are mature, scalable, support [high availability](../../administration/high_availability/README.md)
and are used today on GitLab.com.
It is not necessary to have GitLab installed on Kubernetes in order to use [GitLab Kubernetes integration](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/clusters/index.html).
## Introduction
The `gitlab` chart is the best way to operate GitLab on Kubernetes. This chart
contains all the required components to get started, and can scale to large deployments.
- [No in-cluster HA database](https://gitlab.com/charts/gitlab/issues/48)
- MySQL will not be supported, as support is [deprecated within GitLab](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/database.html#using-a-mysql-database-management-server-enterprise-edition-only)
## Installing GitLab using the Helm Chart
The `gitlab` chart includes all required dependencies, and takes a few minutes
to deploy.
TIP: **Tip:**
For production deployments, we strongly recommend using the
1. A [wildcard DNS entry and external IP address](preparation/networking.md)
1. [Authenticate and connect](preparation/connect.md) to the cluster
1. Configure and initialize [Helm Tiller](preparation/tiller.md).
### Deployment of GitLab to Kubernetes
To deploy GitLab, the following three parameters are required:
-`global.hosts.domain`: the [base domain](preparation/networking.md) of the
wildcard host entry. For example, `example.com` if the wild card entry is
`*.example.com`.
-`global.hosts.externalIP`: the [external IP](preparation/networking.md) which
the wildcard DNS resolves to.
-`certmanager-issuer.email`: the email address to use when requesting new SSL
certificates from Let's Encrypt.
NOTE: **Note:**
For deployments to Amazon EKS, there are
[additional configuration requirements](preparation/eks.md). A full list of
configuration options is [also available](https://gitlab.com/charts/gitlab/blob/master/doc/installation/command-line-options.md).
Once you have all of your configuration options collected, you can get any
dependencies and run helm. In this example, the helm release is named "gitlab":
```sh
helm repo add gitlab https://charts.gitlab.io/
helm repo update
helm upgrade --install gitlab gitlab/gitlab \
--timeout 600 \
--set global.hosts.domain=example.com \
--set global.hosts.externalIP=10.10.10.10 \
--set certmanager-issuer.email=email@example.com
```
### Monitoring the Deployment
This will output the list of resources installed once the deployment finishes,
which may take 5-10 minutes.
The status of the deployment can be checked by running `helm status gitlab`
which can also be done while the deployment is taking place if you run the
command in another terminal.
### Initial login
You can access the GitLab instance by visiting the domain name beginning with
`gitlab.` followed by the domain specified during installation. From the example
above, the URL would be `https://gitlab.example.com`.
If you manually created the secret for initial root password, you
can use that to sign in as `root` user. If not, GitLab automatically
created a random password for `root` user. This can be extracted by the
following command (replace `<name>` by name of the release - which is `gitlab`
if you used the command above):
```sh
kubectl get secret <name>-gitlab-initial-root-password -ojsonpath={.data.password} | base64 --decode ; echo
```
### Outgoing email
By default outgoing email is disabled. To enable it, provide details for your SMTP server
using the `global.smtp` and `global.email` settings. You can find details for these settings in the
[command line options](https://gitlab.com/charts/gitlab/blob/master/doc/installation/command-line-options.md#email-configuration).
If your SMTP server requires authentication make sure to read the section on providing
your password in the [secrets documentation](https://gitlab.com/charts/gitlab/blob/master/doc/installation/secrets.md#smtp-password).
You can disable authentication settings with `--set global.smtp.authentication=""`.
If your Kubernetes cluster is on GKE, be aware that SMTP port [25 is blocked](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/tutorials/sending-mail/#using_standard_email_ports).
### Deploying the Community Edition
To deploy the Community Edition, include these options in your `helm install` command:
