Install on Kubernetes

Deploy Gitea Enterprise to Kubernetes using the upstream Helm chart and container image.

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes 1.24+ cluster with persistent storage and ingress support.

• Recommended hardware sized for your expected user base:

  Team size (approx.)	Memory	CPU cores	SSD capacity
  ~10 users	2-4 GB	2-4 cores	50-100 GB
  ~100 users	4-8 GB	4-8 cores	200-500 GB
  ~1000 users	16-32 GB	8-16 cores	2-5 TB

• kubectl configured for the target cluster.

• Helm 3 installed locally.

• Access to a container registry that can pull the commitgo/gitea-ee image if your cluster requires mirroring.

• Git is bundled inside the Enterprise container image so no extra package install is necessary on the nodes.

• (Optional) An Enterprise license to enable premium features. Use License Activation to request a trial and upload the license after deployment.

1. Add the Gitea chart repository

helm repo add gitea https://dl.gitea.io/charts/
helm repo update

The chart documented at gitea/charts supports Enterprise deployments out of the box.

2. Prepare a namespace and secrets

kubectl create namespace gitea
kubectl -n gitea create secret generic gitea-admin \
  --from-literal=username=admin \
  --from-literal=password='replace-with-strong-password'

3. Create a values file

Save the configuration below as values-enterprise.yaml and adjust domains, storage classes, and database settings for your environment:

image:
  repository: commitgo/gitea-ee
  tag: 24.6.0
  pullPolicy: IfNotPresent

service:
  http:
    type: ClusterIP
  ssh:
    type: ClusterIP

ingress:
  enabled: true
  className: nginx
  hosts:
    - host: gitea.example.com
      paths:
        - path: /
          pathType: Prefix
  tls:
    - secretName: gitea-tls
      hosts:
        - gitea.example.com

gitea:
  admin:
    existingSecret: gitea-admin
  config:
    server:
      DOMAIN: gitea.example.com
      ROOT_URL: https://gitea.example.com/
      SSH_PORT: 3022
    database:
      DB_TYPE: postgres
      HOST: gitea-postgresql.gitea.svc.cluster.local:5432
      NAME: gitea
      USER: gitea
      PASSWD: gitea

persistence:
  size: 20Gi
  storageClass: standard

• Update tag to the Enterprise release you plan to deploy.
• Upload the Enterprise license manually after deployment (see License Activation).
• Swap the database section for MySQL or PostgreSQL according to the chart reference.

MySQL override

If your cluster provides MySQL or MariaDB, replace the gitea.config.database section:

gitea:
  config:
    database:
      DB_TYPE: mysql
      HOST: mysql.internal:3306
      NAME: gitea
      USER: gitea
      PASSWD: gitea-secret
      SSL_MODE: disable

Add CA certificates or MySQL client configuration via additionalConfigSources when TLS or custom SSL modes are required.

4. Install the release

helm upgrade --install gitea gitea/gitea \
  --namespace gitea \
  -f values-enterprise.yaml

Verify that the pods are running and the ingress is reachable:

kubectl -n gitea get pods
kubectl -n gitea get ingress

5. Post-installation tasks

• Sign in to https://gitea.example.com/ with the admin credentials stored in gitea-admin.
• Complete License Activation.
• Configure object storage, SMTP, and other integrations using the upstream Helm values.
• Review the upstream Configuration Cheat Sheet for the full list of app.ini options and apply them via Helm values or additionalConfigSources.

6. Upgrades and maintenance

• Update the image.tag in your values file to the newer Enterprise version, then rerun the helm upgrade command.
• Back up the persistent volume and database before applying upgrades.
• Use helm diff upgrade (with the diff plugin) to preview manifest changes in CI/CD pipelines.
• Monitor the pods with kubectl logs and standard Kubernetes observability tooling.
• Plan high availability by scaling Redis, object storage, and load balancing components according to your Kubernetes topology and recovery objectives.

Gitea Enterprise follows the same chart structure across releases, so existing GitOps workflows only need the image override to adopt Enterprise features.