Overview

I'm a huge fan of GitLab. It has solid tech, is run by a great company, and has tons of features in its free tier. I use it as my primary code repo service.

However, GitHub is still the default player in the space and other tools I use - namely DigitalOcean's App Platform - only integrate with GitHub right now. This means that I need a way to mirror my code from GitLab repositories to GitHub repositories in an efficient manner.

In this post I'll share how I've set this up.

Mirroring a GitLab repo with GitHub

The solution I chose was to just mirror my GitLab repo with a GitHub repo. I like this because there's really no abstraction - it's essentially the same exact repo, just hosted on another service. This means I can interact with it in all the same ways meaning I have a veritable backup and a close secondary if I ever decide to switch between the two.

GitLab offers the ability to push mirror from GitLab to GitHub in its free tier. Here are the steps we'll take to set this up:

• Setup GitHub repo to sync with
• Create GitHub personal access token
• Setup GitLab code mirroring

Setup GitHub repo to sync with

The first thing we need to do is setup a GitHub repo that we can sync our code with. I'm going to assume that you've already setup a GitLab repo - which is why you wanted to sync in the first place.

• Go to GitHub profile
• Click the 'plus' icon and select New Repository
• Fill out the repo creation flow

Personally I like to name the repo the same thing as it's named on GitLab. This makes organization easier for me but if you want to name it something else - that's your prerogative.

Create GitHub personal access token

Next we'll create a PAT (personal access token) which is basically a private key / password. This will allow GitLab to authenticate with GitHub so it can sync the repository.

• Click on your profile button
• Select Settings
• Select Developer Settings
• Select Personal access tokens
• Select Generate new token
• Fill in Note with a repo identifier
  • You'll likely want to create a new PAT for each repo so I think it'd be good to use a repo identifier here so you can more granularly add and revoke access as necessary.
• Select Scopes for your repo
  • If you're syncing a public repo, you can just select public_repo under the repo section
  • If you're syncing a private repo, you'll need to select the entire repo section
• Select Generate token
• Copy / take note of your new token
  • Note: Don't leave this page! You won't be able to see the token again if you navigate away and we'll need to give this to GitLab so they can access our repo!

Setup GitLab code mirroring

Okay now we have a GitHub repo to sync with and we've generated a PAT token so that GitLab can authenticate with GitLab. All that's left is to setup code mirroring.

We'll do this from within the repository we'd like to mirror:

• Navigate to the GitLab repository you'd like to mirror
• Select Settings > Repository
• Find and expand the Mirroring repositories section
• Input the Git repository URL
  • It's in the form of https://<GITHUB_USERNAME>@github.com/<GITHUB_GROUP>/<REPO_NAME>.git
  • So let's say I have a repo for my GitHub user SIRHAMY called example-repo. I would input https://SIRHAMY@github.com/SIRHAMY/example-repo.git. You can test your link out by navigating to it in a browser. If it resolves to your desired repo that's a good sign.
• Set Authentication Method to Password
• Fill in Password with the PAT token you created in the last step
• Click Mirror repository

You should now see an entry in the Mirrored repositories list with your mirror settings. Click on the circle icon to force a push. Refresh the page to see if it worked. If not, it'll have an error message that you can click into to get more info. If it did, you should see Last successful update filled in.

Happy mirroring!

-HAMY.OUT

References

• Creating a personal access token - GitHub
• Setting up a push mirror from GitLab to GitHub