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---
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stage: Enablement
group: Distribution
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info: "To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments"
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description: 'Learn how to install, configure, update, and maintain your GitLab instance.'
---
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# Administrator documentation **(CORE ONLY)**
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Learn how to administer your self-managed GitLab instance.
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GitLab has two product distributions available through [different subscriptions ](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/ ):
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- The open source [GitLab Community Edition (CE) ](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss ).
- The open core [GitLab Enterprise Edition (EE) ](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab ).
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You can [install either GitLab CE or GitLab EE ](https://about.gitlab.com/install/ce-or-ee/ ).
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However, the features you have access to depend on your chosen [subscription ](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/ ).
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GitLab Community Edition installations have access only to Core features.
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Non-administrator users can't access GitLab administration tools and settings.
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GitLab.com is administered by GitLab, Inc., and only GitLab team members have
access to its administration tools and settings. Users of GitLab.com should
instead refer to the [User documentation ](../user/index.md ) for GitLab
configuration and usage documentation.
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## Installing and maintaining GitLab
Learn how to install, configure, update, and maintain your GitLab instance.
### Installing GitLab
- [Install ](../install/README.md ): Requirements, directory structures, and installation methods.
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- [Database load balancing ](database_load_balancing.md ): Distribute database queries among multiple database servers.
- [Omnibus support for log forwarding ](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/logs.html#udp-log-shipping-gitlab-enterprise-edition-only ).
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- [Reference architectures ](reference_architectures/index.md ): Add additional resources to support more users.
- [Installing GitLab on Amazon Web Services (AWS) ](../install/aws/index.md ): Set up GitLab on Amazon AWS.
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- [Geo ](geo/index.md ): Replicate your GitLab instance to other geographic locations as a read-only fully operational version.
- [Disaster Recovery ](geo/disaster_recovery/index.md ): Quickly fail-over to a different site with minimal effort in a disaster situation.
- [Add License ](../user/admin_area/license.md ): Upload a license at install time to unlock features that are in paid tiers of GitLab.
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### Configuring GitLab
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- [Adjust your instance's timezone ](timezone.md ): Customize the default time zone of GitLab.
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- [System hooks ](../system_hooks/system_hooks.md ): Notifications when users, projects and keys are changed.
- [Security ](../security/README.md ): Learn what you can do to further secure your GitLab instance.
- [Usage statistics, version check, and usage ping ](../user/admin_area/settings/usage_statistics.md ): Enable or disable information about your instance to be sent to GitLab, Inc.
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- [Global user settings ](user_settings.md ): Configure instance-wide user permissions.
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- [Polling ](polling.md ): Configure how often the GitLab UI polls for updates.
- [GitLab Pages configuration ](pages/index.md ): Enable and configure GitLab Pages.
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- [GitLab Pages configuration for GitLab source installations ](pages/source.md ):
Enable and configure GitLab Pages on [source installations ](../install/installation.md#installation-from-source ).
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- [Uploads administration ](uploads.md ): Configure GitLab uploads storage.
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- [Environment variables ](environment_variables.md ): Supported environment
variables that can be used to override their default values to configure
GitLab.
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- [Plugins ](file_hooks.md ): With custom plugins, GitLab administrators can
introduce custom integrations without modifying GitLab source code.
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- [Enforcing Terms of Service ](../user/admin_area/settings/terms.md )
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- [Third party offers ](../user/admin_area/settings/third_party_offers.md )
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- [Compliance ](compliance.md ): A collection of features from across the
application that you may configure to help ensure that your GitLab instance
and DevOps workflow meet compliance standards.
- [Diff limits ](../user/admin_area/diff_limits.md ): Configure the diff rendering
size limits of branch comparison pages.
- [Merge request diffs storage ](merge_request_diffs.md ): Configure merge
requests diffs external storage.
- [Broadcast Messages ](../user/admin_area/broadcast_messages.md ): Send messages
to GitLab users through the UI.
- [Elasticsearch ](../integration/elasticsearch.md ): Enable Elasticsearch to
empower Advanced Search. Useful when you deal with a huge amount of data.
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- [External Classification Policy Authorization ](../user/admin_area/settings/external_authorization.md ).
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- [Upload a license ](../user/admin_area/license.md ): Upload a license to unlock
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features that are in paid tiers of GitLab.
