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Setup Gitea on Debian

I just recently setup a new Gitea server for myself, and I would like to share with y'all on how to do the same

This was done on a fresh Debian 12 cheapo VPS on Linode, so this guide will pretty much apply to any Debian (and likely Ubuntu) system that is more-or-less a stock installation

I did this using a third-party repository for Gitea that was linked from the official site, as I don't care for Docker personally, and with a PostgreSQL database as opposed to something like SQLite, as that's the database I prefer to use when I have to use one (I'm not a big database person either)

Caddy will be used for the webserver as well, as it handles automatic TLS certificate acquisition, and is easy to setup

For clarity's sake, any command that starts with a # has to be run either as root or with sudo, and any command that starts with $ can be run as a normal user (neither # nor $ are part of the actual command itself)

We'll also assume nano will be used for editing files, but you can use whatever text editor you prefer

We're also going to assume you already have a domain name pointed at the server you are doing this on (we'll use git.example.net as a placeholder)

Overview

1. Adding a repo for installing Gitea
2. Install Gitea, PostgreSQL, and Caddy
3. Configure PostgreSQL
4. Configure Caddy
5. Setup Gitea

Adding a Repo for Installing Gitea

First thing we're gonna need to do, since we're not using something like Docker, or just using the standalone binary, is add the third-party repo for Gitea

First up, we'll download the GPG key for the repo

# curl -sL -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/morph027-gitea.asc https://packaging.gitlab.io/gitea/gpg.key

Then, we'll add the repo by creating/editing the .source file that will contain the repo's information in deb822 format

# nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/morph027-gitea.sources

Types:          deb
URIs:           https://packaging.gitlab.io/gitea
Suites:         gitea
Components:     main
Signed-By:      /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/morph027-gitea.asc
Enabled:        yes

Now we'll update apt so it can refresh it's list of known packages

# apt update

Install Gitea, PostgreSQL, and Caddy

Now for the easiest part, we'll install Gitea, our PostgreSQL database, and our Caddy webserver

# apt install gitea postgresql caddy

Configure PostgreSQL

Now for configuring PostgreSQL

First we're gonna edit PostgreSQL's config file

# nano /etc/postgresql/15/main/postgresql.conf

and go to line 96, and uncomment

#password_encryption = scram-sha-256     # scram-sha-256 or md5

Next, we're gonna edit

# nano /etc/postgresql/15/main/pg_hba.conf

and add at the bottom of the file

local gitea gitea scram-sha-256

Now, we'll restart PostgreSQL

# sytemctl restart postgresql

Now, to actually setup and configure the database

First, we'll need to run psql as the postgres user

$ sudo -u postgres psql

Now, we need to create the "role" (user) that PostgreSQL will use for interfacing with the database, replacing password with the password you want to assign it

CREATE ROLE gitea WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'password'

Next, the database

CREATE DATABASE gitea WITH OWNER gitea TEMPLATE template0 ENCODING UTF8 LC_COLLATE 'en_US.UTF-8' LC_CTYPE 'en_US.UTF-8';

Now exit psql

exit

Configure Caddy

We're gonna edit the main Caddyfile and configure it to simply reverse proxy traffic to our new Gitea server

# nano /etc/caddy/Caddyfile

Comment out/delete the contents of the file and put in

git.example.net {
	reverse_proxy	localhost:3000
}

And now we'll restart Caddy

# systemctl restart caddy

Setup Gitea