Deploy Self-Hosted Enterprise GitLab on Ubuntu with Ansible

Self-Hosted GitLab for Enterprise Source Control & CI/CD

Many enterprise platform teams require an on-premises, air-gapped or VPC-isolated GitLab instance to host sensitive infrastructure repositories, Terraform modules, and GitOps manifests. Using Ansible, we automate the complete installation and reconfiguration of GitLab Omnibus on Ubuntu.

Automated Workflow

1. Prerequisite Packages & Repository Setup

- name: Install GitLab system dependencies
  ansible.builtin.apt:
    name:
      - curl
      - openssh-server
      - ca-certificates
      - tzdata
      - perl
    state: present
    update_cache: true

- name: Add Official GitLab Package Repository
  ansible.builtin.shell: |
    curl -sS https://packages.gitlab.com/install/repositories/gitlab/gitlab-ce/script.deb.sh | bash
  args:
    creates: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gitlab_gitlab-ce.list

2. Declarative gitlab.rb Configuration & Reconfigure

- name: Install GitLab CE with External URL
  ansible.builtin.apt:
    name: gitlab-ce
    state: present
  environment:
    EXTERNAL_URL: 'https://gitlab.mkbn.local'

- name: Reconfigure GitLab Omnibus Services
  ansible.builtin.command: gitlab-ctl reconfigure

After the playbook finishes, retrieve the initial root password from /etc/gitlab/initial_root_password, rotate credentials into HashiCorp Vault, and register Kubernetes-backed GitLab Runners.