436 lines
20 KiB
Markdown
436 lines
20 KiB
Markdown
---
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description: 'Learn how to spin up a pre-configured GitLab VM on Microsoft Azure.'
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type: howto
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---
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# Install GitLab on Microsoft Azure
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Azure is Microsoft's business cloud and GitLab is a pre-configured offering on the Azure Marketplace.
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Hopefully, you aren't surprised to hear that Microsoft and Azure have embraced open source software
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like Ubuntu, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and of course - GitLab! This means that you can spin up a
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pre-configured GitLab VM and have your very own private GitLab up and running in around 30 minutes.
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Let's get started.
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## Getting started
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First, you'll need an account on Azure. There are three ways to do this:
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- If your company (or you) already has an account, then you are ready to go!
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- You can also open your own Azure account for free. _At time of writing_, you get $200
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of credit to spend on Azure services for 30 days. You can use this credit to try out paid Azure
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services, exploring Microsoft's cloud for free. Even after the first 30 days, you never have to pay
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anything unless you decide to transition to paid services with a Pay-As-You-Go Azure subscription.
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This is a great way to try out Azure and cloud computing, and you can
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[read more in their comprehensive FAQ](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/free-account-faq/).
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- If you have an MSDN subscription, you can activate your Azure subscriber benefits. Your MSDN
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subscription gives you recurring Azure credits every month, so why not put those credits to use and
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try out GitLab right now?
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## Working with Azure
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Once you have an Azure account, you can get started. [Log in to Azure](https://portal.azure.com)
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and the first thing you will see is the Dashboard:
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The Dashboard gives you a quick overview of Azure resources, and from here you can build VMs,
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create SQL Databases, author websites, and perform lots of other cloud tasks.
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## Create New VM
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The [Azure Marketplace](https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/) is an online store for pre-configured applications and
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services which have been optimized for the cloud by software vendors like GitLab,
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available on the Azure Marketplace as pre-configured solutions. In this tutorial
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we will install GitLab Community Edition, but for GitLab Enterprise Edition you
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can follow the same process.
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To begin creating a new GitLab VM, click on the **+ New** icon, type "GitLab" into the search
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box, and then click the **"GitLab Community Edition"** search result:
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A new "blade" window will pop-out, where you can read more about the **"GitLab Community Edition"**
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offering which is freely available under the MIT Expat License:
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Click **"Create"** and you will be presented with the "Create virtual machine" blade:
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## Basics
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The first items we need to configure are the basic settings of the underlying virtual machine:
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1. Enter a `Name` for the VM - e.g. **"GitLab-CE"**
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1. Select a `VM disk type` - either **HDD** _(slower, lower cost)_ or **SSD** _(faster, higher cost)_
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1. Enter a `User name` - e.g. `gitlab-admin`
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1. Select an `Authentication type`, either **SSH public key** or **Password**:
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> **Note:** if you're unsure which authentication type to use, select **Password**
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1. If you chose **SSH public key** - enter your `SSH public key` into the field provided
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_(read the [SSH documentation](../../ssh/README.md) to learn more about how to set up SSH
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public keys)_
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1. If you chose **Password** - enter the password you wish to use _(this is the password that you
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will use later in this tutorial to [SSH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell) into the VM, so make sure it's a strong password/passphrase)_
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1. Choose the appropriate `Subscription` tier for your Azure account
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1. Choose an existing `Resource Group` or create a new one - e.g. **"GitLab-CE-Azure"**
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> **Note:** a "Resource group" is a way to group related resources together for easier administration.
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> We chose "GitLab-CE-Azure", but your resource group can have the same name as your VM.
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1. Choose a `Location` - if you're unsure, select the default location
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Here are the settings we've used:
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Check the settings you have entered, and then click **"OK"** when you're ready to proceed.
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## Size
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Next, you need to choose the size of your VM - selecting features such as the number of CPU cores,
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the amount of RAM, the size of storage (and its speed), etc.
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> **Note:** in common with other cloud vendors, Azure operates a resource/usage pricing model, i.e.
