Gitea Setup On Ubuntu With SSL

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;
        	}
        }
      

  • 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