NiceGit

Setting Up NiceGit for your Self-Managed GitLab

NiceGit supports Self-Managed GitLab. This guide prepares your environment to work with NiceGit. Follow these steps before using NiceGit with your environment for the first time.

Self-Managed GitLab environments typically have their own domain, for example gitlab.mycompany.com or similar. Please replace <mydomain> in the instructions below with the relevent domain for your environment.

For information about NiceGit generally, please see our Technical FAQs

Prerequisites

  • You will need administrator access to your Self-Managed GitLab instance
  • Your GitLab instance should be version v12.0 or higher.
    • Your environment’s version can be found at https://<mydomain>/admin under Components -> GitLab version. v12.0 was first released in 2019 so most environments will meet this requirement.

Step 1: Access Application Settings

  1. Sign in to your GitLab instance as a user with administrator access
  2. Navigate to https://<mydomain>/admin/applications
  3. Ensure there is no existing NiceGit application listed under Instance OAuth applications

Step 2: Create a New Application

  1. Click Add new application to create a new OAuth application for NiceGit.
  2. Fill in the following details:
    • Name: NiceGit
    • Redirect URI: https://api.nicegit.com/oauth/gitlab
    • Trusted: No
    • Confidential: Yes
    • Scopes: Select api
  3. Click Save application

  4. You should see a message The application was created successfully. The screen should look like this:

    GitLab Application Created

  5. Note the value of Application ID
  6. Copy the value of Secret and keep it in a secure location. It will be needed later.
  7. Click Continue to finish creating the Application.

Step 3: Register the Application

  1. Contact the NiceGit Support Team at support@nicegit.com with the following information:
    • Your GitLab instance URL (e.g., https://gitlab.mycompany.com)
    • The Application ID from Step 2
    • Do not include the Secret from Step 2
  2. NiceGit support will arrange to securely share the Secret value and register your environment

Step 4: Test the Connection

After the NiceGit Support Team hs confirmed registration:

  1. Open the NiceGit desktop application
  2. Go to Project -> Login…
  3. Select Self-Managed GitLab
  4. Enter the domain of your GitLab environment. (e.g., https://gitlab.mycompany.com) Enter GitLab Domain
  5. Click Connect
  6. You’ll be redirected to your GitLab instance to authorize NiceGit
  7. After authorization, you should be able to access your repositories through NiceGit

Problems?

Please contact our support team with:

  • Your GitLab version
  • Your GitLab environment’s domain
  • The error message you’re seeing if applicable, and a description of the problem. If possible please include the approximate time and date at which the problem occurred.

Notes

  • The application secret should be kept confidential and only shared with the NiceGit Support team through secure channels
  • The application secret is used to verify that requests to the NiceGit API come only from your GitLab environment
  • Changing the Application ID or Secret will require reconfiguration - contact NiceGit Support if you need to regenerate these credentials.

Webhooks

When a repository is first used with NiceGit and Self Managed GitLab, a Webhook will automatically be created. This Webhook allows GitLab to notify NiceGit of changes to the repository’s contents.

No user action is required and the Webhook settings should not be modified. For reference, the settings can be seen at https://<mydomain>/<user>/<repo>/-/hooks and should look like:

Webhook Settings

If you have any questions or issues related to Webhooks, please contact NiceGit Support.