EMBL GitLab
Many members of the Bio-IT community use the local GitLab system, at git.embl.de, to manage their projects. An instance of GitLab Community Edition, git.embl.de was initially setup by former Bio-IT community members Holger Dinkel and Grischa Toedt. Holger and Grischa migrated projects that were already tracked in the preceding gitolite system (accessible by command-line only) that was hosted and administered by Frank Thommen, another community alumnus. The system, which (like GitHub) provides a graphical interface to manage projects under version control, has been increasingly popular ever since.
Mattermost
The GitLab system is linked to chat.embl.org, a workplace chat system based on Mattermost. The system has many different public and private channels for discussion around different topics and groups.
Popular public channels include those for discussion of EMBL’s central HPC cluster, R and statistics and general Bio-IT topics.
Details of the installation and configuration of this chat system can be found in the grp-admin/gitadmin/ repository (internal access only).
Continuous Integration
Users of the EMBL GitLab system can set up continuous integration (CI) for their projects, allowing them to perform automated testing and deployment of their software. Notable uses of the GitLab CI system include the building and deployment of EMBL’s central library of EasyBuild modules, and GitLab Pages (see below).
See this page more information on GitLab CI and how to set up continuous integration for your projects. Details of the installation and configuration of the shared CI runner provided by Bio-IT can be found in the grp-admin/gitadmin/ repository (internal access only).
GitLab Pages
GitLab Pages allows static webpages to be built and hosted from GitLab, via the continuous integration system. Pages built from projects on git.embl.de are hosted under the embl-community.io domain e.g. pages built from the (imaginary) git.embl.de/username/project/ repository will be hosted at https://username.embl-community.io/project/.
The building and deployment of pages can be configured via GitLab CI, as described in detail here. As an example, this site is built from this source repository. For more information, see also this page on bio-it.embl.de.
Administration
GitLab CE, Mattermost, and the CI runner are all hosted on virtual machines provided by EMBL IT Services. Costs incurred for additional storage are covered by the Bio-IT budget.
The systems are managed by the EMBL Git Admins: volunteers from the community who handle user accounts, keep software up-to-date, perform various housekeeping tasks on the host machines, and provide training and support.
Their notes on the setup and configuration of these systems are kept in the grp-admin/gitadmin/ repository.