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Problem

On the GitLab sign-in page there are links to 'Explore' public repositories and also a 'Help' link.  Although GitLab will only list public repositories (i.e. repositories you mark as public) - it may be desirable to disable these links for anonymous users.

Workaround

Although we can't disable these links, we can redirect them back to the sign-in page for anonymous users.

To do so, we'll need to modify a file and then run reconfigure on GitLab.

First, let's backup and then edit the configuration file

cd /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-rails/app/controllers/
sudo cp application_controller.rb application_controller.rb.orig
sudo nano application_controller.rb

We'll need to add the following code snippets to application_controller.rb

...
 before_action :force_authenticated_user!
...
def force_authenticated_user!(*args)
	if (!current_user) and (["/explore", "/help"].include?(request.path))
		redirect_to new_user_session_path and return
	end
end
...

References