In this blog we are going to create a GitLab project, that will showcase the skillset regarding GitLab tool.

Create a Group and a project within

Open your GitLab account and follow these steps one by one. I will guide you if you are starting from basic, so you have to create a group, for this directly go to GitLab account and click on “New group“ button, there you will see two ways to create group, but you need to create a group by click on “Create Group“ . Give him a name and done, you have successfully created a group. In GitLab, your group is like user account in GitHub, ex: GitHub-username

Now in this group, you have to create project by pressing “New Project“ button exact same way of group creation. This is like repository in your GitHub account.

💡

We are using “GitLab-project1“ project this time.

Push your application data to project

As a developer you need to push all the project code from your system to GitLab project using Git Tool.

Here i have pushed all the project code in master branch.

Link: https://gitlab.com/devrakaops1/java-todo-app-cicd/-/tree/master?ref_type=heads

Add a Runner

now this time your next work is to create a EC2-Instance that we can use as a GitLab custom Runner to run our project.

Step-1: Go to your AWS account and create an ec2-instance with t2.medium and rhel-9 OS

Step-2: Take SSH to the instance and run provided commands to make them GitLab Runner

Now run commands to became GitLab Runner

Go to settings > CICD > Runners > Create Project Runner

And click on “Create Runner“

Now select your OS “RedHat Linux“ in my case.
Now you have to run some commands but GitLab Runner must be installed before you can register a runner. For this run below commands by clicking in link “How do I install GitLab Runner?“

Select your architecture of system, run the following commands.

But don’t forgot to run command “yum update“. This will save your time and to lots of confusions.

And then following command.

 gitlab-runner register --url https://gitlab.com --token glrt-oxwG1lduWEnIh3DJiwHCqm86MQpwOjE3ZmVkeQp0OjMKdTpobDhpbRg.01.1j0181m9p

Now check your runner is working and active

make sure you have turn off GitLab default runner

Now your runner is active and in working state. Later you can mention this runner using mentioning tags “dev“ in main CICD file .gitlab-ci.yml

Add Docker Credentials Variables

To add variable in GitLab, go to settings > CICD > Variables > add variable

We have to create two variable:

DOCKERHUB_NAME = ********
DOCKERHUB_PASS = *****************************

Now its time to create CICD file. Name should be “.gitlab-ci.yml“

Create a GitLab CICD file

stages:
        - build
        - test
        - push_to_dockerhub
        - deploy
variables:
        NAME: "Rakesh"
        CITY: "Jaipur"

build_job:
        stage: build
        script:
                - echo "$CI_JOB_STAGE is working in $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH branch"
                - docker build -t todo-app:latest .
        tags:
                - dev

test_job:
        stage: test
        script:
                - echo "$CI_JOB_STAGE is working in $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH branch"
                - docker image ls
        tags:
                - dev

push_job:
        stage: push_to_dockerhub
        before_script: 
                - docker login -u $DOCKERHUB_NAME -p $DOCKERHUB_PASS  
        script:
                - echo "$CI_JOB_STAGE is working in $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH branch"              
                - docker image tag todo-app:latest      $DOCKERHUB_NAME/todo:latest
                - docker push $DOCKERHUB_NAME/todo:latest
        tags:
                - dev

deploy_job:
        stage: deploy
        script:
                - echo "$CI_JOB_STAGE is working in $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH branch"
                - docker compose up -d
                - echo "Working Successful"
        tags:
                - dev

Install Docker in Ec2 Instance

Install docker: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/centos/

systemctl enable --now docker

Configuration Work

yum install -y git
echo "gitlab-runner  ALL=(ALL)   NOPASSWD:ALL" > /etc/sudoers.d/gitlab-runner

Check the CICD pipeline

When you pushes the code to the repository server in master branch, automatically cicd pipeline will trigger.

Go to build > pipeline >

If you want to see on instance, there is docker container is running on port 8000.

So we have to add 8000 inbound port to the AWS EC2-Instances security group

Access the application

Because we have deployed application on ec2-instance so will see the output using instances public IP with appending 8000 port on web browser.

