GitLab directory structure

This is the directory structure you will end up with following the instructions in the Installation Guide.

|-- home
|   |-- git
|       |-- .ssh
|       |-- gitlab
|       |-- gitlab-shell
|       |-- repositories

/home/git/.ssh - contains openssh settings. Specifically the authorized_keys file managed by gitlab-shell.
/home/git/gitlab - GitLab core software.
/home/git/gitlab-shell - Core add-on component of GitLab. Maintains SSH cloning and other functionality.
/home/git/repositories - bare repositories for all projects organized by namespace. This is where the git repositories which are pushed/pulled are maintained for all projects. This area is critical data for projects. Keep a backup.

Note: the default locations for repositories can be configured in config/gitlab.yml of GitLab and config.yml of gitlab-shell.

To see a more in-depth overview see the GitLab architecture doc.