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the more resources your VM consumes the more it will cost you to run, so make your selection
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carefully. You'll see that Azure provides an _estimated_ monthly cost beneath each VM Size to help
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guide your selection.
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The default size - the lowest cost **"DS1_V2 Standard"** VM - meets the minimum system requirements
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to run a small GitLab environment for testing and evaluation purposes, and so we're going to go
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ahead and select this one, but please choose the size which best meets your own requirements:
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> **Note:** be aware that while your VM is active (known as "allocated"), it will incur
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"compute charges" which, ultimately, you will be billed for. So, even if you're using the
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free trial credits, you'll likely want to learn
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[how to properly shutdown an Azure VM to save money](https://build5nines.com/properly-shutdown-azure-vm-to-save-money/).
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Go ahead and click your chosen size, then click **"Select"** when you're ready to proceed to the
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next step.
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## Settings
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On the next blade, you're asked to configure the Storage, Network and Extension settings.
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We've gone with the default settings as they're sufficient for test-driving GitLab, but please
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choose the settings which best meet your own requirements:
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Review the settings and then click **"OK"** when you're ready to proceed to the last step.
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## Purchase
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The Purchase page is the last step and here you will be presented with the price per hour for your
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new VM. You'll be billed only for the VM itself (e.g. "Standard DS1 v2") because the
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**"GitLab Community Edition"** marketplace solution is free to use at 0 USD/hr:
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> **Note:** at this stage, you can review and modify the any of the settings you have made during all
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previous steps, just click on any of the four steps to re-open them.
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When you have read and agreed to the terms of use and are ready to proceed, click **"Purchase"**.
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## Deployment
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At this point, Azure will begin deploying your new VM. The deployment process will take a few
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minutes to complete, with progress displayed on the **"Deployment"** blade:
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Once the deployment process is complete, the new VM and its associated resources will be displayed
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on the Azure Dashboard (you may need to refresh the page):
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The new VM can also be accessed by clicking the `All resources` or `Virtual machines` icons in the
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Azure Portal sidebar navigation menu.
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## Set up a domain name
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The VM will have a public IP address (static by default), but Azure allows us to assign a friendly
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DNS name to the VM, so let's go ahead and do that.
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From the Dashboard, click on the **"GitLab-CE"** tile to open the management blade for the new VM.
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The public IP address that the VM uses is shown in the 'Essentials' section:
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Click on the public IP address - which should open the **"Public IP address - Configuration"** blade,
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then click on **"Configuration"** (under "Settings"). Now enter a friendly DNS name for your instance
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in the `DNS name label` field:
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In the screenshot above, you'll see that we've set the `DNS name label` to `gitlab-ce-test`.
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This will make our VM accessible at `gitlab-ce-test.centralus.cloudapp.azure.com`
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_(the full domain name of your own VM will be different, of course)_.
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Click **"Save"** for the changes to take effect.
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> **Note:** if you want to use your own domain name, you will need to add a DNS `A` record at your
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domain registrar which points to the public IP address of your Azure VM. If you do this, you'll need
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to make sure your VM is configured to use a _static_ public IP address (i.e. not a _dynamic_ one)
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or you will have to reconfigure the DNS `A` record each time Azure reassigns your VM a new public IP
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address. Read [Public IP addresses](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-network/public-ip-addresses) to learn more.
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## Let's open some ports
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At this stage you should have a running and fully operational VM. However, none of the services on
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your VM (e.g. GitLab) will be publicly accessible via the internet until you have opened up the
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necessary ports to enable access to those services.
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Ports are opened by adding _security rules_ to the **"Network security group"** (NSG) which our VM
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has been assigned to. If you followed the process above, then Azure will have automatically created
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an NSG named `GitLab-CE-nsg` and assigned the `GitLab-CE` VM to it.
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> **Note:** if you gave your VM a different name then the NSG automatically created by Azure will
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also have a different name - the name you have your VM, with `-nsg` appended to it.
