How to Install Gitea on Ubuntu 20.04

This brief tutorial shows students and new users how to install Gitea on Ubuntu 20.04 | 18.04 LTS servers.

Gitea is an open source version control platform similar to Github. It’s probably the easiest, fastest, and most painless way of setting up a self-hosted Git service.

Gitea is a clone of Gogs and is 100% open source and free of charge.

All source code is available under the MIT License on Github. It is robust, scalable and a great alternative to other git services.

Gitea has rich features like issues and time tracking, repository branching, file locking and tagging, merging and many others features that you will find in a typical source control platform.

Gitea streamlines your collaborative workflows. Visualize, prioritize, coordinate, and track your progress your way with Gitea’ flexible project management tools.

This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to easily install Gitea on Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04.

To install Gitea on Ubuntu, follow the steps below

Step 1: Install Git and Create Git User

Before continue below, run the command to install git package on Ubuntu.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git

After installing Git, run the commands below to create a Git user to run Gitea services. To do that run the commands below

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

You should see similar message as below:

Output:
Adding system user `git' (UID 122) .
Adding new group `git' (GID 127) .
Adding new user `git' (UID 122) with group `git' .
Creating home directory `/home/git' .

Next, continue below and install MariaDB

Step 2: Install MariaDB

Gitea requires a database server to store it content. and MariaDB is a great place to start with looking for an open source database server.

To install MariaDB run the commands below.

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB service to always start up when the server boots.

Run these on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

sudo systemctl stop mysql.service
sudo systemctl start mysql.service
sudo systemctl enable mysql.service

Run these on Ubuntu 18.10 and 18.04 LTS

sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

After that, run the commands below to secure MariaDB server by creating a root password and disallowing remote root access.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
New password: Enter password
Re-enter new password: Repeat password
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y

Restart MariaDB server

Now that you’ve installed all the packages that are required for Gitea to function, continue below to start configuring the servers. First run the commands below to create a blank Gitea database and database user.

To logon to MariaDB database server, run the commands below.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Change the GLOBAL innodeb_file_per_table to On.

SET GLOBAL innodb_file_per_table = ON;

Then create a database called giteadb

CREATE DATABASE giteadb;

Create a database user called giteauser with new password

CREATE USER 'giteauser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON giteadb.* TO 'giteauser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Next, run the commands below to update the database character set.

ALTER DATABASE giteadb CHARACTER SET = utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Next, run the commands below to open MariaDB default config file.

sudo nano /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-server.cnf

Then add the lines below and save.

innodb_file_format = Barracuda
innodb_large_prefix = 1
innodb_default_row_format = dynamic

Restart MariaDB after that.

sudo systemctl restart mariadb.service
sudo systemctl restart mysql.service

Continue below to download Gitea package.

Step 3: Install Gitea Packages

After creating the user account above, run the commands below to download Gitea latest package. You can find its latest version from the link below:

Run the commands below to download version 1.8.0. You can replace the version number with the latest if it becomes available.

cd /tmp
wget https://dl.gitea.io/gitea/1.8.0/gitea-1.8.0-linux-amd64

After downloading the file, move it into the /usr/local/bin directory and make it executable.

sudo mv gitea-1.8.0-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/gitea
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/gitea

Next, create these folder for Gitea to use, then update their permissions using the commands below.

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

After that, run the commands below to create Gitea systemd script..

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/gitea.service

Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save.

[Unit]
Description=Gitea (Git with a cup of tea)
After=syslog.target
After=network.target
#After=mysqld.service
#After=postgresql.service
#After=memcached.service
#After=redis.service

[Service]
# Modify these two values and uncomment them if you have
# repos with lots of files and get an HTTP error 500 because
# of that
###
#LimitMEMLOCK=infinity
#LimitNOFILE=65535
RestartSec=2s
Type=simple
User=git
Group=git
WorkingDirectory=/var/lib/gitea/
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/gitea web -c /etc/gitea/app.ini
Restart=always
Environment=USER=git HOME=/home/git GITEA_WORK_DIR=/var/lib/gitea
# If you want to bind Gitea to a port below 1024 uncomment
# the two values below
###
#CapabilityBoundingSet=CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE
#AmbientCapabilities=CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

After that, reload systemd and start Gitea service

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable gitea
sudo systemctl start gitea

To check Gitea’ status, run the commands below:

sudo systemctl status gitea

You should see similar message as below

● gitea.service - Gitea (Git with a cup of tea)
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/gitea.service; enabled; vendor preset: en
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2019-04-26 10:52:32 CDT; 11s ago
 Main PID: 7118 (gitea)
    Tasks: 6 (limit: 4683)
   CGroup: /system.slice/gitea.service
           └─7118 /usr/local/bin/gitea web -c /etc/gitea/app.ini

Apr 26 10:52:32 ubuntu1804 gitea[7118]: 2019/04/26 10:52:32 [T] Log path: /var/l
Apr 26 10:52:32 ubuntu1804 gitea[7118]: 2019/04/26 10:52:32 [I] Gitea v1.8.0 bui
Apr 26 10:52:32 ubuntu1804 gitea[7118]: 2019/04/26 10:52:32 [I] Log Mode: Consol
Apr 26 10:52:32 ubuntu1804 gitea[7118]: 2019/04/26 10:52:32 [I] XORM Log Mode: C
Apr 26 10:52:32 ubuntu1804 gitea[7118]: 2019/04/26 10:52:32 [I] Cache Service En
Apr 26 10:52:32 ubuntu1804 gitea[7118]: 2019/04/26 10:52:32 [I] Session Service 
lines 1-18/18 (END)

Next, open your browser and browse to the server hostname or IP address followed by port 3000

Type in the database connection info and continue with the setup.