serverAppConfigs/docs/Dankclaw/Gitea.md

Gitea

Gitea is a self-hosted Git service with issues, pull requests, and a web UI. On Dankclaw it runs as three Quadlet-managed containers in the rootless podman session of user dank.

Host: Dankclaw — LAN access: http://dankclaw:3000 (or http://192.168.0.143:3000) — Public domain: gitea.franksdank.cloud (DNS pending) — Docs: https://docs.gitea.com

Containers

Container	Unit	Image	Purpose
gitea-postgres	gitea-postgres.service	docker.io/library/postgres:16-alpine	Database
gitea-server	gitea-server.service	docker.io/gitea/gitea:latest	Web UI, API, git (HTTP :3000, SSH :2222)
gitea-caddy	gitea-caddy.service	docker.io/library/caddy:latest	Reverse proxy for the public domain

The containers share the private bridge network systemd-gitea. The quadlet network file gitea.network enables DNS, so the containers resolve each other by name. The automatic podman default network has DNS disabled. Do not run the Gitea containers on it.

Hosted repositories

Repository	Purpose
dank/serverAppConfigs	this repo — Podman stack configs
dank/vllmScripts	model-serving scripts: llama.cpp FastMTP on Dankserver (:7770), vLLM on Dankclaw (:52625)

The vllmScripts knowledge base: ../vllmScripts/docs/index.md

Management

Run all commands as dank on Dankclaw.

Action	Command
Start all	systemctl --user start gitea-postgres gitea-server gitea-caddy
Stop all	systemctl --user stop gitea-caddy gitea-server gitea-postgres
Restart Gitea only	systemctl --user restart gitea-server
Status	systemctl --user status gitea-postgres gitea-server gitea-caddy
Container logs	podman logs -f gitea-server
Unit logs	journalctl --user -u gitea-server -f

The units start in dependency order:

graph LR
    N[gitea-network.service] --> P[gitea-postgres.service]
    P --> S[gitea-server.service]
    S --> C[gitea-caddy.service]

Boot persistence

User-level linger is enabled for dank (loginctl enable-linger dank). The units start at host boot without a login session. Each unit carries [Install] WantedBy=default.target. The podman generator applies it at boot; no symlink is needed.

The containers use the quadlet fresh-start model. A stop removes the container (podman run --rm --replace). The next start recreates it. The bind-mounted data survives.

Secrets

The database password lives in /opt/gitea/.env on the host (mode 0600). The quadlet files reference it with EnvironmentFile=. The password never enters this repository. Placeholders live in dankclaw/gitea/.env.example.

Do not change the password in place. Change the PostgreSQL role first, then update /opt/gitea/.env and the [database] PASSWD line in the app.ini (see Gotchas), then restart the stack.

Configuration files

File	Location	Repo copy
Quadlet units	~/.config/containers/systemd/gitea-{postgres,server,caddy}.container, gitea.network	dankclaw/gitea/quadlet/
Caddyfile	/opt/gitea/data/caddy/Caddyfile	dankclaw/gitea/Caddyfile
Secrets	/opt/gitea/.env (0600)	dankclaw/gitea/.env.example

After editing a repo copy, copy it to the target, then run systemctl --user daemon-reload and restart the affected units.

Data volumes

Container path	Host path	Contents
/data	/opt/gitea/data/gitea-gitea	Git repositories, app.ini, attachments
/var/lib/postgresql/data	/opt/gitea/data/gitea-postgres	PostgreSQL data
/etc/caddy/Caddyfile, /root/.local/share/caddy	/opt/gitea/data/caddy/...	Caddy config and TLS state

Back up /opt/gitea/data/ (tar) or pg_dump the database. See the knowledge base page Gitea Data Persistence.

Gotchas

• app.ini wins over env vars. Gitea writes /data/gitea/conf/app.ini (host: /opt/gitea/data/gitea-gitea/gitea/conf/app.ini) on first start. The [database] HOST and PASSWD lines persist and override the DATABASE_HOST/DATABASE_PASSWD env vars. When you rename the database container, edit the HOST line.
• The files in the data directory are owned by host UID 100999, not dank (rootless ID mapping: container uid 1000 → host 100999). Edit them inside the container with podman exec --user 1000 gitea-server ....
• The host auto-reboots. unattended-upgrades reboots Dankclaw when a package needs it. The quadlet units make Gitea survive that. See the 2026-08-16 incident below.
• Port 3000 vs 3001. The live host port is 3000. The full-stack dankclaw/compose.yaml maps 3001. Align the two before deploying the full stack.
• Legacy compose retired. /opt/gitea/podman-compose.yml is retired to /opt/gitea/.deprecated/. Do not run it; its containers would collide with the quadlet units on ports 3000, 2222, 80, and 443.
• Rootless cannot bind ports below 1024 by default. gitea-caddy publishes 80 and 443. Without a host sysctl, rootlessport fails with permission denied and the unit crash-loops under Restart=always. The fix is a one-time sysctl: net.ipv4.ip_unprivileged_port_start=80, persisted in /etc/sysctl.d/99-rootless-ports.conf. Applied 2026-08-18 after a 13,000-restart crash loop.

Incident: 2026-08-16 — down after unattended reboot

unattended-upgrades rebooted Dankclaw at 15:01 on 2026-08-16. The Gitea containers ran through podman-compose with restart: unless-stopped and no systemd units. Rootless podman does not auto-start containers at boot without units. Gitea stayed down until a manual start at 16:02. The fix: migrate the stack to quadlet units with linger (this page). After the fix, verify on the next reboot.

See Also

• Dankclaw Stack
• Postgres
• Knowledge base: Gitea (tools), Gitea Management, Gitea Data Persistence, Docker and Podman