Apache & Nginx on same Server leads to conflict with gitlab

Question

I tried to install Gitlab on my webserver. I configured everything appropriately. This is a scheme of what I am trying to achieve:

• example.com:80 (default host)
  • vhost1.example.com:80 (a virtual host)
• example.com:8080 (gitlab)

So what happens is this: I can open example.com and vhost1.example.com normally. If gitlab-ctl is stopped, I get a "Website not available"-error if I try to open example.com:8080 (as expected). When I start gitlab and try to open example.com:8080 again, it shows me the gitlab-error "502 Error GitLab is taking too much time to respond", but only the first time I load this page, as soon as I refresh or try it again in a new tab, it redirects my request always to example.com, although I request the page with ":8080" at the end.

I have access to gitlab with http://x.x.x.x:8080. This works but I'm forced to configure http://example.com:8080

System:

• Debian Wheezy
• Apache/2.2.22
• gitlab-ce_8.4.1-ce (includes nginx)

Here are my configuration files:

/etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin mail@example.com
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias www.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error_example.com.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
    <Directory /var/www/example.com>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
            AllowOverride All
            Order allow,deny
            Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

/etc/apache2/sites-available/vhost1.example.com

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin mail@example.com
    ServerName vhost1.example.com
    ServerAlias www.vhost1.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/vhost1.example.com
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error_vhost1.example.com.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
            <Directory /var/www/vhost1.example.com>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
            AllowOverride All
            Order allow,deny
            Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

/etc/apache2/ports.conf (only changes)

NameVirtualHost *:80
Listen x.x.x.x:80

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    Listen x.x.x.x:443
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_gnutls.c>
    Listen x.x.x.x:443
</IfModule>

/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb (only changes)

external_url 'http://example.com:8080'
unicorn['port'] = 8081
nginx['listen_addresses'] = ["x.x.x.x"]
nginx['listen_port'] = 8080

netstat -napl | grep :80

tcp        0      0 x.x.x.x:8080     0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      19037/nginx     
tcp        0      0 x.x.x.x:80       0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      18280/apache2   
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:8081   0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      19110/config.ru 

I would really appreciate every hint. If you need further information just ask.

Answer 1

After some tinkering I found a solution that worked for me. If someone has the same problem here you go:

Apache was configured correctly, so the configuration stays as is.

/etc/apache2/sites-available/example.com

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin mail@example.com
    ServerName example.com
    ServerAlias www.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/example.com
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error_example.com.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
    <Directory /var/www/example.com>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
            AllowOverride All
            Order allow,deny
            Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

/etc/apache2/sites-available/vhost1.example.com

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin mail@example.com
    ServerName vhost1.example.com
    ServerAlias www.vhost1.example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/vhost1.example.com
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error_vhost1.example.com.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
            <Directory /var/www/vhost1.example.com>
            Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
            AllowOverride All
            Order allow,deny
            Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

/etc/apache2/ports.conf (only changes)

NameVirtualHost *:80
Listen x.x.x.x:80

<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    Listen x.x.x.x:443
</IfModule>

<IfModule mod_gnutls.c>
    Listen x.x.x.x:443
</IfModule>

The problem existed because of the gitlab.rb configuration. The solution is not to change too much. Only these two lines are needed for gitlab to work:

/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb (only changes)

external_url 'http://git.example.com:8080'
unicorn['port'] = 8081

If you're not planning to run Gitlab on Port 8080, you don't have to assign a new port for unicorn. Do not forget to run 'gitlab-ctl reconfigure' after the changes.