Installation

This document describes how to deploy the GitLab Operator via manifests in your Kubernetes or OpenShift cluster.

If using OpenShift, these steps normally are handled by OLM (the Operator Lifecycle Manager) once an operator is bundle published. However, to test the most recent operator images, users may need to install the operator using the deployment manifests available in the operator repository.

Prerequisites

Please consult the “Prerequisites” section of the installation page.

Installing the GitLab Operator

  1. Clone the GitLab Operator repository to your local system.

    git clone https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cloud-native/gitlab-operator.git
cd gitlab-operator

  2. Build CRDs and Operator manifests:

    task build_operator
    note
    In some cases, you may run into issues resolving dependencies and see an error message such as:
    go get: github.com/openshift/api@v3.9.0+incompatible: invalid version: unknown revision v3.9.0

    To address this, configure GOPROXY as mentioned in this issue:

    export GOPROXY="https://proxy.golang.org/"

  3. Deploy the GitLab Operator.

    PLATFORM=kubernetes # or "openshift"
kubectl create namespace gitlab-system
task deploy_operator # or "task deploy_operator_openshift"

    This command first deploys the service accounts, roles and role bindings used by the operator, and then the operator itself.

    note
    By default, the Operator will only watch the namespace where it is deployed. If you would like it to watch at the cluster scope, modify deploy/chart/values.yaml by setting watchCluster to true.

  4. Create a GitLab custom resource (CR).

    Create a new file named something like mygitlab.yaml.

    Here is an example of the content to put in this file:

    apiVersion: apps.gitlab.com/v1beta1
kind: GitLab
metadata:
  name: gitlab
spec:
  chart:
    version: "X.Y.Z" # select a version from the CHART_VERSIONS file in the root of this project
    values:
      global:
        hosts:
          domain: example.com # use a real domain here
        ingress:
          configureCertmanager: true
      certmanager-issuer:
        email: youremail@example.com # use your real email address here

    For more details on configuration options to use under spec.chart.values, see our GitLab Helm Chart documentation.

  5. Deploy a GitLab instance using your new GitLab CR.

    kubectl -n gitlab-system apply -f mygitlab.yaml

    This command sends your GitLab CR up to the cluster for the GitLab Operator to reconcile. You can watch the progress by tailing the logs from the controller pod:

    kubectl -n gitlab-system logs deployment/gitlab-controller-manager -c manager -f

    You can also list GitLab resources and check their status:

    kubectl get gitlabs -n gitlab-system

    When the CR is reconciled (the status of the GitLab resource will be RUNNING), you can access GitLab in your browser at https://gitlab.example.com.

Cleanup

Certain operations like file removal under config/ directory may not trigger rebuild/redeploy, in which cases one should employ:

task clean

This will remove all of the build artifacts and the install record.

Uninstall the GitLab Operator

Follow the steps below to remove the GitLab Operator and its associated resources.

Items to note prior to uninstalling the operator:

  • The operator does not delete the Persistent Volume Claims or Secrets when a GitLab instance is deleted.
  • When deleting the Operator, the namespace where it is installed (gitlab-system by default) will not be deleted automatically. This is to ensure persistent volumes are not lost unintentionally.

Uninstall an instance of GitLab 

kubectl -n gitlab-system delete -f mygitlab.yaml

This will remove the GitLab instance, and all associated objects except for (PVCs as noted above).

Uninstall the GitLab Operator 

task delete_operator

This will delete the Operator’s resources, including the running Deployment. It will not delete objects associated with a GitLab instance.