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- [Admin Area ](../user/admin_area/index.md ): for self-managed instance-wide
configuration and maintenance.
- [S/MIME Signing ](smime_signing_email.md ): how to sign all outgoing notification
emails with S/MIME.
- [Enabling and disabling features flags ](feature_flags.md ): how to enable and
disable GitLab features deployed behind feature flags.
#### Customizing GitLab appearance
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- [Header logo ](../user/admin_area/appearance.md#navigation-bar ): Change the logo on all pages and email headers.
- [Favicon ](../user/admin_area/appearance.md#favicon ): Change the default favicon to your own logo.
- [Branded login page ](../user/admin_area/appearance.md#sign-in--sign-up-pages ): Customize the login page with your own logo, title, and description.
- ["New Project" page ](../user/admin_area/appearance.md#new-project-pages ): Customize the text to be displayed on the page that opens whenever your users create a new project.
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- [Additional custom email text ](../user/admin_area/settings/email.md#custom-additional-text ): Add additional custom text to emails sent from GitLab.
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### Maintaining GitLab
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- [Rake tasks ](../raketasks/README.md ): Perform various tasks for maintenance, backups, automatic webhooks setup, and more.
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- [Backup and restore ](../raketasks/backup_restore.md ): Backup and restore your GitLab instance.
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- [Operations ](operations/index.md ): Keeping GitLab up and running (clean up Redis sessions, moving repositories, Sidekiq MemoryKiller, Puma).
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- [Restart GitLab ](restart_gitlab.md ): Learn how to restart GitLab and its components.
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- [Invalidate Markdown cache ](invalidate_markdown_cache.md ): Invalidate any cached Markdown.
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- [Instance review ](instance_review.md ): Request a free review of your GitLab instance.
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#### Updating GitLab
- [GitLab versions and maintenance policy ](../policy/maintenance.md ): Understand GitLab versions and releases (Major, Minor, Patch, Security), as well as update recommendations.
- [Update GitLab ](../update/README.md ): Update guides to upgrade your installation to a new version.
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- [Upgrading without downtime ](../update/README.md#upgrading-without-downtime ): Upgrade to a newer major, minor, or patch version of GitLab without taking your GitLab instance offline.
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- [Migrate your GitLab CI/CD data to another version of GitLab ](../migrate_ci_to_ce/README.md ): If you have an old GitLab installation (older than 8.0), follow this guide to migrate your existing GitLab CI/CD data to another version of GitLab.
### Upgrading or downgrading GitLab
- [Upgrade from GitLab CE to GitLab EE ](../update/README.md#upgrading-between-editions ): learn how to upgrade GitLab Community Edition to GitLab Enterprise Editions.
- [Downgrade from GitLab EE to GitLab CE ](../downgrade_ee_to_ce/README.md ): Learn how to downgrade GitLab Enterprise Editions to Community Edition.
### GitLab platform integrations
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- [Mattermost ](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/gitlab-mattermost/ ): Integrate with [Mattermost ](https://mattermost.com ), an open source, private cloud workplace for web messaging.
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- [PlantUML ](integration/plantuml.md ): Create simple diagrams in AsciiDoc and Markdown documents
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created in snippets, wikis, and repositories.
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- [Web terminals ](integration/terminal.md ): Provide terminal access to your applications deployed to Kubernetes from within GitLab CI/CD [environments ](../ci/environments/index.md#web-terminals ).
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## User settings and permissions
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- [Creating users ](../user/profile/account/create_accounts.md ): Create users manually or through authentication integrations.
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- [Libravatar ](libravatar.md ): Use Libravatar instead of Gravatar for user avatars.
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- [Sign-up restrictions ](../user/admin_area/settings/sign_up_restrictions.md ): block email addresses of specific domains, or whitelist only specific domains.
- [Access restrictions ](../user/admin_area/settings/visibility_and_access_controls.md#enabled-git-access-protocols ): Define which Git access protocols can be used to talk to GitLab (SSH, HTTP, HTTPS).
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- [Authentication and Authorization ](auth/README.md ): Configure external authentication with LDAP, SAML, CAS, and additional providers.
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- [Sync LDAP ](auth/ldap/index.md ).
- [Kerberos authentication ](../integration/kerberos.md ).
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- See also other [authentication ](../topics/authentication/index.md#gitlab-administrators ) topics (for example, enforcing 2FA).
