new" setup?


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## Oko (Apr 26, 2018)

pming said:


> I wanted to try Gogs but haven't gotten around to it for a long time, so I started with GitLab again... seems to work fine so far.
> Which one did you actually go for then? Gitea or Gogs? Which would you recommend for a "new" setup?


Gogs


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## SirDice (Apr 26, 2018)

pming said:


> I wanted to try Gogs but haven't gotten around to it for a long time, so I started with GitLab again... seems to work fine so far.
> Which one did you actually go for then? Gitea or Gogs? Which would you recommend for a "new" setup?


Just to throw in another option: devel/phabricator. Besides being used by companies like Facebook it's also used for FreeBSD. Compared to Gitlab, Phabricator is extremely easy to install and maintain.

https://reviews.freebsd.org


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## PacketMan (May 1, 2018)

SirDice said:


> Just to throw in another option: devel/phabricator. Besides being used by companies like Facebook it's also used for FreeBSD. Compared to Gitlab, Phabricator is extremely easy to install and maintain.
> 
> https://reviews.freebsd.org


That stuff is probably over my head at the moment, but it sure looks professional and clear. Might just install it to explore.


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## SirDice (May 1, 2018)

I got a hosted instance for free, it's only limited to 5 user accounts. But it looks like they stopped offering those. In any case, based on the experiments with the hosted instance I recently installed a local one and it was really easy to set up. The only thing I had to do by hand was to create the database and DB user, everything else was easily followed and configured through the web interface.


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## Thorny (Jul 27, 2018)

Just to add: there is a GitLab port since 2016. Its current status is very fine and you can easily use it: www/gitlab-ce


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