You can also host your own GitLab with a custom domain. Let's get started building it! 🚀💻✨

Setting Up GitLab CE in WSL with Docker (Localhost → gitlab.example.in)

Setting Up GitLab CE in WSL with Docker (Localhost → gitlab.example.in) 🎉🐳

The steps below will guide you through hosting GitLab Community Edition (CE) locally in WSL2 using Docker and accessing it via a custom domain gitlab.example.in mapped to localhost. We will skip HTTPS for simplicity and remove unnecessary services to keep it lightweight. 🚀🔧

1️⃣ Prerequisites 📋

• WSL2/Ubuntu app installed on Windows 🖥️

• Docker installed and configured for WSL2 backend or within Ubuntu 🐋

• Basic familiarity with terminal commands 💻

Optional: A text editor like nano or Vim. ✏️

2️⃣ Map Custom Domain to Localhost 🌐

We want to use gitlab.example.in in our browser instead of localhost. 🌍

• Open the Windows hosts file: C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts 📂

• Add the following line: ✍️

•   127.0.0.1 gitlab.example.in
  

• Save the file.

✅ Now, http://gitlab.example.in will resolve to your local WSL instance.

3️⃣ Create a Minimal Docker Compose File

Create a directory for GitLab Docker setup:

mkdir ~/gitlab-docker
cd ~/gitlab-docker

Create a file docker-compose.yml:

version: '3.8'

services:
  gitlab:
    image: gitlab/gitlab-ce:latest
    container_name: gitlab
    restart: always
    hostname: gitlab.example.in
    environment:
      GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG: |
        external_url 'http://gitlab.example.in'       # Use HTTP only
        nginx['redirect_http_to_https'] = false   # Disable HTTPS redirect
        prometheus['enable'] = false              # Disable Prometheus
        gitlab_kas['enable'] = false              # Disable Kubernetes agent
        letsencrypt['enable'] = false             # Disable LetsEncrypt
        registry_nginx['enable'] = false          # Disable Docker registry
        gitlab_rails['gitlab_shell_ssh_port'] = 22
    ports:
      - "80:80"
      - "22:22"
     #- "443:443" #Keeping it commented as we are not using HTTPS which requires Certificate and 
                  #domain registered
    volumes:
      - ./gitlab/config:/etc/gitlab
      - ./gitlab/logs:/var/log/gitlab
      - ./gitlab/data:/var/opt/gitlab

✅ Explanation

• external_url 🌐 → We use HTTP only (http://gitlab.example.com) for local testing. 🧪

• Disabled services 🚫 → Prometheus, KAS, Let's Encrypt, and registry are disabled to reduce memory footprint. 🧠

• Volumes 📦 → Persist configuration, logs, and repository data. 🗂️

• Ports 🔌 → HTTP on 80, SSH on 22 for Git operations. 🛠️

4️⃣ Start GitLab

docker-compose up -d

• This will pull the latest GitLab CE image and start the container.

• The first start may take a few minutes to download images

Check container status:

docker ps
docker exec -it gitlab gitlab-ctl status

5️⃣ Access GitLab

• Open your browser and navigate to: http://gitlab.example.in

• The first login will prompt you to enter the uname password.

• In GitLab Omnibus Docker, the initial root password is automatically generated and stored in a file inside the container. You can retrieve it instead of setting it manually.

• Access the GitLab container

    docker exec -it gitlab /bin/bash
    cat /etc/gitlab/initial_root_password
  

• Copy the password and log in (default username = root)

• The initial_root_password file is only generated once during the first startup.

• If you forget it later, you can reset the root password via:

    docker exec -it gitlab gitlab-rails console
    # then use: user = User.where(id: 1).first; user.password = 'newpassword'; user.save!
  

6️⃣ Push Your Local Repository

Step 6.1 — Create a project

• In GitLab UI, click New Project → Create blank project

• Name it e.g., first-repo

Step 6.2 — Initialize local repo

cd ~/first-repo
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"

Step 6.3 — Add GitLab remote

git remote add origin http://gitlab.example.in/first-repo

Step 6.4—Authenticate using Personal Access Token (PAT)

1. Go to User Settings → Access Tokens

2. Create token with write_repository scope

3. Use the token as a password when Git prompts during git push.

Step 6.5 — Push to GitLab

If the remote is empty:

git push -u origin main

If the remote has a default README and you get conflicts:

git fetch origin
git rebase origin/main
# Resolve any conflicts
git push -u origin main

