GitLab Pages
Note: This feature was introduced in GitLab EE 8.3. Custom CNAMEs with TLS support were introduced in GitLab EE 8.5.
Note: This document is about the user guide. To learn how to enable GitLab Pages across your GitLab instance, visit the administrator documentation.
With GitLab Pages you can host for free your static websites on GitLab. Combined with the power of GitLab CI and the help of GitLab Runner you can deploy static pages for your individual projects, your user or your group.
The key thing about GitLab Pages is the .gitlab-ci.yml
file, something that gives you absolute control over the build process. You can
actually watch your website being built live by following the CI build traces.
GitLab Pages support any kind of static site generator.
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Getting started with GitLab Pages
Note: In the rest of this document we will assume that the general domain name that is used for GitLab Pages is
example.io
.
GitLab Pages rely heavily on GitLab CI and its ability to upload artifacts.
In general there are two types of pages one might create:
- Pages per user/group (
username.example.io
) - Pages per project (
username.example.io/projectname
)
In GitLab, usernames and groupnames are unique and often people refer to them as namespaces. There can be only one namespace in a GitLab instance.
Type of GitLab Pages | Project name | Website served under |
---|---|---|
User pages | username.example.io |
http(s)://username.example.io |
Group pages | groupname.example.io |
http(s)://groupname.example.io |
Project pages owned by a user | projectname |
http(s)://username.example.io/projectname |
Project pages owned by a group | projectname |
http(s)://groupname.example.io/projectname |
Warning: There are some known limitations regarding namespaces served under the general domain name and HTTPS. Make sure to read that section.
GitLab Pages requirements
In brief, this is what you need to upload your website in GitLab Pages:
- Find out the general domain name that is used for GitLab Pages (ask your administrator). This is very important, so you should first make sure you get that right.
- Create a project
- Provide a specific job named
pages
in.gitlab-ci.yml
- A GitLab Runner to build GitLab Pages
Note: If shared runners are enabled by your GitLab administrator, you should be able to use them instead of bringing your own.
User or group Pages
Head over your GitLab instance that supports GitLab Pages and create a
repository named username.example.io
, where username
is your username on
GitLab. If the first part of the project name doesn't match exactly your
username, it won’t work, so make sure to get it right.
To create a group page, the steps are the same like when creating a website for users. Just make sure that you are creating the project within the group's namespace.
After you push some static content to your repository and GitLab Runner uploads
the artifacts to GitLab CI, you will be able to access your website under
http(s)://username.example.io
. Keep reading to find out how.
Project Pages
Note: You do not have to create a project named
username.example.io
in order to serve a project's page.
Explore the contents of .gitlab-ci.yml
Note: Before reading this section, make sure you familiarize yourself with GitLab CI and the specific syntax of
.gitlab-ci.yml
by following our quick start guide.
To make use of GitLab Pages, your .gitlab-ci.yml
must follow the rules below:
- A special
pages
job must be defined - Any static content must be placed under a
public/
directory artifacts
with a path to thepublic/
directory must be defined
Be aware that Pages are by default branch/tag agnostic and their deployment
relies solely on what you specify in .gitlab-ci.yml
. If you don't limit the
pages
job with the only
parameter,
whenever a new commit is pushed to whatever branch or tag, the Pages will be
overwritten. In the examples below, we limit the Pages to be deployed whenever
a commit is pushed only on the master
branch, which is advisable to do so.
The pages are created after the build completes successfully and the artifacts
for the pages
job are uploaded to GitLab.
The example below uses Jekyll and generates the created HTML files
under the public/
directory.
image: ruby:2.1
pages:
script:
- gem install jekyll
- jekyll build -d public/
artifacts:
paths:
- public
only:
- master
The example below doesn't use any static site generator, but simply moves all
files from the root of the project to the public/
directory. The .public
workaround is so cp
doesn't also copy public/
to itself in an infinite
loop.
pages:
stage: deploy
script:
- mkdir .public
- cp -r * .public
- mv .public public
artifacts:
paths:
- public
only:
- master
Remove the contents of your pages
Pages can be explicitly removed from a project by clicking Remove Pages in your project's Settings > Pages.
Next steps
Adding a custom domain to your Pages website
Securing your custom domain website with TLS
Example projects
Below is a list of example projects for GitLab Pages with a plain HTML website or various static site generators. Contributions are very welcome.
Custom error codes pages
You can provide your own 403 and 404 error pages by creating the 403.html
and
404.html
files respectively in the public/
directory that will be included
in the artifacts.
Remove the contents of your pages
If you ever feel the need to purge your Pages content, you can do so by going to your project's Settings > Pages and hit Remove pages. Simple as that.
Limitations
When using Pages under the general domain of a GitLab instance (*.example.io
),
you cannot use HTTPS with sub-subdomains. That means that if your
username/groupname contains a dot, for example foo.bar
, the domain
https://foo.bar.example.io
will not work. This is a limitation of the
HTTP Over TLS protocol. HTTP pages will continue to work provided you
don't redirect HTTP to HTTPS.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I download my generated pages?
Sure. All you need to do is download the artifacts archive from the build page.
Q: Can I use GitLab Pages if my project is private?
Yes. GitLab Pages doesn't care whether you set your project's visibility level to private, internal or public.