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You can navigate to the NSG settings via many different routes in the Azure Portal, but one of the
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simplest ways is to go to the Azure Dashboard, and then click on the Network Security Group listed
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in the **"All resources"** tile:
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With the **"Network security group"** blade open, click on **"Inbound security rules"** under
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**"Settings"**:
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Next, click **"Add"**:
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### Which ports to open?
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Like all servers, our VM will be running many services. However, we want to open up the correct
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ports to enable public internet access to two services in particular:
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1. **HTTP** (port 80) - opening port 80 will enable our VM to respond to HTTP requests, allowing
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public access to the instance of GitLab running on our VM.
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1. **SSH** (port 22) - opening port 22 will enable our VM to respond to SSH connection requests,
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allowing public access (with authentication) to remote terminal sessions
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_(you'll see why we need [SSH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell) access to our VM [later on in this tutorial](#maintaining-your-gitlab-instance))_
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### Open HTTP on Port 80
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In the **"Add inbound security rule"** blade, let's open port 80 so that our VM will accept HTTP
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connections:
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1. Enter **"HTTP"** in the `Name` field
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1. Select **HTTP** from the options in the `Service` dropdown list
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1. Make sure the `Action` is set to **Allow**
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1. Click **"OK"**
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### Open SSH on Port 22
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Repeat the above process, adding a second Inbound security rule to open port 22, enabling our VM to
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accept [SSH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell) connections:
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1. Enter **"SSH"** in the `Name` field
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1. Select **SSH** from the options in the `Service` dropdown list
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1. Make sure the `Action` is set to **Allow**
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1. Click **"OK"**
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It will take a moment for Azure to add each new Inbound Security Rule (and you may need to click on
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**"Inbound security rules"** to refresh the list), but once completed, you should see the two new
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rules in the list:
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## Connecting to GitLab
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Use the domain name you set up earlier (or the public IP address) to visit your new GitLab instance
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in your browser. If everything has gone according to plan you should be presented with the
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following page, asking you to set a _new_ password for the administrator account automatically
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created by GitLab:
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Enter your _new_ password into both form fields, and then click **"Change your password"**.
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Once you have changed the password you will be redirected to the GitLab login page. Use `root` as
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the username, enter the new password you set in the previous step, and then click **"Sign in"**:
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### Success?
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After signing in successfully, you should see the GitLab Projects page displaying a
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**"Welcome to GitLab!"** message:
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If so, you now have a working GitLab instance on your own private Azure VM. **Congratulations!**
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## Creating your first GitLab project
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You can skip this section if you are familiar with Git and GitLab. Otherwise, let's create our first
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project. From the Welcome page, click **"New Project"**.
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Let's give our project a name and a description, and then accept the default values for everything
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else:
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1. Enter **"demo"** into the `Project path` project name field
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1. Enter a `description`, e.g. **"My awesome demo project!"**
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1. Click **"Create project"**
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Once the new project has been created (which should only take a moment), you'll be redirected to
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homepage for the project:
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If you scroll further down the project's home page, you'll see some basic instructions on how to
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set up a local clone of your new repository and push and pull from it:
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**That's it! You now have your own private GitLab environment installed and running in the cloud!**
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## Maintaining your GitLab instance
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It's important to keep your GitLab environment up-to-date. The GitLab team is constantly making
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enhancements and occasionally you may need to update for security reasons. So let's review how to
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update GitLab.
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### Checking our current version
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To check which version of GitLab we're currently running, click on the "Admin Area" link - it's the
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the wrench icon displayed in the top-right, next to the search box.
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In the following screenshot you can see an **"update asap"** notification message in the top-right.
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This particular message indicates that there is a newer version of GitLab available which contains
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one or more security fixes:
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Under the **"Components"** section, we can see that our VM is currently running version `8.6.5` of
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GitLab. This is the version of GitLab which was contained in the Azure Marketplace
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**"GitLab Community Edition"** offering we used to build the VM when we wrote this tutorial.
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> **Note:** The version of GitLab in your own VM instance may well be different, but the update
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process will still be the same.
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### Connect via SSH
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To perform an update, we need to connect directly to our Azure VM instance and run some commands
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from the terminal. Our Azure VM is actually a server running Linux (Ubuntu), so we'll need to
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connect to it using SSH ([Secure Shell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell)).
