How to Install Gitea on Ubuntu 22.10

Gitea is an open-source forge software package for hosting software development version control using Git as well as other collaborative features like bug tracking, wikis, and code review.

Prerequisites

  • Full SSH root access or a user with Sudo privileges is required.
  • Gitea supports the following databases.
    • SQLite
    • PostgreSQL
    • MySQL
    • MariaDB

In our guide below, we’ll use SQLite as the database for Gitea. You can pick any of the supported databases in your installation as needed.

To Install SQLite use the following command,

apt install sqlite3

To check the version,

sqlite3 --version

Output:

root@crown:~# sqlite3 --version
3.39.3 2022-09-05 11:02:23 4635f4a69c8c2a8df242b384a992aea71224e39a2ccab42d8c0b0  

Install Git

Gitea is a painless self-hosted Git service. With features similar to ones in GitHub, Bitbucket, or GitLab. Git is the standard for distributed version control systems and can be installed on Ubuntu systems using apt.

Check for system updates and install them.

apt update

apt upgrade

Install the Git package using the following command,

apt install git

You can check the version of Git installed with the following command,

git --version

Output:

root@crown:~# git --version
git version 2.37.2

Create a Git user,

  sudo adduser \
  --system \
  --shell /bin/bash \
  --gecos 'Git Version Control' \
  --group \
  --disabled-password \
  --home /home/git \
  git

Download the Gitea binary

Download the Gitea binary from download page and make it executable.

 apt install wget

 wget -O /tmp/gitea https://dl.gitea.io/gitea/1.17.3/gitea-1.17.3-linux-amd64

Output:

root@crown:~#  wget -O /tmp/gitea https://dl.gitea.io/gitea/1.17.3/gitea-1.17.3-linux-amd64
--2022-10-20 18:22:43--  https://dl.gitea.io/gitea/1.17.3/gitea-1.17.3-linux-amd64
Resolving dl.gitea.io (dl.gitea.io)... 84.17.46.53, 2400:52e0:1e01::883:1
Connecting to dl.gitea.io (dl.gitea.io)|84.17.46.53|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 112413616 (107M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘/tmp/gitea’

Move the Gitea binary file to '/usr/local/bin'.

mv /tmp/gitea /usr/local/bin

Make the binary executable.

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gitea   

Create the directory structure and set the required permissions and ownership.

 mkdir -p /var/lib/gitea/{custom,data,indexers,public,log}
 chown git: /var/lib/gitea/{data,indexers,log}
 chmod 750 /var/lib/gitea/{data,indexers,log}
 mkdir /etc/gitea
 chown root:git /etc/gitea
 chmod 770 /etc/gitea

To create a Systemd Unit File.

Download the file to the "/etc/systemd/system/" directory using the following command.

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/go-gitea/gitea/main/contrib/systemd/gitea.service -P /etc/systemd/system/  

To reload and enable the Gitea service,

systemctl daemon-reload

systemctl enable --now gitea

Output:

root@crown:~# systemctl enable --now gitea
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/gitea.service → /etc/systemd/system/gitea.service.

To check the status of the Gitea service,

systemctl status gitea

Output:

root@crown:~# systemctl status gitea
● gitea.service - Gitea (Git with a cup of tea)
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/gitea.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2022-10-20 18:23:42 UTC; 15s ago
   Main PID: 14144 (gitea)
      Tasks: 8 (limit: 2227)
     Memory: 129.4M
        CPU: 1.190s
     CGroup: /system.slice/gitea.service
             └─14144 /usr/local/bin/gitea web --config /etc/gitea/app.ini

Configure Gitea

If you're running ufw firewall on your server, allow the port 3000

ufw allow 3000/tcp

Navigate to your browser. http://yourserver-ip-address:3000 to access the Gitea dashboard.

Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the Gitea setup. Click on Register to start the database initialization.

Database Settings:

  • Database Type: SQLite3
  • Path: Use an absolute path, /var/lib/gitea/data/gitea.db

image

Application General Settings:

  • Site Title: Enter username.
  • Repository Root Path: keep the default /home/git/gitea-repositories.
  • Git LFS Root Path: keep the default /var/lib/gitea/data/lfs.
  • Run As Username: git
  • SSH Server Domain: Enter your domain name or your IP address.
  • SSH Port: 22, change it if SSH is listening on other Port
  • Gitea HTTP Listen Port: 3000
  • Gitea Base URL: Use http with your domain name or server IP address.
  • Log Path: Leave the default /var/lib/gitea/log

Click on Install to Install Gitea.

image

Once the installation is completed then create the first user. Open http://yourip:3000/user/sign_up in a web browser and fill in the required details.

image

Once the form has been submitted, you are logged into your Gitea account.

image

Upgrading Gitea

To upgrade to a new version first stop the Gitea service.

To stop the Gitea service.

systemctl stop gitea

Download the Gitea binary from download page.

At the time of writing this article, the latest Gitea version is 1.17.3 If there is a newer version available on the link above, change the VERSION variable before using the following command.

VERSION=<THE_LATEST_GITEA_VERSION>

wget -O /tmp/gitea https://dl.gitea.io/gitea/${VERSION}/gitea-${VERSION}-linux-amd64

Move the Gitea binary file to /usr/local/bin and make the binary executable.

mv /tmp/gitea /usr/local/bin

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gitea

To restart the Gitea service,

systemctl restart gitea

Done.