GitLab CLI (glab) - Automated Installer

This repository contains an automated installation script for GitLab CLI (glab) with dependency management and post-installation verification.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Updates
• Troubleshooting

Installation

Automated Installation with Script

# Make the script executable
chmod +x install-glab.sh

# Install the latest version
./install-glab.sh

# Install a specific version
./install-glab.sh 1.61.0

Script Features

• Auto-detection of the latest available version
• Version checking of currently installed version
• Automatic installation of missing dependencies
• Clean installation with automatic cleanup of temporary files
• Robust JSON parsing with jq for GitLab API
• Post-installation verification of proper functionality
• Robust error handling with colored messages

Prerequisites

The script automatically manages the installation of the following dependencies:

Required Dependencies

• wget - For downloading packages
• dpkg - For installing .deb packages
• jq - For parsing JSON responses from GitLab API
• git - Required for all Git functionality in glab
• ssh - For SSH authentication with GitLab
• gpg - For signature verification (recommended for security)

Note: If any dependencies are missing, the script will automatically install them via apt-get. Administrator privileges required.

First Use

After installation, start by authenticating:

# Authentication with GitLab.com
glab auth login

# Or with a custom GitLab instance
glab auth login --hostname gitlab.example.com

The script automatically verifies that glab works correctly after installation.

Usage

For detailed usage instructions and command reference, please refer to the official glab documentation.

Updates

# Update to the latest version
./install-glab.sh

# Install a specific version
./install-glab.sh 1.62.0

# Display help to see all options
./install-glab.sh --help

The script automatically checks currently installed version, missing dependencies, and proper functionality after update.

Uninstallation

To completely remove glab from your system:

# Uninstall glab
./install-glab.sh --uninstall

The uninstallation process will:

1. Remove the glab package from your system
2. Optionally delete configuration files (~/.config/glab-cli/)

Note: You will be prompted whether to keep or delete your configuration files during uninstallation.

Troubleshooting

Issue: "none of the git remotes configured"

Error:

ERROR: none of the git remotes configured for this repository point to a known GitLab host.

Solution:

1. Check your remotes: git remote -v
2. Ensure the remote domain matches your glab configuration
3. Use glab auth login --hostname your-gitlab-domain.com to configure the correct host

Issue: "tls: first record does not look like a TLS handshake"

Cause: The configured port does not respond with HTTPS/TLS.

Solution:

1. Verify the correct domain for the web API
2. Test connectivity: curl -I https://your-gitlab-domain.com
3. Use the correct domain in glab auth login

Issue: "i/o timeout"

Cause: Network connectivity issue or closed port.

Solution:

1. Check your network connection
2. Test connectivity with curl
3. Check corporate firewalls/proxies

Configuration Verification

# View current configuration
glab config get

# View configured hosts
cat ~/.config/glab-cli/config.yml

# Test connection
glab api projects

Dependency Verification

If you encounter issues, verify that all dependencies are installed:

# Check for essential tools
command -v wget && echo "[OK] wget installed" || echo "[MISSING] wget missing"
command -v git && echo "[OK] git installed" || echo "[MISSING] git missing"
command -v ssh && echo "[OK] ssh installed" || echo "[MISSING] ssh missing"
command -v jq && echo "[OK] jq installed" || echo "[MISSING] jq missing"
command -v gpg && echo "[OK] gpg installed" || echo "[MISSING] gpg missing"

# Re-run the script to install missing dependencies
./install-glab.sh --help  # Shows help and dependency list

Important Notes

• Automatic Installation: The script automatically installs all necessary dependencies
• Personal Tokens: Keep your tokens secure and never commit them
• Permissions: Ensure your tokens have api and write_repository scopes
• Administrator Privileges: Required for automatic dependency installation
• Enterprise Environments: Configurations may vary based on your infrastructure
• Backup: Always backup your configuration before making changes
• Post-installation Verification: The script automatically tests glab functionality

Additional Resources

• Official glab Documentation
• GitLab Personal Access Tokens
• GitLab API Documentation

Contributing

If you encounter issues specific to your environment or have improvements to suggest for the script, feel free to contribute!

---