There are many reasons why I started using Gitlab in my homelab environment; It started at work where I managed a series DevSecOps networks that were sandboxed from any external connectivity. My users who were software developers used the server religiously, and to be honest, at the time, I hade never even heard of gitlab, github or any of the sort. Fast forward a couple of years in that that role, and I slap myself because if I had known about git as a systems administrator or as a offensive cyber operator, my world would have been drastically different. As I like to tell folks that have never heard or used git: “It is like having a second brain!”
So why so I use git? Well, here are some big rocks:
CI/CD Pipelines
GItlab comes with CI/CD pipelines for well integrated continuous integration and deployment of code; that rapidly speeds up the process of delivering changes to the production environment from testing and staging.
An Integrated Container Registry
I have become a big proponent of Docker and in “dockerizing” everything I can. GitLab has a built-in docker registry for each repository, no configuration required.
Kubernetes Integration
Kubernetes simplifies infrastructure management. So it was exciting when GitLab released their Kubernetes integration because it’s a natural fit into the config management workflow.
Review Applications
I tend to deploy every branch on every commit into its own review app. This is an immense improvement to a QA workflow because I can conduct quality assurance directly in the actual feature branch before merging it back to the master branch. I have found found that this process made clean coding much more efficient.
Project Management Boards
GitLab’s boards and issue management very extensive and better suited to config management workflows. Some examples would be burndown charts, group milestones, issue due dates, moving issues between projects, or the issue CSV export.
Data Portability
GitLab can import projects and issues from multiple sources and it allows me to export projects to other systems with relative ease.
Integrated Monitoring
GitLab collects performance metrics for both servers as well as applications. It quickly determines the impact of merging a particular branch and keeps an eye on production systems without ever leaving GitLab using the “Grafana” dashboard.
Quick Actions
Quick actions are text-based shortcuts for common actions that are usually done by selecting buttons or dropdowns in the GitLab user interface. You can enter these commands in the descriptions or comments of issues, epics, merge requests, and commits.
Inline Commenting and Discussion Resolution
Reviewing merge requests (“MRs”) with GitLab are much more effective due to the discussion resolution feature, which allows me to keep a more manageable overview about which code review feedback has already been addressed, and what’s still left to do.
There are many other benefits that I will mention later as well as provide some demos on my YouTube page. If you have not tried Gitlab or GitHub and you are in IT or a tech enthusiast, now is the time to get into it!
