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The cloud is someone else’s computer. I wonder if self hosting is more reliable. How much does a private and firewalled git* instance need updates?

by j45 1y ago

taude 1y ago
Before gitlabs, github, etc. it was common to host your own code repos on-prem. The thing now, though, is that there's a lot of add-on functionality for how teams flow from using github over just hosting a git server.... so it's not really apples v oranges, anymore.
- john01dav 1y ago
  You can use a self hosted forge, like gitea, forejo, or gitlab.
- marcosdumay 1y ago
  > The thing now, though, is that there's a lot of add-on functionality I don't get why people use those. I understand free software projects that don't want to run any infrastructure, but why companies push their building and deployment out of premises when all you need is one trusted computer somewhere. Why do people insist on trusting cloud computers more than the ones they can kick?
- j45 1y ago
  Gitlab can handle a lot of CI/CD hosted locally for free that github actually charges for. Git was originally local only too. People would run their own source code repos, it was trivial to run and maintain for the most part for most basic to intermediate use cases. I had clients who insisted source code (mine or theirs) couldn't be on a public cloud provider. It's not that unreasonable or uncommon.
john01dav 1y ago
I have gitea running in my basement. You can see how often it updates on the gitea github (since they don't self host since they haven't written an importer yet). You could automate this, but I haven't spent enough time updating to make that make sense.
numbsafari 1y ago
If you just need a hosted git server, maintenance is mostly just making sure you have a proper storage/backup strategy in place. If you want to self-host a code forge... start here: https://forgejo.org/docs/latest/admin/upgrade https://forgejo.org/docs/latest/admin/upgrade
homebrewer 1y ago
Our gitea uptimes are measured in months. The only downtime is during non-working hours for upgrading gitea & the underlying OS, which take about 5 seconds of work and another 15 seconds of waiting for it to upgrade the database and restart.
- j45 1y ago
  That's great to hear, taking this downtime to install them all and try them out. At the very least a few backups and mirrors running once I get them syncing.
tracker1 1y ago
If you don't need any features beyond a backup location for git, all you need is an SSH server with FS support. All you need is git on the remote server to initialize a server directory, and you can target that with git+ssh directly. Works well enough as a backup/mirror repository. If you want to self-host for more features (CI/CD, PRs, etc.) there's GitLab, Gitea, and forgejo that I'm aware of. I think GitLab is a bit heavy duty for most self-hosting usage myself though. I actually appreciate the online/cloud and commercial options. When you self-host, it becomes your job to fix it when it breaks.
- j45 1y ago
  Yup, as you mentioned, there's other alternatives to Gitlab lcaolly that are decent. I'm finding myself liking and using gitlab more and more when I come back to it every 6-8 months. I don't know how I'd be able to trust only a cloud for my source code and devops/CI/CD. At least a mirrored setup in a private or hybrid cloud on another provider as a failover that isn't with the same cloud provider.

The cloud is someone else’s computer. I wonder if self hosting is more reliable. How much does a private and firewalled git* instance need updates?

by j45 1y ago

The cloud is someone else’s computer. I wonder if self hosting is more reliable. How much does a private and firewalled git* instance need updates?

taude 1y ago

Before gitlabs, github, etc. it was common to host your own code repos on-prem. The thing now, though, is that there's a lot of add-on functionality for how teams flow from using github over just hosting a git server.... so it's not really apples v oranges, anymore.

john01dav 1y ago
You can use a self hosted forge, like gitea, forejo, or gitlab.
marcosdumay 1y ago
> The thing now, though, is that there's a lot of add-on functionality I don't get why people use those. I understand free software projects that don't want to run any infrastructure, but why companies push their building and deployment out of premises when all you need is one trusted computer somewhere. Why do people insist on trusting cloud computers more than the ones they can kick?
j45 1y ago
Gitlab can handle a lot of CI/CD hosted locally for free that github actually charges for. Git was originally local only too. People would run their own source code repos, it was trivial to run and maintain for the most part for most basic to intermediate use cases. I had clients who insisted source code (mine or theirs) couldn't be on a public cloud provider. It's not that unreasonable or uncommon.

john01dav 1y ago

I have gitea running in my basement. You can see how often it updates on the gitea github (since they don't self host since they haven't written an importer yet). You could automate this, but I haven't spent enough time updating to make that make sense.

numbsafari 1y ago

If you just need a hosted git server, maintenance is mostly just making sure you have a proper storage/backup strategy in place. If you want to self-host a code forge... start here: https://forgejo.org/docs/latest/admin/upgrade https://forgejo.org/docs/latest/admin/upgrade

homebrewer 1y ago

Our gitea uptimes are measured in months. The only downtime is during non-working hours for upgrading gitea & the underlying OS, which take about 5 seconds of work and another 15 seconds of waiting for it to upgrade the database and restart.

j45 1y ago
That's great to hear, taking this downtime to install them all and try them out. At the very least a few backups and mirrors running once I get them syncing.

tracker1 1y ago

If you don't need any features beyond a backup location for git, all you need is an SSH server with FS support. All you need is git on the remote server to initialize a server directory, and you can target that with git+ssh directly. Works well enough as a backup/mirror repository. If you want to self-host for more features (CI/CD, PRs, etc.) there's GitLab, Gitea, and forgejo that I'm aware of. I think GitLab is a bit heavy duty for most self-hosting usage myself though. I actually appreciate the online/cloud and commercial options. When you self-host, it becomes your job to fix it when it breaks.

j45 1y ago
Yup, as you mentioned, there's other alternatives to Gitlab lcaolly that are decent. I'm finding myself liking and using gitlab more and more when I come back to it every 6-8 months. I don't know how I'd be able to trust only a cloud for my source code and devops/CI/CD. At least a mirrored setup in a private or hybrid cloud on another provider as a failover that isn't with the same cloud provider.