gitlab-org--gitlab-foss/doc/administration/reference_architectures/2k_users.md

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# Reference architecture: up to 2,000 users

This page describes GitLab reference architecture for up to 2,000 users.
For a full list of reference architectures, see
[Available reference architectures](index.md#available-reference-architectures).

> - **Supported users (approximate):** 2,000
> - **High Availability:** False
> - **Test RPS rates:** API: 40 RPS, Web: 4 RPS, Git: 4 RPS

| Service                                                      | Nodes     | Configuration                   | GCP           | AWS                   | Azure          |
|--------------------------------------------------------------|-----------|---------------------------------|---------------|-----------------------|----------------|
| Load balancer                                                | 1         | 2 vCPU, 1.8GB Memory            | n1-highcpu-2  | c5.large              | F2s v2         |
| Object Storage                                               | n/a       | n/a                             | n/a           | n/a                   | n/a            |
| NFS Server (optional, not recommended)                       | 1         | 4 vCPU, 3.6GB Memory            | n1-highcpu-4  | c5.xlarge             | F4s v2         |
| PostgreSQL                                                   | 1         | 2 vCPU, 7.5GB Memory            | n1-standard-2 | m5.large              | D2s v3         |
| Redis                                                        | 1         | 1 vCPU, 3.75GB Memory           | n1-standard-1 | m5.large              | D2s v3         |
| Gitaly                                                       | 1         | 4 vCPU, 15GB Memory             | n1-standard-4 | m5.xlarge             | D4s v3         |
| GitLab Rails                                                 | 2         | 8 vCPU, 7.2GB Memory            | n1-highcpu-8  | c5.2xlarge            | F8s v2         |
| Monitoring node                                              | 1         | 2 vCPU, 1.8GB Memory            | n1-highcpu-2  | c5.large              | F2s v2         |

The architectures were built and tested with the [Intel Xeon E5 v3 (Haswell)](https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/cpu-platforms)
CPU platform on GCP. On different hardware you may find that adjustments, either lower
or higher, are required for your CPU or Node counts accordingly. For more information, a
[Sysbench](https://github.com/akopytov/sysbench) benchmark of the CPU can be found
[here](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/quality/performance/-/wikis/Reference-Architectures/GCP-CPU-Benchmarks).

AWS-equivalent and Azure-equivalent configurations are rough suggestions
and may change in the future. They have not been tested and validated.

For data objects such as LFS, Uploads, Artifacts, etc, an [object storage service](#configure-the-object-storage)
is recommended over NFS where possible, due to better performance and availability.
Since this doesn't require a node to be set up, it's marked as not applicable (n/a)
in the table above.

## Setup components

To set up GitLab and its components to accommodate up to 2,000 users:

1. [Configure the external load balancing node](#configure-the-load-balancer)
   that will handle the load balancing of the two GitLab application services nodes.
1. [Configure the Object Storage](#configure-the-object-storage)
   used for shared data objects.
1. [Configure NFS (Optional)](#configure-nfs-optional)
   to have shared disk storage service as an alternative to Gitaly and/or Object Storage (although
   not recommended). NFS is required for GitLab Pages, you can skip this step if you're not using
   that feature.
1. [Configure PostgreSQL](#configure-postgresql),
   the database for GitLab.
1. [Configure Redis](#configure-redis).
1. [Configure Gitaly](#configure-gitaly),
   which provides access to the Git repositories.
1. [Configure the main GitLab Rails application](#configure-gitlab-rails)
   to run Puma/Unicorn, Workhorse, GitLab Shell, and to serve all frontend requests (UI, API, Git
   over HTTP/SSH).
1. [Configure Prometheus](#configure-prometheus) to monitor your GitLab environment.

## Configure the load balancer

NOTE: **Note:**
This architecture has been tested and validated with [HAProxy](https://www.haproxy.org/)
as the load balancer. Although other load balancers with similar feature sets
could also be used, those load balancers have not been validated.

