Forwarding to GitLab Subdomain with Existing Nginx Installation

Run with existing Nginx server on Ubuntu

1. Install gitlab
2. Edit configuration file /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and uncomment or append following:
   • nginx['enable'] = false
   • unicorn['enable'] = false
   • gitlab_rails['internal_api_url'] = 'http://git.yourdomain.com'
   • web_server['external_users'] = ['www-data']
3. Start bundled postgres database server
   • sudo gitlab-ctl start postgresql
4. Reconfigure
   • sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure
5. Add nginx configuration file for git lab to /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitlab-example.conf and enable it via sites-enabled
   • https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/omnibus-gitlab/blob/master/doc/settings/nginx.md#using-a-non-bundled-web-server
6. Enable passenger for nginx
   • https://www.phusionpassenger.com/library/install/nginx/install/oss/trusty
7. Restart nginx
   • sudo service nginx restart
8. Start redis
   • sudo gitlab-ctl start redis

I got it working! So insanely excited!

So as I said, I was attempting to follow these instructions, but I wasn't getting anywhere, since it seemed to be lacking instructions on how to make your existing Nginx install link into Gitlab.

Well, further down on the page they have a more complete explanation for Using an Existing Passenger / Nginx Installation, and while at first that didn't seem like what I wanted, researching Passenger a bit made it clear that it wasn't a Ruby-only thing(their easily-found install instructions require you to install it as a ruby gem) and their instructions for Ubuntu installation allowed me to integrate it into my existing Nginx reasonably easily.

From there, it was just follow the steps in the wiki, although with a couple changes.

1. The Existing Passenger/Nginx Installation section fails to mention what the previous section on non-bundled Nginx install says, that you need to add www-data to the web_server['external_users'] line in the gitlab.rb file.
2. Since I reconfigured my Gitlab installation to remove the bundled Nginx before I ran it the first time, the nginx log file at /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_access.log was non-existent, and this caused an error when Nginx tried to start up, simply creating that blank file and giving it proper read/write access made it work like a charm.

I'm super psyched now, hope anyone who has as specific of a problem in the future comes across this, that Wiki should really be updated to simply remove/merge those two sections and explain/link to how to install Passenger into an existing Nginx installation. Would have saved me a lot of confusion and wasted time.

It took me a couple of days to get everything sorted out, so I wanted to share the steps it took to get it all working. This is how to install Nginx for a website and get it working with an existing gitlab repo (that uses a bundled version of Nginx). MY gitlab repo is on a subdomain of my website called 'repos'.

Open a terminal and install Nginx:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nginx

Edit configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:

Find your user name, which you will need when configuring gitlab: In my case this was 'nginx':

user   nginx;

Add this line inside the http{ } block :

$include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;

Example:

http{
    include  etc/nginx/mime.types;
    include  etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;

    (more stuff...)
}

Edit configuration file /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

Change this line:

external_url 'GENERATED_EXTERNAL_URL' 

To:

external_url 'http://www.example.com/repos'  // (whatever your server name is)  

Uncomment and change this line:

nginx['enable'] = true

To:

nginx['enable'] = false

Uncomment and change this line:

web_server['external_users'] = []    

To:

web_server['external_users'] = ['nginx']     // or whatever your nginx user is called, sometimes it's 'www-data'

Nginx needs a configuration file for gitlab:

On the GitLab recipes repository: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-recipes/tree/master/web-server/nginx find 'gitlab-omnibus-nginx.conf'. Put that file in the folder /etc/nginx/sites-enabled (you may need to create the sites-enabled folder)

Edit configuration file /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/gitlab-omnibus-nginx.conf:

Change this line:

server_name YOUR_SERVER_FQDN

To:

server_name www.example.com/repos     // (or whatever your server name is)

You will need to change the port that gitlab is on so that the website and git server both work.

Change this line:

listen 0.0.0.0:80 default_server;

To:

listen 0.0.0.0:8081; 

Change this line:

listen [::]:80  default_server;

To:

listen [::]:8081;

Edit configuration file /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf:

Make this the default server:

listen    80 default_server;
server_name  localhost;

Add a second location for the gitlab repo and use proxy_pass to point to the port you put Gitlab on. I put my Gitlab in the sub-directory 'repos'. The number 127.0.0.1 means localhost (the same computer):

location / {
    root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
    index  index.html index.htm;
}
location /repos/ {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8081;
}

Run these commands in the terminal:

sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure
sudo service nginx restart

Your webserver and gitlab should now both be working and accessible online. Nginx will default to /usr/share/nginx/html when a user visits your webserver. There is a default .html file there. That is where you can put files for your website.

Based on @cyberchis's answer i simplified the process, and I have got through the same setup twice. I hope that it also works for you.

1. Check the user of nginx

   1.1. Open nginx.conf with nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf.

   1.2. Check the 1st. line user www-data;, and the user here is www-data.

2. Edit external_url of gitlab

   2.1. Open gitlab.rb with nano /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb.

   2.2. Edit the line external_url 'GENERATED_EXTERNAL_URL' to external_url 'http://gitlab.yourdomain.com'.

   2.3. Uncomment and change the line nginx['enable'] = true to nginx['enable'] = false.

   2.4. Uncomment and change the line web_server['external_users'] = [] to web_server['external_users'] = ['www-data'].

3. Add a configuration file for gitlab

   3.1. Download the gitlab-omnibus-nginx.conf from gitlab repository.

   3.2. Go to the directory where the file is, and copy this file to nginx with cp /directory-to-this-file/gitlab-omnibus-nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled.

   3.3. Open this file with nano /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/gitlab-omnibus-nginx.conf.

   3.4. Change this line listen 0.0.0.0:80 default_server; to listen 0.0.0.0:7001; // gitlab runs on port 7001

   3.5. Change this line listen [::]:80 default_server; to listen [::]:7001; // gitlab runs on port 7001

   3.6. Change this line server_name YOURSERVER_FQDN to server_name www.yourdomain.com.

4. Configure nginx

   4.1. Open nginx.conf with nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf.

   4.2. Add this configuration

http {

   ...
  
   server {
       listen 80;
       server_name gitlab.yourdomain.com;
       location / {
           proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:7001;
       }
   }
}

5. Reconfigure gitlab and reload nginx

   5.1. sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

   5.2. sudo systemctl reload nginx

6. Configure firewall to export port 7001 (Optional)

   Since the gitlab runs on my local server, therefore the port 7001 has to been allowed to reach from the outside. Easiest way to enable it is to run ufw allow 7001.

Now the gitlab runs on your subdomain gitlab.yourdomain.com which you should access.