gitlab-org--gitlab-foss/doc/pages/administration.md

GitLab Pages Administration

Notes:

• Introduced in GitLab EE 8.3.
• Custom CNAMEs with TLS support were introduced in GitLab EE 8.5.
• GitLab Pages were ported to Community Edition in GitLab 8.16.

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This document describes how to set up the latest GitLab Pages feature. Make sure to read the changelog if you are upgrading to a new GitLab version as it may include new features and changes needed to be made in your configuration.

If you are looking for ways to upload your static content in GitLab Pages, you probably want to read the user documentation.

Overview

GitLab Pages makes use of the GitLab Pages daemon, a simple HTTP server written in Go that can listen on an external IP address and provide support for custom domains and custom certificates. It supports dynamic certificates through SNI and exposes pages using HTTP2 by default. You are encouraged to read its README to fully understand how it works.

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In the case of custom domains, the Pages daemon needs to listen on ports 80 and/or 443. For that reason, there is some flexibility in the way which you can set it up:

1. Run the pages daemon in the same server as GitLab, listening on a secondary IP
2. Run the pages daemon in a separate server. In that case, the Pages path must also be present in the server that the pages daemon is installed, so you will have to share it via network.
3. Run the pages daemon in the same server as GitLab, listening on the same IP but on different ports. In that case, you will have to proxy the traffic with a loadbalancer. If you choose that route note that you should use TCP load balancing for HTTPS. If you use TLS-termination (HTTPS-load balancing) the pages will not be able to be served with user provided certificates. For HTTP it's OK to use HTTP or TCP load balancing.

In this document, we will proceed assuming the first option.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding with the Pages configuration, you will need to:

1. Have a separate domain under which the GitLab Pages will be served
2. (Optional) Have a wildcard certificate for that domain if you decide to serve Pages under HTTPS
3. Configure a wildcard DNS record
4. (Optional but recommended) Enable Shared runners so that your users don't have to bring their own

DNS configuration

GitLab Pages expect to run on their own virtual host. In your DNS server/provider you need to add a wildcard DNS A record pointing to the host that GitLab runs. For example, an entry would look like this:

*.example.io. 1800 IN A 1.2.3.4

where example.io is the domain under which GitLab Pages will be served and 1.2.3.4 is the IP address of your GitLab instance.

Note: You should not use the GitLab domain to serve user pages. For more information see the security section.

Configuration

Depending on your needs, you can install GitLab Pages in four different ways.

Option 1. Custom domains with HTTPS support

URL scheme	Wildcard certificate	Custom domain with HTTP support	Custom domain with HTTPS support	Secondary IP
https://page.example.io and https://page.com	yes	redirects to HTTPS	yes	yes

Pages enabled, daemon is enabled AND pages has external IP support enabled. In that case, the pages daemon is running, NGINX still proxies requests to the daemon but the daemon is also able to receive requests from the outside world. Custom domains and TLS are supported.

Source installations:

1. Install the Pages daemon:

   cd /home/git
   sudo -u git -H git clone https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-pages.git
   cd gitlab-pages
   sudo -u git -H git checkout v0.2.1
   sudo -u git -H make
   

2. Edit gitlab.yml to look like the example below. You need to change the host to the FQDN under which GitLab Pages will be served. Set external_http and external_https to the secondary IP on which the pages daemon will listen for connections:

   ## GitLab Pages
   pages:
     enabled: true
     # The location where pages are stored (default: shared/pages).
     # path: shared/pages
   
     host: example.io
     port: 443
     https: true
   
     external_http: 1.1.1.1:80
     external_https: 1.1.1.1:443
   

3. Edit /etc/default/gitlab and set gitlab_pages_enabled to true in order to enable the pages daemon. In gitlab_pages_options the -pages-domain, -listen-http and -listen-https must match the host, external_http and external_https settings that you set above respectively. The -root-cert and -root-key settings are the wildcard TLS certificates of the example.io domain:

   gitlab_pages_enabled=true
   gitlab_pages_options="-pages-domain example.io -pages-root $app_root/shared/pages -listen-proxy 127.0.0.1:8090 -listen-http 1.1.1.1:80 -listen-https 1.1.1.1:443 -root-cert /path/to/example.io.crt -root-key /path/to/example.io.key
   

4. Copy the gitlab-pages-ssl Nginx configuration file:

   sudo cp lib/support/nginx/gitlab-pages-ssl /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitlab-pages-ssl.conf
   sudo ln -sf /etc/nginx/sites-{available,enabled}/gitlab-pages-ssl.conf
   

   Replace gitlab-pages-ssl with gitlab-pages if you are not using SSL.