In an active/active GitLab configuration, you will need a load balancer to route
traffic to the application servers. The specifics on which load balancer to use
or the exact configuration is beyond the scope of GitLab documentation. We hope
that if you're managing multi-node systems like GitLab you have a load balancer of
choice already. Some examples including HAProxy (open-source), F5 Big-IP LTM,
and Citrix Net Scaler. This documentation will outline what ports and protocols
you need to use with GitLab.

The next question is how you will handle SSL in your environment.
There are several different options:

- [The application node terminates SSL](#application-node-terminates-ssl).
- [The load balancer terminates SSL without backend SSL](#load-balancer-terminates-ssl-without-backend-ssl)
  and communication is not secure between the load balancer and the application node.
- [The load balancer terminates SSL with backend SSL](#load-balancer-terminates-ssl-with-backend-ssl)
  and communication is *secure* between the load balancer and the application node.

### Application node terminates SSL

Configure your load balancer to pass connections on port 443 as `TCP` rather
than `HTTP(S)` protocol. This will pass the connection to the application node's
NGINX service untouched. NGINX will have the SSL certificate and listen on port 443.

See the [NGINX HTTPS documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/nginx.html#enable-https)
for details on managing SSL certificates and configuring NGINX.

### Load balancer terminates SSL without backend SSL

Configure your load balancer to use the `HTTP(S)` protocol rather than `TCP`.
The load balancer will then be responsible for managing SSL certificates and
terminating SSL.

Since communication between the load balancer and GitLab will not be secure,
there is some additional configuration needed. See the
[NGINX proxied SSL documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/nginx.html#supporting-proxied-ssl)
for details.

### Load balancer terminates SSL with backend SSL

Configure your load balancer(s) to use the 'HTTP(S)' protocol rather than 'TCP'.
The load balancer(s) will be responsible for managing SSL certificates that
end users will see.

Traffic will also be secure between the load balancer(s) and NGINX in this
scenario. There is no need to add configuration for proxied SSL since the
connection will be secure all the way. However, configuration will need to be
added to GitLab to configure SSL certificates. See
[NGINX HTTPS documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/nginx.html#enable-https)
for details on managing SSL certificates and configuring NGINX.

### Ports

The basic ports to be used are shown in the table below.

| LB Port | Backend Port | Protocol                 |
| ------- | ------------ | ------------------------ |
| 80      | 80           | HTTP (*1*)               |
| 443     | 443          | TCP or HTTPS (*1*) (*2*) |
| 22      | 22           | TCP                      |

- (*1*): [Web terminal](../../ci/environments/index.md#web-terminals) support requires
  your load balancer to correctly handle WebSocket connections. When using
  HTTP or HTTPS proxying, this means your load balancer must be configured
  to pass through the `Connection` and `Upgrade` hop-by-hop headers. See the
  [web terminal](../integration/terminal.md) integration guide for
  more details.
- (*2*): When using HTTPS protocol for port 443, you will need to add an SSL
  certificate to the load balancers. If you wish to terminate SSL at the
  GitLab application server instead, use TCP protocol.

If you're using GitLab Pages with custom domain support you will need some
additional port configurations.
GitLab Pages requires a separate virtual IP address. Configure DNS to point the
`pages_external_url` from `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` at the new virtual IP address. See the
[GitLab Pages documentation](../pages/index.md) for more information.

| LB Port | Backend Port  | Protocol  |
| ------- | ------------- | --------- |
| 80      | Varies (*1*)  | HTTP      |
| 443     | Varies (*1*)  | TCP (*2*) |

- (*1*): The backend port for GitLab Pages depends on the
  `gitlab_pages['external_http']` and `gitlab_pages['external_https']`
  setting. See [GitLab Pages documentation](../pages/index.md) for more details.
- (*2*): Port 443 for GitLab Pages should always use the TCP protocol. Users can
  configure custom domains with custom SSL, which would not be possible
  if SSL was terminated at the load balancer.