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If you're running Windows, you'll need to connect using [PuTTY](https://www.putty.org) or an equivalent Windows SSH client.
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If you're running Linux or macOS, then you already have an SSH client installed.
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> **Note:**
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>
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> - Remember that you will need to login with the username and password you specified
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> [when you created](#basics) your Azure VM
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> - If you need to reset your VM password, read
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> [how to reset SSH credentials for a user on an Azure VM](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/troubleshooting/troubleshoot-ssh-connection).
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#### SSH from the command-line
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If you're running [SSH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell) from the command-line (terminal), then type in the following command to
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connect to your VM, substituting `username` and `your-azure-domain-name.com` for the correct values.
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Again, remember that your Azure VM domain name will be the one you
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[set up previously in the tutorial](#set-up-a-domain-name). If you didn't set up a domain name for
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your VM, you can use the IP address in its place in the following command:
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```shell
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ssh username@your-azure-domain-name.com
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```
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Provide your password at the prompt to authenticate.
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#### SSH from Windows (PuTTY)
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If you're using [PuTTY](https://www.putty.org) in Windows as your [SSH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell) client, then you might want to take a quick
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read on [using PuTTY in Windows](https://mediatemple.net/community/products/dv/204404604/using-ssh-in-putty-).
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### Updating GitLab
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Once you've logged in via SSH, enter the following command to update GitLab to the latest
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version:
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```shell
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sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install gitlab-ce
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```
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This command will update GitLab and its associated components to the latest versions, so it will
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take a little time to complete. You'll see various update tasks being completed in your SSH
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terminal window:
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Once the update process has completed, you'll see a message like this:
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```plaintext
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Upgrade complete! If your GitLab server is misbehaving try running
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sudo gitlab-ctl restart
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before anything else.
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```
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#### Check out your updated GitLab
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Refresh your GitLab instance in the browser and navigate to the Admin Area. You should now have an
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up-to-date GitLab instance.
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When we wrote this tutorial our Azure VM GitLab instance was updated to the latest version at time
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of writing (`9.4.0`). You can see that the message which was previously displaying **"update asap"**
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is now showing **"up-to-date"**:
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## Conclusion
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Naturally, we believe that GitLab is a great Git repository tool. However, GitLab is a whole lot
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more than that too. GitLab unifies issues, code review, CI and CD into a single UI, helping you to
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move faster from idea to production, and in this tutorial we showed you how quick and easy it is to
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set up and run your own instance of GitLab on Azure, Microsoft's cloud service.
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Azure is a great way to experiment with GitLab, and if you decide (as we hope) that GitLab is for
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you, you can continue to use Azure as your secure, scalable cloud provider or of course run GitLab
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on any cloud service you choose.
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## Where to next?
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Check out our other [Technical Articles](../../articles/index.md) or browse the [GitLab Documentation](../../README.md) to learn more about GitLab.
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### Useful links
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- [GitLab Community Edition](https://about.gitlab.com/features/)
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- [GitLab Enterprise Edition](https://about.gitlab.com/features/#ee-starter)
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- [Microsoft Azure](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/)
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- [Azure - Free Account FAQ](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/free-account-faq/)
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- [Azure - Marketplace](https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/en-us/marketplace/)
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- [Azure Portal](https://portal.azure.com)
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- [Azure - Pricing Calculator](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/)
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- [Azure - Troubleshoot SSH Connections to an Azure Linux VM](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/troubleshooting/troubleshoot-ssh-connection)
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- [Azure - Properly Shutdown an Azure VM](https://build5nines.com/properly-shutdown-azure-vm-to-save-money/)
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- [SSH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell), [PuTTY](https://www.putty.org) and [Using SSH in PuTTY](https://mediatemple.net/community/products/dv/204404604/using-ssh-in-putty-)
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<!-- ## Troubleshooting
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Include any troubleshooting steps that you can foresee. If you know beforehand what issues
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This is important to minimize requests for support and to avoid doc comments with
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