Install GitLab CE on CentOS7

Using an external Nginx installation

Step 1

• Install gitlab-ce using the tutorial on this page

Step 2

Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb to disable the built-in NGINX and Unicorn

# Define the external url
external_url 'http://git.yourdomain.com'

# Disable the built-in nginx
nginx['enable'] = false

# Disable the built-in unicorn
unicorn['enable'] = false

# Make changes effective
sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

# Restart all GitLab components
sudo gitlab-ctl restart

Step 3

Install Passenger + Nginx
Enable EPEL

sudo yum install -y epel-release yum-utils
sudo yum-config-manager --enable epel
sudo yum clean all && sudo yum update -y

Repair potential system issues

sudo date
# if the output of date is wrong, please follow these instructions to install ntp
sudo yum install -y ntp
sudo chkconfig ntpd on
sudo ntpdate pool.ntp.org
sudo service ntpd start

Install Passenger packages

# Install various prerequisites
sudo yum install -y pygpgme curl

# Add our el7 YUM repository
sudo curl --fail -sSLo /etc/yum.repos.d/passenger.repo https://oss-binaries.phusionpassenger.com/yum/definitions/el-passenger.repo

# Install Passenger Nginx
sudo yum install -y nginx passenger || sudo yum-config-manager --enable cr && sudo yum install -y nginx passenger

Step 4

• Read this documentation and create Nginx site file

Add 8080 port listening for your site

server {
  ...
  # This port is used to listen for incoming requests from gitlab-shell
  # please check the port specified by gitlab_url in the /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-shell/config.yml file
  # default port 8080
  listen 8080;
  ...
}

then you can launch the site using sudo service nginx start

Unexpected

• If you get [emerg] unknown directive "passenger_root" or [emerg] unknown directive "passenger_ruby" error, then your Nginx is not from Phusion's YUM repository. The Passenger package has Passenger compiled with Nginx as a module, while the other package does not. You can use sudo yum remove nginx passenger to uninstall nginx/passenger and repeat step 3 fix that.
• gitlab-shell self-check failed and the detail is Failed to connect to internal API, is because you stopped Unicorn and replaced it with external Nginx, modify the port pointed by gitlab_url in the /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-shell/config.yml file to the listening port of your Nginx, or add a listening port for Nginx to fix.

If you first setting root user password and get 10 errors prohibited this user from being saved, maybe you enabled smtp.

# Disable SMTP 
gitlab_rails['smtp_enable'] = false

# Make changes effective
sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

# Restart all GitLab components
sudo gitlab-ctl restart

If your page looks like this

Use tail -f /var/log/nginx/error.log view error log, if it is Could not find a JavaScript runtime error, use sudo yum install nodejs fix that.

Reference

• GitLab Installation
• Using an existing Passenger/NGINX installation
• Installing Passenger + Nginx
• Nginx unknown directive for passenger_root