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