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You might find Gitlab as a selfhosted Service interesting. Spin up a Ubuntu machine and install the Omnibus and you have the basic functionality running in abo

You might find Gitlab as a selfhosted Service interesting. Spin up a Ubuntu machine and install the Omnibus and you have the basic functionality running in about half an hour, plus another half an hour for the CI Runner.

Xylakant 4y ago
Setting it up is the smallest part of any competent operation. Capacity planning, monitoring, planning for outages and recovery, updates, backups - including testing for recovery -,… is what takes the effort. Setup is almost always on the happy path. When things go wrong, you start over. But once you have a substantial investment in terms of data stored, that is unlikely to be an option. Now you need to figure out and solve the actual problem, which likely requires intimate knowledge of how the system works. Nobody acquires that knowledge by browsing the quick start installer docs.
- number6 4y ago
  It's already not done by Github. Invest the time and you will be on a better path.
  - Xylakant 4y ago
    I used to do OPs for a living, so I’m a bit aware of the tradeoff involved - and for me, the math doesn’t work out. We’d need three or four people with knowledge of the setup - I can’t be the only one since I want to go on vacation from time to time. Others have the same right. Sometimes people fall ill or are unavailable. We could scrape together enough folks and train them, but it’s honestly not something I want to track and invest time in. GitHub had its outages, but none that would affect us massively. If you already have internal infrastructure and a moderately competent operations team for that infrastructure, the calculus for you may be different. Blindly assuming that I’m wrong is not a sign that you’re aware of the tradeoffs.
    - Tehchops 4y ago
      Your logic is unfortunately being cast into the reason-devoid abyss of HN commenters consistently overestimating the value of the lone wolf, "competent" Linux admin. Say you don't understand opportunity cost in software development without saying it. I won't delve too deeply on the obvious: most "competent Linux sysadmins" have a very over-inflated sense of their own skill set, and tend make for toxic team members. Most software development shops are in the business of developing their particular software, not deploying and self-managing DVCS, much less hosting, monitoring etc... Sure, could one person set up a Git/GitLab system? Absolutely. Can they operationalize it effectively? Not really... the bus problem is a thing and anyone that thinks tying the entirety of a system's uptime to one individual is an operational improvement over GitHub's outage SLA is deluding themselves.
      - exdsq 4y ago
        Just joined a company that self hosts Gitlab (and everything else, there's zero cloud) but is 100% remote. So far everything has been seamless and there's a large enough infra team to solve these issues if they arise :)
        Xylakant 4y ago
        As I wrote, it's a matter of what you focus on - I've run CI systems and internal git hosts for large organizations as part of my work. There are very valid reasons to do so, but cost alone is rarely a compelling one - an on-site enterprise gitlab license is roughly as expensive as hosted github seat, and the community edition is somewhat limited. And it's definitely possible to run gitlab or any other git hosting solution on-site with little downtime. There's no magic or arcane knowledge involved. It just takes serious effort to do so - more than a single lone wolf sysadmin can provide. All their skills are worth nothing if they're sick and in hospital or on a beach holiday.
        number6 4y ago
        At some point you will need a pack of fierce sysadmins, not the lone wolf, as dangerous he might be. If you forget to scale your ops team, you gonna have problems. Guess it's a strategy thing: do I want to rely on a third party or do I want to manage my own people and processes for this. In any case I habe to assess the risks and plan ahead.

Xylakant 4y ago

Setting it up is the smallest part of any competent operation. Capacity planning, monitoring, planning for outages and recovery, updates, backups - including testing for recovery -,… is what takes the effort. Setup is almost always on the happy path. When things go wrong, you start over. But once you have a substantial investment in terms of data stored, that is unlikely to be an option. Now you need to figure out and solve the actual problem, which likely requires intimate knowledge of how the system works. Nobody acquires that knowledge by browsing the quick start installer docs.

number6 4y ago
It's already not done by Github. Invest the time and you will be on a better path.
- Xylakant 4y ago
  I used to do OPs for a living, so I’m a bit aware of the tradeoff involved - and for me, the math doesn’t work out. We’d need three or four people with knowledge of the setup - I can’t be the only one since I want to go on vacation from time to time. Others have the same right. Sometimes people fall ill or are unavailable. We could scrape together enough folks and train them, but it’s honestly not something I want to track and invest time in. GitHub had its outages, but none that would affect us massively. If you already have internal infrastructure and a moderately competent operations team for that infrastructure, the calculus for you may be different. Blindly assuming that I’m wrong is not a sign that you’re aware of the tradeoffs.
  - Tehchops 4y ago
    Your logic is unfortunately being cast into the reason-devoid abyss of HN commenters consistently overestimating the value of the lone wolf, "competent" Linux admin. Say you don't understand opportunity cost in software development without saying it. I won't delve too deeply on the obvious: most "competent Linux sysadmins" have a very over-inflated sense of their own skill set, and tend make for toxic team members. Most software development shops are in the business of developing their particular software, not deploying and self-managing DVCS, much less hosting, monitoring etc... Sure, could one person set up a Git/GitLab system? Absolutely. Can they operationalize it effectively? Not really... the bus problem is a thing and anyone that thinks tying the entirety of a system's uptime to one individual is an operational improvement over GitHub's outage SLA is deluding themselves.
    - exdsq 4y ago
      Just joined a company that self hosts Gitlab (and everything else, there's zero cloud) but is 100% remote. So far everything has been seamless and there's a large enough infra team to solve these issues if they arise :)
      - Xylakant 4y ago
        As I wrote, it's a matter of what you focus on - I've run CI systems and internal git hosts for large organizations as part of my work. There are very valid reasons to do so, but cost alone is rarely a compelling one - an on-site enterprise gitlab license is roughly as expensive as hosted github seat, and the community edition is somewhat limited. And it's definitely possible to run gitlab or any other git hosting solution on-site with little downtime. There's no magic or arcane knowledge involved. It just takes serious effort to do so - more than a single lone wolf sysadmin can provide. All their skills are worth nothing if they're sick and in hospital or on a beach holiday.
        number6 4y ago
        At some point you will need a pack of fierce sysadmins, not the lone wolf, as dangerous he might be. If you forget to scale your ops team, you gonna have problems. Guess it's a strategy thing: do I want to rely on a third party or do I want to manage my own people and processes for this. In any case I habe to assess the risks and plan ahead.