How To Set Up GitLab On MacBook

Recently, I wanted to learn about infrastructure knowledge systematically, so I planned to build a learning environment. Since I don’t have any extra machines, I used Docker on my MacBookPro M1 to build an environment. At present, it seems that the first step is going smoothly.

Installing GitLab

The M1 chip in MacBooks uses the ARM architecture, so I used the yrzr/gitlab-ce-arm64v8:latest Docker image.

Create Required Directories

First, create three working directories for GitLab: etc, log, and opt. Otherwise, errors will occur. Modify the volumes section in the Docker Compose configuration to point to these directories. Two ports, 9922 and 9980, are exposed. Since this setup is for local use, 443 it is not enabled.

# dockerfile  
version: "3.8" 
services: 
  gitlab-ce: 
    image: yrzr/gitlab-ce-arm64v8:latest 
    container_name: gitlab-ce 
    privileged: true 
    restart: always 
    ports: 
      - "9922:22" 
      - "9980:9980" 
    volumes: 
      - /Users/hxzhouh/tools/gitlab/etc:/etc/gitlab:z 
      - /Users/hxzhouh/tools/gitlab/log:/var/log/gitlab:z 
      - /Users/hxzhouh/tools/gitlab/opt:/var/opt/gitlab:z 
    deploy: 
      resources: 
        limits: 
          memory: 4096M 
    tty: true 
    stdin_open: true

Note: It’s important to note that we’re exposing port 9980 to the public because we’ll be configuring gitlab’s http port to run on 9980 later instead of the default 80, and we’re doing this to avoid this problem:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66961517/gitlab-http-clone-url-is-wrong-port-8022-missing

Update GitLab Configuration

Once the container is running, modify the GitLab configuration file:

docker exec -it gitlab-ce /bin/bash 
vi /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb

Add the following lines at the end:

external_url 'http://127.0.0.1:9980' 
gitlab_rails['gitlab_ssh_host'] = '127.0.0.1' 
gitlab_rails['gitlab_shell_ssh_port'] = 9922

Change the Default Password

Run the following commands to update the root password:

gitlab-rails console -e production 
user = User.where(id: 1).first 
user.password = 'AIl+mVN(:bk\#5%c' 
user.save!

Finally, reconfigure and restart GitLab:

gitlab-ctl reconfigure 
gitlab-ctl restart

Access GitLab

Visit http://127.0.0.1:9980 in your browser. The default root username and the password you just set should work.

Adding SSH

To enable SSH-based access like GitHub, create an SSH key pair and add the public key to GitLab, and update your local SSH configuration in ~/.ssh/config:

Host 127.0.0.1 
HostName 127.0.0.1 
Port 9922 
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/ssh 
PreferredAuthentications publickey 
User root

Test the connection:

ssh -T [email protected]

You should see:

Welcome to GitLab, @root!

Then, Create a new project and clone,modify, push it

git clone ssh://[email protected]:9922/root/hello-world.git 
some modify  
..... 
git push origin --force

➜  hello-world git:(main) git push origin --force 
To ssh://127.0.0.1:9922/root/hello-world.git 
   b4dd724..e45f213  main -> main

Everything’s working fine.😄

Configuring GitLab Runners

Go to Settings -> CI/CD -> Runners, and follow the instructions under “Show runner installation and registration instructions.”

Install and Register the Runner

sudo curl --output /usr/local/bin/gitlab-runner https://gitlab-runner-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/latest/binaries/gitlab-runner-darwin-arm64 
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gitlab-runner 
gitlab-runner install 
gitlab-runner start 
gitlab-runner register --url http://127.0.0.1:9980 --registration-token GR13489416KQ-jitR3JhfMgr8f-9G

Key Points:

1. Tags: Use tags to specify runner tasks in .gitlab-ci.yml.
2. Executor: For this example, use the shell executor.

For more information about GitLab Runner, please refer to the article on the official website, which will not be expanded here.

Testing CI/CD Pipeline

Create a .gitlab-ci.yml file in your project:

stages:   
  - build   
build_job:   
  stage: build   
  tags:   
    - golang-local-shell   
  script:   
    - go build -o myapp   
  only:   
    - main   
    - tags   
  artifacts:   
    paths:   
      - myapp

Push the code to GitLab, and the build pipeline should execute automatically.

Artifacts can be found at:

http://127.0.0.1:9980/root/hello-world/-/artifacts

Next Steps

This setup concludes the local GitLab environment. In the next article, I’ll demonstrate setting up a local Kubernetes cluster and automating Docker image deployment from GitLab to Kubernetes for a complete CI/CD pipeline.