#### Alternate SSH Port

Some organizations have policies against opening SSH port 22. In this case,
it may be helpful to configure an alternate SSH hostname that allows users
to use SSH on port 443. An alternate SSH hostname will require a new virtual IP address
compared to the other GitLab HTTP configuration above.

Configure DNS for an alternate SSH hostname such as `altssh.gitlab.example.com`.

| LB Port | Backend Port | Protocol |
| ------- | ------------ | -------- |
| 443     | 22           | TCP      |

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## Configure the object storage

GitLab supports using an object storage service for holding numerous types of data.
It's recommended over [NFS](#configure-nfs-optional) and in general it's better
in larger setups as object storage is typically much more performant, reliable,
and scalable.

Object storage options that GitLab has tested, or is aware of customers using include:

- SaaS/Cloud solutions such as [Amazon S3](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/), [Google cloud storage](https://cloud.google.com/storage).
- On-premises hardware and appliances from various storage vendors.
- MinIO. There is [a guide to deploying this](https://docs.gitlab.com/charts/advanced/external-object-storage/minio.html) within our Helm Chart documentation.

For configuring GitLab to use Object Storage refer to the following guides
based on what features you intend to use:

1. Configure [object storage for backups](../../raketasks/backup_restore.md#uploading-backups-to-a-remote-cloud-storage).
1. Configure [object storage for job artifacts](../job_artifacts.md#using-object-storage)
   including [incremental logging](../job_logs.md#new-incremental-logging-architecture).
1. Configure [object storage for LFS objects](../lfs/index.md#storing-lfs-objects-in-remote-object-storage).
1. Configure [object storage for uploads](../uploads.md#using-object-storage-core-only).
1. Configure [object storage for merge request diffs](../merge_request_diffs.md#using-object-storage).
1. Configure [object storage for Container Registry](../packages/container_registry.md#container-registry-storage-driver) (optional feature).
1. Configure [object storage for Mattermost](https://docs.mattermost.com/administration/config-settings.html#file-storage) (optional feature).
1. Configure [object storage for packages](../packages/index.md#using-object-storage) (optional feature). **(PREMIUM ONLY)**
1. Configure [object storage for Dependency Proxy](../packages/dependency_proxy.md#using-object-storage) (optional feature). **(PREMIUM ONLY)**
1. Configure [object storage for Pseudonymizer](../pseudonymizer.md#configuration) (optional feature). **(ULTIMATE ONLY)**
1. Configure [object storage for autoscale Runner caching](https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/configuration/autoscale.html#distributed-runners-caching) (optional - for improved performance).
1. Configure [object storage for Terraform state files](../terraform_state.md#using-object-storage-core-only).

Using separate buckets for each data type is the recommended approach for GitLab.

A limitation of our configuration is that each use of object storage is separately configured.
[We have an issue for improving this](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/23345)
and easily using one bucket with separate folders is one improvement that this might bring.

There is at least one specific issue with using the same bucket:
when GitLab is deployed with the Helm chart restore from backup
[will not properly function](https://docs.gitlab.com/charts/advanced/external-object-storage/#lfs-artifacts-uploads-packages-external-diffs-pseudonymizer)
unless separate buckets are used.

One risk of using a single bucket would be if your organization decided to
migrate GitLab to the Helm deployment in the future. GitLab would run, but the situation with
backups might not be realized until the organization had a critical requirement for the backups to
work.

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## Configure NFS (optional)

[Object storage](#configure-the-object-storage), along with [Gitaly](#configure-gitaly)
are recommended over NFS wherever possible for improved performance. If you intend
to use GitLab Pages, this currently [requires NFS](troubleshooting.md#gitlab-pages-requires-nfs).

See how to [configure NFS](../high_availability/nfs.md).

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## Configure PostgreSQL

In this section, you'll be guided through configuring an external PostgreSQL database
to be used with GitLab.