5. Edit all GitLab related configs in /etc/nginx/site-available/ and replace 0.0.0.0 with 1.1.1.1, where 1.1.1.1 the primary IP where GitLab listens to.

6. Restart NGINX

7. Restart GitLab

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Omnibus installations:

1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

   pages_external_url "https://example.io"
   nginx['listen_addresses'] = ['1.1.1.1']
   pages_nginx['enable'] = false
   gitlab_pages['cert'] = "/etc/gitlab/ssl/example.io.crt"
   gitlab_pages['cert_key'] = "/etc/gitlab/ssl/example.io.key"
   gitlab_pages['external_http'] = '1.1.1.2:80'
   gitlab_pages['external_https'] = '1.1.1.2:443'
   

   where 1.1.1.1 is the primary IP address that GitLab is listening to and 1.1.1.2 the secondary IP where the GitLab Pages daemon listens to.

2. Reconfigure GitLab

Option 2. Custom domains without HTTPS support

URL scheme	Wildcard certificate	Custom domain with HTTP support	Custom domain with HTTPS support	Secondary IP
http://page.example.io and http://page.com	no	yes	no	yes

Pages enabled, daemon is enabled AND pages has external IP support enabled. In that case, the pages daemon is running, NGINX still proxies requests to the daemon but the daemon is also able to receive requests from the outside world. Custom domains and TLS are supported.

Source installations:

1. Install the Pages daemon:

   cd /home/git
   sudo -u git -H git clone https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-pages.git
   cd gitlab-pages
   sudo -u git -H git checkout v0.2.1
   sudo -u git -H make
   

2. Edit gitlab.yml to look like the example below. You need to change the host to the FQDN under which GitLab Pages will be served. Set external_http to the secondary IP on which the pages daemon will listen for connections:

   pages:
     enabled: true
     # The location where pages are stored (default: shared/pages).
     # path: shared/pages
   
     host: example.io
     port: 80
     https: false
   
     external_http: 1.1.1.1:80
   

3. Edit /etc/default/gitlab and set gitlab_pages_enabled to true in order to enable the pages daemon. In gitlab_pages_options the -pages-domain and -listen-http must match the host and external_http settings that you set above respectively:

   gitlab_pages_enabled=true
   gitlab_pages_options="-pages-domain example.io -pages-root $app_root/shared/pages -listen-proxy 127.0.0.1:8090 -listen-http 1.1.1.1:80"
   

4. Copy the gitlab-pages-ssl Nginx configuration file:

   sudo cp lib/support/nginx/gitlab-pages-ssl /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitlab-pages-ssl.conf
   sudo ln -sf /etc/nginx/sites-{available,enabled}/gitlab-pages-ssl.conf
   

   Replace gitlab-pages-ssl with gitlab-pages if you are not using SSL.

5. Edit all GitLab related configs in /etc/nginx/site-available/ and replace 0.0.0.0 with 1.1.1.1, where 1.1.1.1 the primary IP where GitLab listens to.

6. Restart NGINX

7. Restart GitLab

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Omnibus installations:

1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

   pages_external_url "http://example.io"
   nginx['listen_addresses'] = ['1.1.1.1']
   pages_nginx['enable'] = false
   gitlab_pages['external_http'] = '1.1.1.2:80'
   

   where 1.1.1.1 is the primary IP address that GitLab is listening to and 1.1.1.2 the secondary IP where the GitLab Pages daemon listens to.

2. Reconfigure GitLab

Option 3. Wildcard HTTPS domain without custom domains

URL scheme	Wildcard certificate	Custom domain with HTTP support	Custom domain with HTTPS support	Secondary IP
https://page.example.io	yes	no	no	no

Pages enabled, daemon is enabled and NGINX will proxy all requests to the daemon. Pages daemon doesn't listen to the outside world.

Source installations:

1. Install the Pages daemon:

   cd /home/git
   sudo -u git -H git clone https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-pages.git
   cd gitlab-pages
   sudo -u git -H git checkout v0.2.1
   sudo -u git -H make
   

2. In gitlab.yml, set the port to 443 and https to true:

   ## GitLab Pages
   pages:
     enabled: true
     # The location where pages are stored (default: shared/pages).
     # path: shared/pages
   
     host: example.io
     port: 443
     https: true
   

3. Copy the gitlab-pages-ssl Nginx configuration file:

   sudo cp lib/support/nginx/gitlab-pages-ssl /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitlab-pages-ssl.conf
   sudo ln -sf /etc/nginx/sites-{available,enabled}/gitlab-pages-ssl.conf
   

   Replace gitlab-pages-ssl with gitlab-pages if you are not using SSL.