7️⃣ Optional: Using Nano ✏️

• During conflict resolution, Git may open files in nano. 📝

• Exit nano: 🚪

  • Ctrl + X → exit ❌

  • Y → save changes 💾

  • N → discard changes 🚫

8️⃣ Summary 📋

• GitLab CE now runs locally in Docker on WSL. 🐳

• Access via http://gitlab.example.in. 🌐

• Minimal setup: no HTTPS, no monitoring, only essential services. 🔧

• Local projects can be pushed via HTTP using Personal Access Token. 🔑

• Docker volumes ensure data persistence. 📦

9️⃣ Next Steps 🚀

• Add more repositories for microservices. 📂

• Experiment with GitLab CI/CD using .gitlab-ci.yml. 🤖

• Optionally enable SSH push for convenience. 🔑

• Once confident, move to production VM with HTTPS & monitoring enabled. 🌐🔍

This setup is perfect for learning DevOps, GitLab administration, and CI/CD pipelines without worrying about certificates or resource-heavy monitoring. 🎓💻

1. AWS account

2. index.html file (You can any use example file on web)

Two parts of hosting

1. Static website using S3 only

2. Host website using both S3 and Cloudfront (CDN)

Static website hosting using just S3

1. Login to ASW Console and search for S3

2. Click on create bucket and give it a unique name(This should be unique across globe)

3. Use General Purpose bucket type under General config.

4. Use ACL Disabled under Object Ownership

5. Uncheck Block all public access under Block Public Access settings for this bucket and acknowledge.

6. Let versioning be disabled and by default Encryption type will be 'Server-side encryption with Amazon S3 managed keys (SSE-S3)'

7. Create a bucket.

   

8. Upload a index.html file and save.

9. Go to properties and under Static website hosting enable static website hosting, set hosting type to Host a static website, index doc to "index.html" and save.

10. Go to permissions and under Bucket Policy paste the below code and replace <bucketname> with your bucket name.

    {
        "Version": "2012-10-17",
        "Statement": [
            {
                "Effect": "Allow",
                "Principal": "*",
                "Action": "s3:GetObject",
                "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::<bucketname>/*"
            }
        ]
    }
    

11. Now under Permissions> Static website hosting URL will be present, access it to see your website.

Host website using both S3 and Cloudfront (CDN)

This is similar to above with some changes, instead of using S3 URL directly, CDN will be configured to access website which will be useful to deliver the content of the website across world with low latency.

1. In this case while creating S3 bucket, check to disable all public access (because we are using S3 as a backend and it should be accessed for all except CDN itself)

2. And under properties> Static website hosting, disable static website hosting.

3. Now search for CloudFront and create Distribution.

4. Under origin domain, select S3 bucket with above configured.

5. Under origin access create a new OAC and select as below.

   

6. Under cache behaviour> Viewer protocol policy> select redirect HTTP to HTTPS.

7. Disable WAF and set default root object to index.html and create distribution.

8. Copy the policy immediately after CDN is created(may take upto 5min to deploy)

9. Paste the copied policy json and paste it under S3> Permission> Bucket policy.

   

10. Now look for a "Distribution domain name" under CDN you just created under general. (Usually it will be like d1u4wdfgdf2wtaj4.cloudfront.net)

11. Browse it and you will get you static website hosted in AWS.

  apt-get update

  apt install openjdk-11-jre

  curl -fsSL https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian/jenkins.io-2023.key | sudo tee \
    /usr/share/keyrings/jenkins-keyring.asc > /dev/null

  echo deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/jenkins-keyring.asc] \
    https://pkg.jenkins.io/debian binary/ | sudo tee \
    /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jenkins.list > /dev/null

  sudo apt-get update

  sudo apt-get install jenkins

systemctl edit jenkins

[Service]
Environment="JENKINS_PORT=8080"

Change 8080 to whatever port is available.

1. open http://<IP>:8080 and enter the Admin password which is available in the below path.

    cat /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/initialAdminPassword
   

   1. Install the required plugins, and pass the initial username and password.

Install Docker using official documentation- https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/

1. Run the below commands to give access to Jenkins users to run docker commands in the server.

     chmod 666 /var/run/docker.sock

1. Now open Jenkins UI click on New Item name it a simple app and select Pipeline.

2. Select the GitHub project and enter the link to the repository below.

https://github.com/prashanthgowdagr/simple-index.html-app.git

1. Scroll down and select the GitHub hook trigger. This will help us to build the Jenkins job whenever the commit is made to the 'MAIN' branch of the Git repo.

2. To set this up go to GitHub and under repo go to settings> Webhooks> and paste the Jenkins server IP address with port number and end with GitHub-webhook/ (don't forget the / in the end). Select Just the push event and save the changes.

3. Under Pipeline select Pipeline script from SCM and select GIT as SCM.

4. Enter the Git repo URL and branch as main. The script path should be specified as Jenkinsfile.

5. Before running the job go to Manage_Jenkins> Credentials> system> golbal> name it "dockercreds" (Use same or it will throw an error/change the variable in jenkinsfile) and enter your DockerHub creds and password. If there is no DockerHub account, plz create one it's FREE!!!

6. Run the job now and this will pull the code from Git copy the index.html into the docker container and run it. You can access the webpage now using http://<IP>:80

7. This will also push the updated container to DockerHub with the tag 'latest' and also with the 'Jenkins Build Number'.