Installing GitLab by using Helm

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Install GitLab on Kubernetes by using the cloud native GitLab Helm chart.

Assuming you already have the prerequisites installed and configured, you can deploy GitLab with the helm command.

caution
The default Helm chart configuration is not intended for production. The default chart creates a proof of concept (PoC) implementation where all GitLab services are deployed in the cluster. For production deployments, you must follow the Cloud Native Hybrid reference architecture.

For a production deployment, you should have strong working knowledge of Kubernetes. This method of deployment has different management, observability, and concepts than traditional deployments.

In a production deployment:

  • The stateful components, like PostgreSQL or Gitaly (a Git repository storage dataplane), must run outside the cluster on PaaS or compute instances. This configuration is required to scale and reliably service the variety of workloads found in production GitLab environments.
  • You should use Cloud PaaS for PostgreSQL, Redis, and object storage for all non-Git repository storage.

If Kubernetes is not required for your GitLab instance, see the reference architectures for simpler alternatives.

Configure the Helm chart to use external stateful data

You can configure the GitLab Helm chart to point to external stateful storage for items like PostgreSQL, Redis, all non-Git repository storage, as well as Git repository storage (Gitaly).

The following Infrastructure as Code (IaC) options use this approach.

For production-grade implementation, the appropriate chart parameters should be used to point to prebuilt, externalized state stores that align with the chosen reference architecture.

Use the reference architectures

The reference architecture for deploying GitLab instances to Kubernetes is called Cloud Native Hybrid specifically because not all GitLab services can run in the cluster for production-grade implementations. All stateful GitLab components must be deployed outside the Kubernetes cluster.

Available Cloud Native Hybrid reference architectures sizes are listed at Reference architectures page. For example, here is the Cloud Native Hybrid reference architecture for the 3,000 user count.

Use Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and builder resources

GitLab develops Infrastructure as Code that is capable of configuring the combination of Helm charts and supplemental cloud infrastructure: