gitea/docs/content/doc/installation/database-preparation.en-us.md

date	title	slug	weight	toc	draft	menu
2020-01-16	Database Preparation	database-prep	10	true	false	[{sidebar [{parent installation} {name Database preparation} {weight 20} {identifier database-prep}]}]

You need a database to use Gitea. Gitea supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and MSSQL. This page will guide into preparing database. Only PostgreSQL and MySQL will be covered here since those database engines are widely-used in production.

Database instance can be on same machine as Gitea (local database setup), or on different machine (remote database).

Note: All steps below requires that the database engine of your choice is installed on your system. For remote database setup, install the server part on database instance and client part on your Gitea server. In addition, make sure you use same engine version for both server and client for some engine features to work. For security reason, protect root (MySQL) or postgres (PostgreSQL) database superuser with secure password. The steps assumes that you run Linux for both database and Gitea servers.

MySQL

1. On database instance, login to database console as root:

   mysql -u root -p
   

   Enter the password as prompted.

2. Create database user which will be used by Gitea, authenticated by password. This example uses 'gitea' as password. Please use a secure password for your instance.

   For local database:

   SET old_passwords=0;
   CREATE USER 'gitea' IDENTIFIED BY 'gitea';
   

   For remote database:

   SET old_passwords=0;
   CREATE USER 'gitea'@'12.34.56.78' IDENTIFIED BY 'gitea';
   

   where 12.34.56.78 is the IP address of your Gitea instance.

   Replace username and password above as appropriate.

3. Create database with UTF-8 charset and collation. Make sure to use utf8mb4 charset instead of utf8 as the former supports all Unicode characters (including emojis) beyond Basic Multilingual Plane. Also, collation chosen depending on your expected content. When in doubt, use either unicode_ci or general_ci.

   CREATE DATABASE giteadb CHARACTER SET 'utf8mb4' COLLATE 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci';
   

   Replace database name as appropriate.

4. Grant all privileges on the database to database user created above.

   For local database:

   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON giteadb.* TO 'gitea';
   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
   

   For remote database:

   GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON giteadb.* TO 'gitea'@'12.34.56.78';
   FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
   

5. Quit from database console by exit.

6. On your Gitea server, test connection to the database:

   mysql -u gitea -h 23.45.67.89 -p giteadb
   

   where gitea is database username, giteadb is database name, and 23.45.67.89 is IP address of database instance. Omit -h option for local database.

   You should be connected to the database.

PostgreSQL

1. PostgreSQL uses md5 challenge-response encryption scheme for password authentication by default. Nowadays this scheme is not considered secure anymore. Use SCRAM-SHA-256 scheme instead by editing the postgresql.conf configuration file on the database server to:

   password_encryption = scram-sha-256
   

   Restart PostgreSQL to apply the setting.

2. On the database server, login to the database console as superuser:

   su -c "psql" - postgres
   

3. Create database user (role in PostgreSQL terms) with login privilege and password. Please use a secure, strong password instead of 'gitea' below:

   CREATE ROLE gitea WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'gitea';
   

   Replace username and password as appropriate.

4. Create database with UTF-8 charset and owned by the database user created earlier. Any libc collations can be specified with LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE parameter, depending on expected content:

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

   Replace database name as appropriate.

5. Allow the database user to access the database created above by adding the following authentication rule to pg_hba.conf.

   For local database:

   local    giteadb    gitea    scram-sha-256
   

   For remote database:

   host    giteadb    gitea    12.34.56.78/32    scram-sha-256
   

   Replace database name, user, and IP address of Gitea instance with your own.

   Note: rules on pg_hba.conf are evaluated sequentially, that is the first matching rule will be used for authentication. Your PostgreSQL installation may come with generic authentication rules that match all users and databases. You may need to place the rules presented here above such generic rules if it is the case.

   Restart PostgreSQL to apply new authentication rules.

6. On your Gitea server, test connection to the database.

   For local database:

   psql -U gitea -d giteadb
   

   For remote database:

   psql "postgres://gitea@23.45.67.89/giteadb"
   

   where gitea is database user, giteadb is database name, and 23.45.67.89 is IP address of your database instance.

   You should be prompted to enter password for the database user, and connected to the database.