Would GitLab work as a university-wide source-code control (low overhead to manage repos)

[Fuhrmanator]

Hi,

I asked my question on stackoverflow (http://bit.ly/zEEuvx) and now
I'm here to get more details about GitLab.

We're searching for a university-wide resource for source code
control, available to potentially all the programming and/or research
activities (courses, research projects, etc.). We have thousands of
students and the time span of their projects can be weeks, semesters,
or years.

Here are some of the peculiarities of our needs:

1. There are a large number of new repositories created/managed each
semester. Any programming course or research project could require
students to use source code control, in various source code
environments (including .NET, Java, C++, LaTeX).
2. Students should be able to create and manage themselves the
repositories. Involving an administrator/instructor/etc. is not
scalable otherwise.
3. Repository storage should be secure (private), and archivable for
respecting intellectual property (preventing plagiarism, protecting
research IP).
4. Any or all of the flavors of source code control (e.g., CVS/SVN/
GIT) would be acceptable.
5. Remote access to repositories is essential. Student/researchers
have freedom to work either in designated lab spaces or remotely.
Marking of assignments can be done by instructors who've "checked out"
the code anywhere.
6. Must have license that scales for >500 students.

Would GitLab be an option? If so, is there some kind of guide to set
it up this way?

[Fuhrmanator]

I'll re-ask my question, to be more specific. I'm interested in a tool that has low overhead on the admin side, since we're talking lots of students, projects, repos, but probably not huge amounts of code, bug tracking, etc. 

1. Assuming GitLab runs on an intranet (accessed via VPN), does it support users auto-creating (registering) to make their own accounts? (The goal is little intervention from sysadmins)
2. Once users have accounts on GitLab, can they easily self-administer (create/share/etc) repos? (the same goal of little intervention from sysadmins)

Thanks! 

[Troy Murray]

I'm looking to use GitLab for a similar reason on my campus, but more to facilitate code-sharing.  Here are my answers to your questions.

1.) The development environment used doesn't matter, as long as they have a way to interact with Git, either using the command-line, a GUI application or that ability built into their development environment (for example Eclipse has a free eGit plugin that adds this, I think the latest version of Xcode does as well).

2.) Once you create a student as a user, you can set them as having rights to create x many repositories on their own without administration interaction.  However, someone does have to create the student account initially.

3.) All of the repositories that are created are private, GitLab currently doesn't provide a "public" repository feature like GitHub does.  By it's very nature, source control is storing versions and doesn't (at least not very easily) allow the person to re-write any history.  On the server side a repo is really just a directory of files so it's easy to be written to tape for archival purposes.

4.) GitLab only supports Git.  However, the Git tool does have a Subversion bridge so that someone could use Subversion but the code is actually stored in Git.  I've only used this to convert my Subversion (SVN) repos to Git because I didn't want to lose the commit log.  To my knowledge, GitLab doesn't provide support for any other source control technology.

5.) The system is as "remote" as you need it.  If your University can give the server an IP address that's available from anywhere in the world, then your server is available remotely from anywhere.  GitLab doesn't put any restrictions on this, it would be a networking issue with your University if it were a problem.  There shouldn't be a problem with the scenario you describe.

6.) The license for GitLab isn't restricted, use as many users as you want and grow the repositories as large as you want, you're really restricted by server capacity (disk space)

7.) No there is not currently a way to auto-enroll the student in GitLab, someone would have to do that.  With that said, if someone knows Ruby or Ruby on Rails it maybe very possible that they could tie it into some registration system you have that can perform REST calls and this could register the student for you.

8.) Yes, see answer #2.

--
Troy Murray

[M Gelgon]

I am having the same problem in our university. May I know if GitLab has tourned out to be an effective solution in your place ?

Thanks,

Marc

[Cris Fuhrman]

Hi - sorry I don't have any more info to help answer your question. You might want to read this other thread:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/gitolite/saDULJ0Ayzs

[Sytse Sijbrandij]

Hi Marc and Cris,

We just wrote a public signup page since we needed it for Gitlab.com.
The majority of the code is here
https://github.com/dosire/gitlabhq/pull/38/files

This will allow users to sign up themselves. It is useful for Gitlab
installations that are only accessible internally (firewall/vpn) or
ones that allow the general public to create accounts.

If you like this solution please let us know. If there is demand we
will write tests, make it configurable and send it upstream for
inclusion in the Gitlab project.

Best regards,
Sytse Sijbrandij
Gitlab.com

[Kiran Patil]

Hi Sytse,

What default role and default project is assigned to the user who signup?

If not is it possible to do it?

Thanks,
Kiran.