### Provide your own PostgreSQL instance

If you're hosting GitLab on a cloud provider, you can optionally use a
managed service for PostgreSQL. For example, AWS offers a managed Relational
Database Service (RDS) that runs PostgreSQL.

If you use a cloud-managed service, or provide your own PostgreSQL:

1. Set up PostgreSQL according to the
   [database requirements document](../../install/requirements.md#database).
1. Set up a `gitlab` username with a password of your choice. The `gitlab` user
   needs privileges to create the `gitlabhq_production` database.
1. Configure the GitLab application servers with the appropriate details.
   This step is covered in [Configuring the GitLab Rails application](#configure-gitlab-rails).

### Standalone PostgreSQL using Omnibus GitLab

1. SSH into the PostgreSQL server.
1. [Download/install](https://about.gitlab.com/install/) the Omnibus GitLab
   package you want using **steps 1 and 2** from the GitLab downloads page.
   - Do not complete any other steps on the download page.
1. Generate a password hash for PostgreSQL. This assumes you will use the default
   username of `gitlab` (recommended). The command will request a password
   and confirmation. Use the value that is output by this command in the next
   step as the value of `POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH`.

   ```shell
   sudo gitlab-ctl pg-password-md5 gitlab
   ```

1. Edit `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` and add the contents below, updating placeholder
   values appropriately.

   - `POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH` - The value output from the previous step
   - `APPLICATION_SERVER_IP_BLOCKS` - A space delimited list of IP subnets or IP
     addresses of the GitLab application servers that will connect to the
     database. Example: `%w(123.123.123.123/32 123.123.123.234/32)`

   ```ruby
   # Disable all components except PostgreSQL
   roles ['postgres_role']
   repmgr['enable'] = false
   consul['enable'] = false
   prometheus['enable'] = false
   alertmanager['enable'] = false
   pgbouncer_exporter['enable'] = false
   redis_exporter['enable'] = false
   gitlab_exporter['enable'] = false

   # Set the network addresses that the exporters used for monitoring will listen on
   node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100'
   postgres_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9187'
   postgres_exporter['dbname'] = 'gitlabhq_production'
   postgres_exporter['password'] = 'POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH'

   # Set the PostgreSQL address and port
   postgresql['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0'
   postgresql['port'] = 5432

   # Replace POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH with a generated md5 value
   postgresql['sql_user_password'] = 'POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH'

   # Replace APPLICATION_SERVER_IP_BLOCK with the CIDR address of the application node
   postgresql['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(127.0.0.1/32 APPLICATION_SERVER_IP_BLOCK)

   # Disable automatic database migrations
   gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
   ```

1. [Reconfigure GitLab](../restart_gitlab.md#omnibus-gitlab-reconfigure) for the changes to take effect.
1. Note the PostgreSQL node's IP address or hostname, port, and
   plain text password. These will be necessary when configuring the [GitLab
   application server](#configure-gitlab-rails) later.

Advanced [configuration options](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/database.html)
are supported and can be added if needed.

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## Configure Redis

In this section, you'll be guided through configuring an external Redis instance
to be used with GitLab.

### Provide your own Redis instance

Redis version 5.0 or higher is required, as this is what ships with
Omnibus GitLab packages starting with GitLab 13.0. Older Redis versions
do not support an optional count argument to SPOP which is now required for
[Merge Trains](../../ci/merge_request_pipelines/pipelines_for_merged_results/merge_trains/index.md).

In addition, GitLab makes use of certain commands like `UNLINK` and `USAGE` which
were introduced only in Redis 4.

Managed Redis from cloud providers such as AWS ElastiCache will work. If these
services support high availability, be sure it is not the Redis Cluster type.

Note the Redis node's IP address or hostname, port, and password (if required).
These will be necessary when configuring the
[GitLab application servers](#configure-gitlab-rails) later.