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- [Email users ](../tools/email.md ): Email GitLab users from within GitLab.
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- [User Cohorts ](../user/admin_area/analytics/user_cohorts.md ): Display the monthly cohorts of new users and their activities over time.
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- [Audit events ](audit_events.md ): View the changes made within the GitLab server for:
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- Groups and projects.
- Instances.
- [Auditor users ](auditor_users.md ): Users with read-only access to all projects, groups, and other resources on the GitLab instance.
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- [Incoming email ](incoming_email.md ): Configure incoming emails to allow
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users to [reply by email ](reply_by_email.md ), create [issues by email ](../user/project/issues/managing_issues.md#new-issue-via-email ) and
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[merge requests by email ](../user/project/merge_requests/creating_merge_requests.md#new-merge-request-by-email ), and to enable [Service Desk ](../user/project/service_desk.md ).
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- [Postfix for incoming email ](reply_by_email_postfix_setup.md ): Set up a
basic Postfix mail server with IMAP authentication on Ubuntu for incoming
emails.
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- [Abuse reports ](../user/admin_area/abuse_reports.md ): View and resolve abuse reports from your users.
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- [Credentials Inventory ](../user/admin_area/credentials_inventory.md ): With Credentials inventory, GitLab administrators can keep track of the credentials used by their users in their GitLab self-managed instance.
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## Project settings
- [Issue closing pattern ](issue_closing_pattern.md ): Customize how to close an issue from commit messages.
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- [Gitaly ](gitaly/index.md ): Configuring Gitaly, the Git repository storage service for GitLab.
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- [Default labels ](../user/admin_area/labels.md ): Create labels that are automatically added to every new project.
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- [Restrict the use of public or internal projects ](../public_access/public_access.md#restricting-the-use-of-public-or-internal-projects ): Restrict the use of visibility levels for users when they create a project or a snippet.
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- [Custom project templates ](../user/admin_area/custom_project_templates.md ): Configure a set of projects to be used as custom templates when creating a new project.
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## Package Registry administration
- [Container Registry ](packages/container_registry.md ): Configure Container Registry with GitLab.
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- [Package Registry ](packages/index.md ): Enable GitLab to act as an NPM Registry and a Maven Repository.
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- [Dependency Proxy ](packages/dependency_proxy.md ): Configure the Dependency Proxy, a local proxy for frequently used upstream images/packages.
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### Repository settings
- [Repository checks ](repository_checks.md ): Periodic Git repository checks.
- [Repository storage paths ](repository_storage_paths.md ): Manage the paths used to store repositories.
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- [Repository storage types ](repository_storage_types.md ): Information about the different repository storage types.
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- [Repository storage Rake tasks ](raketasks/storage.md ): A collection of Rake tasks to list and migrate existing projects and attachments associated with it from Legacy storage to Hashed storage.
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- [Limit repository size ](../user/admin_area/settings/account_and_limit_settings.md ): Set a hard limit for your repositories' size.
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- [Static objects external storage ](static_objects_external_storage.md ): Set external storage for static objects in a repository.
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## Continuous Integration settings
- [Enable/disable GitLab CI/CD ](../ci/enable_or_disable_ci.md#site-wide-admin-setting ): Enable or disable GitLab CI/CD for your instance.
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- [GitLab CI/CD admin settings ](../user/admin_area/settings/continuous_integration.md ): Enable or disable Auto DevOps site-wide and define the artifacts' max size and expiration time.
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- [External Pipeline Validation ](external_pipeline_validation.md ): Enable, disable and configure external pipeline validation.
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- [Job artifacts ](job_artifacts.md ): Enable, disable, and configure job artifacts (a set of files and directories which are outputted by a job when it completes successfully).
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- [Job logs ](job_logs.md ): Information about the job logs.
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- [Register runners ](../ci/runners/README.md#types-of-runners ): Learn how to register and configure runners.
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- [Shared runners pipelines quota ](../user/admin_area/settings/continuous_integration.md#shared-runners-pipeline-minutes-quota ): Limit the usage of pipeline minutes for shared runners.
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- [Enable/disable Auto DevOps ](../topics/autodevops/index.md#enablingdisabling-auto-devops ): Enable or disable Auto DevOps for your instance.
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## Snippet settings
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- [Setting snippet content size limit ](snippets/index.md ): Set a maximum content size limit for snippets.
