Configuring GitLab

Configuring GitLab is a breeze. The first thing you need to do is provide an administrator password. This can be done on the first page you get after starting it for the first time. After that, you get a Register or Sign In box, just like when you were visiting an actual website. Just create an account (the account will be stored on your VM, not on gitlab.com). You will not receive a confirmation email; apparently, this is a known issue at GitLab. From here on, you can create projects, collaborate with your team, and do everything Git was designed for.

Now, let's take her for a test drive! In GitLab, create a new project (it should be on the page right after you create an account). Pick a project name, such as test, and hit Create project. Notice that you can make your projects Private (default), Internal, or Public. We have just created a free private project.

Creating free private projects is awesome, but you probably want your project to be a little less private. In the settings of your project (in the top-right corner), you can grant access to other members and groups and even give them access to separate actions, such as read and write.

Speaking of groups, log out and create a new account for John or Alice or whatever. Log out and log in with your first account again. You can now create a group (from the menu at the top left) and invite your second user. This time, you will get an email about getting access to a group (it might go straight to spam). Create a new project in the group and now you and your second user have access to this repository (and any repository that is created in this group in the future).

In the following section, we are going to install Git on Windows so that we can test if we can actually put something in our repository.