### Standalone Redis using Omnibus GitLab

The Omnibus GitLab package can be used to configure a standalone Redis server.
The steps below are the minimum necessary to configure a Redis server with
Omnibus:

1. SSH into the Redis server.
1. [Download/install](https://about.gitlab.com/install/) the Omnibus GitLab
   package you want using **steps 1 and 2** from the GitLab downloads page.
     - Do not complete any other steps on the download page.

1. Edit `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` and add the contents:

   ```ruby
   ## Enable Redis
   redis['enable'] = true

   ## Disable all other services
   sidekiq['enable'] = false
   gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
   puma['enable'] = false
   unicorn['enable'] = false
   postgresql['enable'] = false
   nginx['enable'] = false
   prometheus['enable'] = false
   alertmanager['enable'] = false
   pgbouncer_exporter['enable'] = false
   gitlab_exporter['enable'] = false
   gitaly['enable'] = false
   grafana['enable'] = false

   redis['bind'] = '0.0.0.0'
   redis['port'] = 6379
   redis['password'] = 'SECRET_PASSWORD_HERE'

   gitlab_rails['enable'] = false

   # Set the network addresses that the exporters used for monitoring will listen on
   node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100'
   redis_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9121'
   redis_exporter['flags'] = {
         'redis.addr' => 'redis://0.0.0.0:6379',
         'redis.password' => 'SECRET_PASSWORD_HERE',
   }
   ```

1. [Reconfigure Omnibus GitLab](../restart_gitlab.md#omnibus-gitlab-reconfigure) for the changes to take effect.
1. Note the Redis node's IP address or hostname, port, and
   Redis password. These will be necessary when [configuring the GitLab
   application servers](#configure-gitlab-rails) later.

Advanced [configuration options](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/redis.html)
are supported and can be added if needed.

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## Configure Gitaly

Deploying Gitaly in its own server can benefit GitLab installations that are
larger than a single machine. Gitaly node requirements are dependent on data,
specifically the number of projects and their sizes. It's recommended that each
Gitaly node store no more than 5TB of data. Your 2K setup may require one or more
nodes depending on your repository storage requirements.

We strongly recommend that all Gitaly nodes should be set up with SSD disks with a throughput of at least
8,000 IOPS for read operations and 2,000 IOPS for write, as Gitaly has heavy I/O.
These IOPS values are recommended only as a starter as with time they may be
adjusted higher or lower depending on the scale of your environment's workload.
If you're running the environment on a Cloud provider
you may need to refer to their documentation on how configure IOPS correctly.

Some things to note:

- The GitLab Rails application shards repositories into [repository storages](../repository_storage_paths.md).
- A Gitaly server can host one or more storages.
- A GitLab server can use one or more Gitaly servers.
- Gitaly addresses must be specified in such a way that they resolve
  correctly for ALL Gitaly clients.
- Gitaly servers must not be exposed to the public internet, as Gitaly's network
  traffic is unencrypted by default. The use of a firewall is highly recommended
  to restrict access to the Gitaly server. Another option is to
  [use TLS](#gitaly-tls-support).

TIP: **Tip:**
For more information about Gitaly's history and network architecture see the
[standalone Gitaly documentation](../gitaly/index.md).

Note: **Note:** The token referred to throughout the Gitaly documentation is
just an arbitrary password selected by the administrator. It is unrelated to
tokens created for the GitLab API or other similar web API tokens.

Below we describe how to configure one Gitaly server `gitaly1.internal` with
secret token `gitalysecret`. We assume your GitLab installation has two
repository storages: `default` and `storage1`.