Notification Alerts

GitLab normally provides alert notification service

Output Logs

Build_job

  Running with gitlab-runner 18.3.0 (9ba718cd)
    on gitlab-runner1 jHBjwSbnw, system ID: s_5da8ab1e406d
  Preparing the "shell" executor
  00:00
  Using Shell (bash) executor...
  Preparing environment
  00:00
  Running on ip-172-31-95-28.ec2.internal...
  Getting source from Git repository
  00:01
  Gitaly correlation ID: 089ad318cb6440518c7c06d9f9afc0ee
  Fetching changes with git depth set to 20...
  Reinitialized existing Git repository in /builds/jHBjwSbnw/0/devrakaops1/java-todo-app-cicd/.git/
  Checking out 65f03dd9 as detached HEAD (ref is master)...
  Skipping Git submodules setup
  Executing "step_script" stage of the job script
  00:08
  $ echo "Hello my name is $NAME and i lived in $CITY"
  Hello my name is Rakesh and i lived in Jaipur
  $ echo "$CI_JOB_STAGE is working in $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH branch"
  build is working in master branch
  $ echo pwd
  pwd
  $ echo whoami
  whoami
  $ echo ls -al
  ls -al
  $ docker build -t todo-app:latest .
  #0 building with "default" instance using docker driver
  #1 [internal] load build definition from Dockerfile
  #1 transferring dockerfile: 297B done
  #1 DONE 0.0s
  #2 [auth] library/node:pull token for registry-1.docker.io
  #2 DONE 0.0s
  #3 [internal] load metadata for docker.io/library/node:12.2.0-alpine
  #3 DONE 0.2s
  #4 [internal] load .dockerignore
  #4 transferring context: 2B done
  #4 DONE 0.0s
  #5 [1/5] FROM docker.io/library/node:12.2.0-alpine@sha256:2ab3d9a1bac67c9b4202b774664adaa94d2f1e426d8d28e07bf8979df61c8694
  #5 DONE 0.0s
  #6 [internal] load build context
  #6 transferring context: 15.71kB done
  #6 DONE 0.0s
  #7 [2/5] WORKDIR /node
  #7 CACHED
  #8 [3/5] COPY . .
  #8 DONE 0.0s
  #9 [4/5] RUN npm install
  #9 0.710 npm WARN read-shrinkwrap This version of npm is compatible with lockfileVersion@1, but package-lock.json was generated for lockfileVersion@2. I'll try to do my best with it!
  #9 5.604 
  #9 5.604 > ejs@2.7.4 postinstall /node/node_modules/ejs
  #9 5.604 > node ./postinstall.js
  #9 5.604 
  #9 5.653 Thank you for installing EJS: built with the Jake JavaScript build tool (https://jakejs.com/)
  #9 5.653 
  #9 5.909 npm WARN my-todolist@0.1.0 No repository field.
  #9 5.910 npm WARN my-todolist@0.1.0 No license field.
  #9 5.910 
  #9 5.913 added 291 packages from 653 contributors and audited 291 packages in 5.249s
  #9 5.914 found 33 vulnerabilities (10 low, 3 moderate, 16 high, 4 critical)
  #9 5.914   run `npm audit fix` to fix them, or `npm audit` for details
  #9 DONE 6.1s
  #10 [5/5] RUN npm run test
  #10 0.428 
  #10 0.428 > my-todolist@0.1.0 test /node
  #10 0.428 > mocha --recursive --exit
  #10 0.428 
  #10 0.624 
  #10 0.625 
  #10 0.627   Simple Calculations
  #10 0.628 This part executes once before all tests
  #10 0.628     Test1
  #10 0.628 executes before every test
  #10 0.629       ✓ Is returning 5 when adding 2 + 3
  #10 0.629 executes before every test
  #10 0.630       ✓ Is returning 6 when multiplying 2 * 3
  #10 0.630     Test2
  #10 0.630 executes before every test
  #10 0.630       ✓ Is returning 4 when adding 2 + 3
  #10 0.630 executes before every test
  #10 0.630       ✓ Is returning 8 when multiplying 2 * 4
  #10 0.631 This part executes once after all tests
  #10 0.631 
  #10 0.631 
  #10 0.631   4 passing (7ms)
  #10 0.631 
  #10 DONE 0.6s
  #11 exporting to image
  #11 exporting layers
  #11 exporting layers 1.1s done
  #11 writing image sha256:c210dbc115207b92008265a12fe9e3059e2b259a59627ce44805f917bb2c49dd done
  #11 naming to docker.io/library/todo-app:latest done
  #11 DONE 1.1s
  Cleaning up project directory and file based variables
  00:00
  Job succeeded

