GitLab CI/CD

Stop Deploying by Hand — Let Every Push Build, Test & Ship Itself

You can write code, containerize it, and run it on Linux. But are you still deploying by hand — SSHing in, pulling, restarting, hoping? This course replaces that ritual with a pipeline. You’ll run your own GitLab in a Docker container and wire up real CI/CD, so every git push automatically builds, tests, and deploys your app — the way professional teams actually ship.

The focus is the part that matters most day to day: GitLab CI/CD driven by the shell executor. By the end you’ll have a self-hosted GitLab, a registered runner, and a full build → test → deploy pipeline that launches a live container on every push — with production gated behind a deliberate, protected click.

What You’ll Learn

• Self-host GitLab in a single Docker container — repo, pipelines, and registry in one
• Push real code to your own instance and understand what CI/CD actually means
• Register a GitLab Runner with the shell executor and read the pipelines it runs
• Structure pipelines with stages, jobs, needs:, and before/after_script
• Pass build output downstream with artifacts, and speed runs up with caching
• Inject CI/CD variables and keep secrets safe with masked, protected values
• Control exactly when jobs run with rules: and branch conditions
• Deploy a real Docker container straight from a job, on every push to main
• Gate production behind a manual click, protected branches, and protected secrets
• Keep your shell runner secure — least privilege, runner tags, and cleanup

How You’ll Learn

Every lesson is built around running the real thing yourself:

• Grow one self-hosted GitLab + pipeline on your own machine, lesson by lesson
• Write real .gitlab-ci.yml and watch GitLab run it on each push
• Lock in each concept with a quick quiz
• Finish by shipping a real app through a complete build → test → deploy pipeline you own

You won’t just read about CI/CD — you’ll build pipelines, break them, fix them, and ship.

Where This Fits Your Journey

This is the automation capstone of the BytExplorer DevOps path: own Linux → version with Git → containerize with Docker → serve & secure with Nginx → monitor with Prometheus → automate it all with GitLab CI/CD.

Recommended first: Git Essentials (pipelines are triggered by your pushes) and Practical Docker on Linux (GitLab runs as a container and your pipelines deploy containers), with Linux Essentials for terminal comfort.

After this course you’ll never deploy by hand again. You’ll push code and watch a pipeline you built take it the rest of the way — automatically, repeatably, every single time.

Ready to automate the boring part? Let’s build your first pipeline.