To configure the Gitaly server:

1. [Download/Install](https://about.gitlab.com/install/) the Omnibus GitLab
   package you want using **steps 1 and 2** from the GitLab downloads page but
   **without** providing the `EXTERNAL_URL` value.
1. Edit `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` to configure storage paths, enable
   the network listener and configure the token:

   <!--
   updates to following example must also be made at
   https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/charts/gitlab/blob/master/doc/advanced/external-gitaly/external-omnibus-gitaly.md#configure-omnibus-gitlab
   -->

   ```ruby
   # /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb

   # Gitaly and GitLab use two shared secrets for authentication, one to authenticate gRPC requests
   # to Gitaly, and a second for authentication callbacks from GitLab-Shell to the GitLab internal API.
   # The following two values must be the same as their respective values
   # of the GitLab Rails application setup
   gitaly['auth_token'] = 'gitlaysecret'
   gitlab_shell['secret_token'] = 'shellsecret'

   # Avoid running unnecessary services on the Gitaly server
   postgresql['enable'] = false
   redis['enable'] = false
   nginx['enable'] = false
   puma['enable'] = false
   unicorn['enable'] = false
   sidekiq['enable'] = false
   gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
   grafana['enable'] = false

   # If you run a seperate monitoring node you can disable these services
   alertmanager['enable'] = false
   prometheus['enable'] = false

   # Prevent database connections during 'gitlab-ctl reconfigure'
   gitlab_rails['rake_cache_clear'] = false
   gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false

   # Configure the gitlab-shell API callback URL. Without this, `git push` will
   # fail. This can be your 'front door' GitLab URL or an internal load
   # balancer.
   # Don't forget to copy `/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json` from web server to Gitaly server.
   gitlab_rails['internal_api_url'] = 'https://gitlab.example.com'

   # Make Gitaly accept connections on all network interfaces. You must use
   # firewalls to restrict access to this address/port.
   # Comment out following line if you only want to support TLS connections
   gitaly['listen_addr'] = "0.0.0.0:8075"
   gitaly['prometheus_listen_addr'] = "0.0.0.0:9236"

   # Set the network addresses that the exporters used for monitoring will listen on
   node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100'
   ```

1. Append the following to `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` on `gitaly1.internal`:

   ```ruby
   git_data_dirs({
     'default' => {
       'path' => '/var/opt/gitlab/git-data'
     },
     'storage1' => {
       'path' => '/mnt/gitlab/git-data'
     },
   })
   ```

   <!--
   updates to following example must also be made at
   https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/charts/gitlab/blob/master/doc/advanced/external-gitaly/external-omnibus-gitaly.md#configure-omnibus-gitlab
   -->

1. Save the file and [reconfigure GitLab](../restart_gitlab.md#omnibus-gitlab-reconfigure).
1. Confirm that Gitaly can perform callbacks to the internal API:

   ```shell
   sudo /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-shell/bin/check -config /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-shell/config.yml
   ```

### Gitaly TLS support

Gitaly supports TLS encryption. To be able to communicate
with a Gitaly instance that listens for secure connections you will need to use `tls://` URL
scheme in the `gitaly_address` of the corresponding storage entry in the GitLab configuration.

You will need to bring your own certificates as this isn't provided automatically.
The certificate, or its certificate authority, must be installed on all Gitaly
nodes (including the Gitaly node using the certificate) and on all client nodes
that communicate with it following the procedure described in
[GitLab custom certificate configuration](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/ssl.html#install-custom-public-certificates).

NOTE: **Note**
The self-signed certificate must specify the address you use to access the
Gitaly server. If you are addressing the Gitaly server by a hostname, you can
either use the Common Name field for this, or add it as a Subject Alternative
Name. If you are addressing the Gitaly server by its IP address, you must add it
as a Subject Alternative Name to the certificate.
[gRPC does not support using an IP address as Common Name in a certificate](https://github.com/grpc/grpc/issues/2691).

NOTE: **Note:**
It is possible to configure Gitaly servers with both an
unencrypted listening address `listen_addr` and an encrypted listening
address `tls_listen_addr` at the same time. This allows you to do a
gradual transition from unencrypted to encrypted traffic, if necessary.