test_job

  Running with gitlab-runner 18.3.0 (9ba718cd)
    on gitlab-runner1 jHBjwSbnw, system ID: s_5da8ab1e406d
  Preparing the "shell" executor
  00:00
  Using Shell (bash) executor...
  Preparing environment
  00:00
  Running on ip-172-31-95-28.ec2.internal...
  Getting source from Git repository
  00:01
  Gitaly correlation ID: 14a70c8d29bf4a60bb71afd99d959466
  Fetching changes with git depth set to 20...
  Reinitialized existing Git repository in /builds/jHBjwSbnw/0/devrakaops1/java-todo-app-cicd/.git/
  Checking out 65f03dd9 as detached HEAD (ref is master)...
  Skipping Git submodules setup
  Executing "step_script" stage of the job script
  00:00
  $ echo "$CI_JOB_STAGE is working in $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH branch"
  test is working in master branch
  $ docker image ls
  REPOSITORY         TAG       IMAGE ID       CREATED         SIZE
  todo-app           latest    c210dbc11520   5 seconds ago   104MB
  [MASKED]/todo   latest    5970356deaa0   3 minutes ago   104MB
  Cleaning up project directory and file based variables
  00:00
  Job succeeded

push_to_dockerhub_job

  Running with gitlab-runner 18.3.0 (9ba718cd)
    on gitlab-runner1 jHBjwSbnw, system ID: s_5da8ab1e406d
  Preparing the "shell" executor
  00:00
  Using Shell (bash) executor...
  Preparing environment
  00:00
  Running on ip-172-31-95-28.ec2.internal...
  Getting source from Git repository
  00:01
  Gitaly correlation ID: 4cfb3d55ef244d9dad1a96d22cdd7691
  Fetching changes with git depth set to 20...
  Reinitialized existing Git repository in /builds/jHBjwSbnw/0/devrakaops1/java-todo-app-cicd/.git/
  Checking out 65f03dd9 as detached HEAD (ref is master)...
  Skipping Git submodules setup
  Executing "step_script" stage of the job script
  00:04
  $ echo "$CI_JOB_STAGE is working in $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH branch"
  push_to_dockerhub is working in master branch
  $ docker login -u $DOCKERHUB_NAME -p $DOCKERHUB_PASS
  WARNING! Using --password via the CLI is insecure. Use --password-stdin.
  Login Succeeded
  $ docker image tag todo-app:latest      $DOCKERHUB_NAME/todo:latest
  $ docker push $DOCKERHUB_NAME/todo:latest
  The push refers to repository [docker.io/[MASKED]/todo]
  b4a20abeed57: Preparing
  b5a342a444fe: Preparing
  2630b0641421: Preparing
  48568d6a9c95: Preparing
  917da41f96aa: Preparing
  7d6e2801765d: Preparing
  f1b5933fe4b5: Preparing
  7d6e2801765d: Waiting
  f1b5933fe4b5: Waiting
  48568d6a9c95: Layer already exists
  917da41f96aa: Layer already exists
  7d6e2801765d: Layer already exists
  f1b5933fe4b5: Layer already exists
  b4a20abeed57: Pushed
  2630b0641421: Pushed
  b5a342a444fe: Pushed
  latest: digest: sha256:c289ae82475448c92ba2db4d00584f9664fdc9bc300208a44dbc7c878c6623c0 size: 1785
  Cleaning up project directory and file based variables
  00:01
  Job succeeded

deploy_job

  Running with gitlab-runner 18.3.0 (9ba718cd)
    on gitlab-runner1 jHBjwSbnw, system ID: s_5da8ab1e406d
  Preparing the "shell" executor
  00:00
  Using Shell (bash) executor...
  Preparing environment
  00:00
  Running on ip-172-31-95-28.ec2.internal...
  Getting source from Git repository
  00:01
  Gitaly correlation ID: 45752bebf3ae4b6582bb25bdff2e7ac4
  Fetching changes with git depth set to 20...
  Reinitialized existing Git repository in /builds/jHBjwSbnw/0/devrakaops1/java-todo-app-cicd/.git/
  Checking out 65f03dd9 as detached HEAD (ref is master)...
  Skipping Git submodules setup
  Executing "step_script" stage of the job script
  00:01
  $ echo "$CI_JOB_STAGE is working in $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH branch"
  deploy is working in master branch
  $ docker compose up -d
  time="2025-08-22T15:30:00Z" level=warning msg="/builds/jHBjwSbnw/0/devrakaops1/java-todo-app-cicd/docker-compose.yaml: the attribute `version` is obsolete, it will be ignored, please remove it to avoid potential confusion"
   Network java-todo-app-cicd_default  Creating
   Network java-todo-app-cicd_default  Created
   Container java-todo-app-cicd-web-1  Creating
   Container java-todo-app-cicd-web-1  Created
   Container java-todo-app-cicd-web-1  Starting
   Container java-todo-app-cicd-web-1  Started
  $ echo "Working Successful"
  Working Successful
  Cleaning up project directory and file based variables
  00:00
  Job succeeded

Thank you

GitLab repo: https://gitlab.com/devrakaops1/java-todo-app-cicd/-/tree/master?ref_type=heads

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rakeshkumarjangid/

GitLab CICD Learning Project-1

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