## Wiki settings
- [Setting wiki page content size limit ](wikis/index.md ): Set a maximum content size limit for wiki pages.
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## Git configuration options
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- [Server hooks ](server_hooks.md ): Server hooks (on the filesystem) for when webhooks aren't enough.
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- [Git LFS configuration ](lfs/index.md ): Learn how to configure LFS for GitLab.
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- [Housekeeping ](housekeeping.md ): Keep your Git repositories tidy and fast.
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- [Configuring Git Protocol v2 ](git_protocol.md ): Git protocol version 2 support.
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- [Manage large files with `git-annex` (Deprecated) ](git_annex.md )
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## Monitoring GitLab
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- [Monitoring GitLab ](monitoring/index.md ):
- [Monitoring uptime ](../user/admin_area/monitoring/health_check.md ): Check the server status using the health check endpoint.
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- [IP whitelist ](monitoring/ip_whitelist.md ): Monitor endpoints that provide health check information when probed.
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- [Monitoring GitHub imports ](monitoring/github_imports.md ): The GitLab GitHub Importer displays Prometheus metrics to monitor the health and progress of the importer.
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### Performance Monitoring
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- [GitLab Performance Monitoring ](monitoring/performance/index.md ):
- [Enable Performance Monitoring ](monitoring/performance/gitlab_configuration.md ): Enable GitLab Performance Monitoring.
- [GitLab performance monitoring with Prometheus ](monitoring/prometheus/index.md ): Configure GitLab and Prometheus for measuring performance metrics.
- [GitLab performance monitoring with Grafana ](monitoring/performance/grafana_configuration.md ): Configure GitLab to visualize time series metrics through graphs and dashboards.
- [Request Profiling ](monitoring/performance/request_profiling.md ): Get a detailed profile on slow requests.
- [Performance Bar ](monitoring/performance/performance_bar.md ): Get performance information for the current page.
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## Analytics
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- [Pseudonymizer ](pseudonymizer.md ): Export data from a GitLab database to CSV files in a secure way.
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## Troubleshooting
- [Debugging tips ](troubleshooting/debug.md ): Tips to debug problems when things go wrong
- [Log system ](logs.md ): Where to look for logs.
- [Sidekiq Troubleshooting ](troubleshooting/sidekiq.md ): Debug when Sidekiq appears hung and is not processing jobs.
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- [Troubleshooting Elasticsearch ](troubleshooting/elasticsearch.md )
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- [Navigating GitLab via Rails console ](troubleshooting/navigating_gitlab_via_rails_console.md )
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- [GitLab application limits ](instance_limits.md )
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### Support Team Docs
The GitLab Support Team has collected a lot of information about troubleshooting GitLab
instances. These documents are normally used by the Support Team itself, or by customers
with direct guidance from a Support Team member. GitLab administrators may find the
information useful for troubleshooting, but if you are experiencing trouble with your
GitLab instance, you should check your [support options ](https://about.gitlab.com/support/ )
before referring to these documents.
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WARNING:
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Using the commands listed in the documentation below could result in data loss or
other damage to a GitLab instance, and should only be used by experienced administrators
who are aware of the risks.
- [Useful diagnostics tools ](troubleshooting/diagnostics_tools.md )
- [Useful Linux commands ](troubleshooting/linux_cheat_sheet.md )
- [Troubleshooting Kubernetes ](troubleshooting/kubernetes_cheat_sheet.md )
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- [Troubleshooting PostgreSQL ](troubleshooting/postgresql.md )
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- [Guide to test environments ](troubleshooting/test_environments.md ) (for Support Engineers)
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- [GitLab Rails console commands ](troubleshooting/gitlab_rails_cheat_sheet.md ) (for Support Engineers)
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- [Troubleshooting SSL ](troubleshooting/ssl.md )
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- Useful links:
- [GitLab Developer Docs ](../development/README.md )
- [Repairing and recovering broken Git repositories ](https://git.seveas.net/repairing-and-recovering-broken-git-repositories.html )
- [Testing with OpenSSL ](https://www.feistyduck.com/library/openssl-cookbook/online/ch-testing-with-openssl.html )
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- [`strace` zine ](https://wizardzines.com/zines/strace/ )
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- GitLab.com-specific resources:
- [Group SAML/SCIM setup ](troubleshooting/group_saml_scim.md )
