When interacting with GitLab at EMBL using git, two protocols are available, HTTPS and SSH. The first is convenient for a quick interaction. However, it quickly gets annoying as it will ask for your credentials every time. A more convenient and versatile option is SSH but it requires going through a few steps to configure it. If incorrectly configured, you will likely see the error message: Permission denied (public key). fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Ever since it’s launch in 2017, EMBL’s Bio-IT chat has been steadily growing in all directions, expanding the range of topics discussed, the number of daily active users and different functionalities, some fun, some productive. Since around this time last year, the chat has grown to have: over 1600 users of which 410 are active on a monthly basis 700 channels split between 120 public and 580 private 1.5 million posts, which is to say, half million exchanged messages since last year a little over 820 board cards, thanks to the adoption of the new Task Management Boards feature introduced last year With such fast growth and many places to visit, it is normal to find yourself a little lost.

Over the years we have been promoting Git LFS at git.embl.de. With the move to an S3 backed storage, LFS is now the supported way to store large files in our platform. New limit on git push In order to enforce the use of LFS over plain git for large files, as of 2022-09-15 we now reject pushes larger than 100Mb. Introducing git LFS Git LFS is a solution to store large files in Git in a more efficient manner.

EMBL’s (Bio-IT) chat has been initiated in 2017 to facilitate internal real-time interactions between people at EMBL, to promote group discussions and sharing of information. As of 2021 more than 1000 users are registered with over 120 active daily. In part due to the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic situation, the platform gained particular relevance and became a central hub for communication between members of all EMBL sites. The platform effectively became a pan-EMBL service in 2021, welcoming EMBL-EBI, that would join all other EMBL sites.

This quick tutorial shows you how to connect GitLab at EMBL with a Slack workspace. This can be very useful when you want to stay informed about activities in your repository without having to check your emails all the time - in fact, you may decide to disable email notifications for the repository because Slack notifications are quicker to see, manage and act upon! This tutorial also shows you the power of so-called webhooks!