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Omnibus installations:

1. Place the certificate and key inside /etc/gitlab/ssl

2. In /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb specify the following configuration:

   pages_external_url 'https://example.io'
   
   pages_nginx['redirect_http_to_https'] = true
   pages_nginx['ssl_certificate'] = "/etc/gitlab/ssl/pages-nginx.crt"
   pages_nginx['ssl_certificate_key'] = "/etc/gitlab/ssl/pages-nginx.key"
   

   where pages-nginx.crt and pages-nginx.key are the SSL cert and key, respectively.

3. Reconfigure GitLab

Option 4. Wildcard HTTP domain without custom domains

URL scheme	Wildcard certificate	Custom domain with HTTP support	Custom domain with HTTPS support	Secondary IP
http://page.example.io	no	no	no	no

Pages enabled, daemon is enabled and NGINX will proxy all requests to the daemon. Pages daemon doesn't listen to the outside world.

Source installations:

1. Install the Pages daemon:

   cd /home/git
   sudo -u git -H git clone https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-pages.git
   cd gitlab-pages
   sudo -u git -H git checkout v0.2.1
   sudo -u git -H make
   

2. Go to the GitLab installation directory:

   cd /home/git/gitlab
   

3. Edit gitlab.yml and under the pages setting, set enabled to true and the host to the FQDN under which GitLab Pages will be served:

   ## GitLab Pages
   pages:
     enabled: true
     # The location where pages are stored (default: shared/pages).
     # path: shared/pages
   
     host: example.io
     port: 80
     https: false
   

4. Copy the gitlab-pages-ssl Nginx configuration file:

   sudo cp lib/support/nginx/gitlab-pages-ssl /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitlab-pages-ssl.conf
   sudo ln -sf /etc/nginx/sites-{available,enabled}/gitlab-pages-ssl.conf
   

   Replace gitlab-pages-ssl with gitlab-pages if you are not using SSL.

5. Restart NGINX

6. Restart GitLab

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Omnibus installations:

1. Set the external URL for GitLab Pages in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

   pages_external_url 'http://example.io'
   

2. Reconfigure GitLab

NGINX caveats

Note: The following information applies only for installations from source.

Be extra careful when setting up the domain name in the NGINX config. You must not remove the backslashes.

If your GitLab pages domain is example.io, replace:

server_name ~^.*\.YOUR_GITLAB_PAGES\.DOMAIN$;

with:

server_name ~^.*\.example\.io$;

If you are using a subdomain, make sure to escape all dots (.) except from the first one with a backslash (). For example pages.example.io would be:

server_name ~^.*\.pages\.example\.io$;

Set maximum pages size

The maximum size of the unpacked archive per project can be configured in the Admin area under the Application settings in the Maximum size of pages (MB). The default is 100MB.

Change storage path

Source installations:

1. Pages are stored by default in /home/git/gitlab/shared/pages. If you wish to store them in another location you must set it up in gitlab.yml under the pages section:

   pages:
     enabled: true
     # The location where pages are stored (default: shared/pages).
     path: /mnt/storage/pages
   

2. Restart GitLab

Omnibus installations:

1. Pages are stored by default in /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/pages. If you wish to store them in another location you must set it up in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

   gitlab_rails['pages_path'] = "/mnt/storage/pages"
   

2. Reconfigure GitLab

Backup

Pages are part of the regular backup so there is nothing to configure.

Security

You should strongly consider running GitLab pages under a different hostname than GitLab to prevent XSS attacks.

Changelog

GitLab Pages were first introduced in GitLab EE 8.3. Since then, many features where added, like custom CNAME and TLS support, and many more are likely to come. Below is a brief changelog. If no changes were introduced or a version is missing from the changelog, assume that the documentation is the same as the latest previous version.

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GitLab 8.16 (documentation)

• GitLab Pages were ported to Community Edition in GitLab 8.16.
• Documentation was refactored to be more modular and easy to follow.

GitLab 8.5 (documentation)

• In GitLab 8.5 we introduced the gitlab-pages daemon which is now the recommended way to set up GitLab Pages.
• The NGINX configs have changed to reflect this change. So make sure to update them.
• Custom CNAME and TLS certificates support.
• Documentation was moved to one place.

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GitLab 8.3 (documentation)

• GitLab Pages feature was introduced.