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Note: Running your own server costs money. Not like, a ton. (Well, depending on what you’re doing, but in this case, not a ton.) But you will need to buy 1) a domain name and 2) a computer. Probably a virtual computer, but those are still usually not free. Once you have accepted this into your heart, let us proceed without further ado.
Steps
- Get a linux machine with the latest version of Ubuntu installed. I used a DigitalOcean droplet (just the basic, cheapest one is fine).
- Set up a non-root user
- Get a domain name — I use Namecheap, but it’s your call
- If you are using DigitalOcean: add your domain to your DigitalOcean account
- Otherwise, reference your domain provider’s documentation to find out how to manage DNS records for your domain
- Create a DNS Record for your gitea page
- Above instructions are DigitalOcean specific, but should give you an idea of how to proceed regardless of how you have chosen to manage your domain
- You will want to create an “A” record pointed to your machine’s IP address. In this example I have used the subdomain “gitea” but you can use “git” or “myawesomeversioncontrol” or whatever you like.
Note about IP addresses: this guide assumes you have a static IP address for the machine you’re installing gitea on. If you’re using a physical computer at home, this is likely not the case. Addressing that problem is outside the scope of this guide.
- Log into your machine with your non-root user account and run the following commands:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
- Standard command to ensure your installation is up to date
sudo snap install gitea
- Install gitea snap package
sudo apt install nginx
- Install nginx reverse proxy
sudo ufw allow "Nginx Full"
- This allows connections to gitea through your firewall. You should have enabled UFW earlier in the “Set up a non-root user” step. If not, make sure you do that now.
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitea
- This is the configuration that tells nginx how to serve your gitea page. Paste the following into this file (changing the server_name value as specified) and save it:
server { # Make sure this value matches the DNS record you created server_name gitea.yourdomain.xyz; root /var/www/html; location / { # Proxy all requests to Gitea running on port 3000 proxy_pass http://localhost:3000; # Set headers proxy_set_header HOST $host; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; } }
- This is the configuration that tells nginx how to serve your gitea page. Paste the following into this file (changing the server_name value as specified) and save it:
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitea /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/gitea
- This enables the configuration you just saved in nginx
sudo nginx -t
- This command checks that your nginx configuration all looks good
sudo systemctl restart nginx
- Necessary any time you make nginx configuration changes to apply them
sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
- Install certbot, which will allow you to serve your site over https (you want this)
sudo certbot --nginx -d gitea.yourdomain.xyz
- Generate your SSL certificate using certbot. Make sure to enter your correct domain.
- If this fails, make sure your DNS record is propagated before trying again
- Now visit your gitea page in a browser on any device:
https://gitea.yourdomain.xyz
- This will give you an initial setup page where you can specify some settings
- Settings to change:
- Database Type: SQLite3
- Server Domain: should match the DNS record you created
- Gitea Base Url: should match the DNS record you created WITH
https://
at the beginning - Administrator Account Settings: this will be your admin account — use a good password
- Hit install
- May get a 502 after this — just wait a minute and it should resolve with a refresh
- Welcome to Gitea
Optional
- To manually edit settings (for example, set DISABLE_REGISTRATION = true):
sudo nano /var/snap/gitea/common/conf/app.ini
- This will open the settings file, edit any settings you would like to change and then save
sudo systemctl restart snap.gitea.web
- Restart gitea to apply changes
- Styling Gitea:
- Reference
- Example:
sudo gitea embedded list **.tmpl
- Get a list of available template files you can edit
sudo gitea embedded extract templates/home.tmpl
- I want to edit the home page so I’m going to extract this one
sudo nano /var/snap/gitea/common/templates/home.tmpl
- I delete some of the boilerplate on the home page and save my changes
sudo systemctl restart snap.gitea.web
- Restart gitea to apply changes
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