To configure Gitaly with TLS:

1. Create the `/etc/gitlab/ssl` directory and copy your key and certificate there:

   ```shell
   sudo mkdir -p /etc/gitlab/ssl
   sudo chmod 755 /etc/gitlab/ssl
   sudo cp key.pem cert.pem /etc/gitlab/ssl/
   sudo chmod 644 key.pem cert.pem
   ```

1. Copy the cert to `/etc/gitlab/trusted-certs` so Gitaly will trust the cert when
   calling into itself:

   ```shell
   sudo cp /etc/gitlab/ssl/cert.pem /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/
   ```

1. Edit `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` and add:

   <!--
   updates to following example must also be made at
   https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/charts/gitlab/blob/master/doc/advanced/external-gitaly/external-omnibus-gitaly.md#configure-omnibus-gitlab
   -->

   ```ruby
   gitaly['tls_listen_addr'] = "0.0.0.0:9999"
   gitaly['certificate_path'] = "/etc/gitlab/ssl/cert.pem"
   gitaly['key_path'] = "/etc/gitlab/ssl/key.pem"
   ```

1. Delete `gitaly['listen_addr']` to allow only encrypted connections.
1. Save the file and [reconfigure GitLab](../restart_gitlab.md#omnibus-gitlab-reconfigure).

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## Configure GitLab Rails

NOTE: **Note:**
In our architectures we run each GitLab Rails node using the Puma webserver
and have its number of workers set to 90% of available CPUs along with four threads. For
nodes that are running Rails with other components the worker value should be reduced
accordingly where we've found 50% achieves a good balance but this is dependent
on workload.

This section describes how to configure the GitLab application (Rails) component.
On each node perform the following:

1. If you're [using NFS](#configure-nfs-optional):

   1. If necessary, install the NFS client utility packages using the following
      commands:

      ```shell
      # Ubuntu/Debian
      apt-get install nfs-common

      # CentOS/Red Hat
      yum install nfs-utils nfs-utils-lib
      ```

   1. Specify the necessary NFS mounts in `/etc/fstab`.
      The exact contents of `/etc/fstab` will depend on how you chose
      to configure your NFS server. See the [NFS documentation](../high_availability/nfs.md)
      for examples and the various options.

   1. Create the shared directories. These may be different depending on your NFS
      mount locations.

      ```shell
      mkdir -p /var/opt/gitlab/.ssh /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/uploads /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-ci/builds /var/opt/gitlab/git-data
      ```

1. Download/install Omnibus GitLab using **steps 1 and 2** from
   [GitLab downloads](https://about.gitlab.com/install/). Do not complete other
   steps on the download page.
1. Create/edit `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` and use the following configuration.
   To maintain uniformity of links across nodes, the `external_url`
   on the application server should point to the external URL that users will use
   to access GitLab. This would be the URL of the [load balancer](#configure-the-load-balancer)
   which will route traffic to the GitLab application server:

   ```ruby
   external_url 'https://gitlab.example.com'

   # Gitaly and GitLab use two shared secrets for authentication, one to authenticate gRPC requests
   # to Gitaly, and a second for authentication callbacks from GitLab-Shell to the GitLab internal API.
   # The following two values must be the same as their respective values
   # of the Gitaly setup
   gitlab_rails['gitaly_token'] = 'gitalyecret'
   gitlab_shell['secret_token'] = 'shellsecret'

   git_data_dirs({
     'default' => { 'gitaly_address' => 'tcp://gitaly1.internal:8075' },
     'storage1' => { 'gitaly_address' => 'tcp://gitaly1.internal:8075' },
     'storage2' => { 'gitaly_address' => 'tcp://gitaly2.internal:8075' },
   })

   ## Disable components that will not be on the GitLab application server
   roles ['application_role']
   gitaly['enable'] = false
   nginx['enable'] = true

   ## PostgreSQL connection details
   gitlab_rails['db_adapter'] = 'postgresql'
   gitlab_rails['db_encoding'] = 'unicode'
   gitlab_rails['db_host'] = '10.1.0.5' # IP/hostname of database server
   gitlab_rails['db_password'] = 'DB password'

   ## Redis connection details
   gitlab_rails['redis_port'] = '6379'
   gitlab_rails['redis_host'] = '10.1.0.6' # IP/hostname of Redis server
   gitlab_rails['redis_password'] = 'Redis Password'

   # Set the network addresses that the exporters used for monitoring will listen on
   node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100'
   gitlab_workhorse['prometheus_listen_addr'] = '0.0.0.0:9229'
   sidekiq['listen_address'] = "0.0.0.0"
   puma['listen'] = '0.0.0.0'

   # Add the monitoring node's IP address to the monitoring whitelist and allow it to
   # scrape the NGINX metrics. Replace placeholder `monitoring.gitlab.example.com` with
   # the address and/or subnets gathered from the monitoring node
   gitlab_rails['monitoring_whitelist'] = ['<MONITOR NODE IP>/32', '127.0.0.0/8']
   nginx['status']['options']['allow'] = ['<MONITOR NODE IP>/32', '127.0.0.0/8']

   ## Uncomment and edit the following options if you have set up NFS
   ##
   ## Prevent GitLab from starting if NFS data mounts are not available
   ##
   #high_availability['mountpoint'] = '/var/opt/gitlab/git-data'
   ##
   ## Ensure UIDs and GIDs match between servers for permissions via NFS
   ##
   #user['uid'] = 9000
   #user['gid'] = 9000
   #web_server['uid'] = 9001
   #web_server['gid'] = 9001
   #registry['uid'] = 9002
   #registry['gid'] = 9002
   ```

1. If you're using [Gitaly with TLS support](#gitaly-tls-support), make sure the
   `git_data_dirs` entry is configured with `tls` instead of `tcp`:

   ```ruby
   git_data_dirs({
     'default' => { 'gitaly_address' => 'tls://gitaly1.internal:9999' },
     'storage1' => { 'gitaly_address' => 'tls://gitaly1.internal:9999' },
     'storage2' => { 'gitaly_address' => 'tls://gitaly2.internal:9999' },
   })
   ```

   1. Copy the cert into `/etc/gitlab/trusted-certs`:

      ```shell
      sudo cp cert.pem /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/
      ```

1. Save the file and [reconfigure GitLab](../restart_gitlab.md#omnibus-gitlab-reconfigure).
1. Run `sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:gitaly:check` to confirm the node can connect to Gitaly.
1. Tail the logs to see the requests:

   ```shell
   sudo gitlab-ctl tail gitaly
   ```

NOTE: **Note:** When you specify `https` in the `external_url`, as in the example
above, GitLab assumes you have SSL certificates in `/etc/gitlab/ssl/`. If
certificates are not present, NGINX will fail to start. See the
[NGINX documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/nginx.html#enable-https)
for more information.

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## Configure Prometheus

The Omnibus GitLab package can be used to configure a standalone Monitoring node
running [Prometheus](../monitoring/prometheus/index.md) and
[Grafana](../monitoring/performance/grafana_configuration.md):

1. SSH into the Monitoring node.
1. [Download/install](https://about.gitlab.com/install/) the Omnibus GitLab
   package you want using **steps 1 and 2** from the GitLab downloads page.
   Do not complete any other steps on the download page.
1. Edit `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` and add the contents:

   ```ruby
   external_url 'http://gitlab.example.com'

   # Enable Prometheus
   prometheus['enable'] = true
   prometheus['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9090'
   prometheus['monitor_kubernetes'] = false

   # Enable Login form
   grafana['disable_login_form'] = false

   # Enable Grafana
   grafana['enable'] = true
   grafana['admin_password'] = 'toomanysecrets'

   # Disable all other services
   gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
   alertmanager['enable'] = false
   gitaly['enable'] = false
   gitlab_exporter['enable'] = false
   gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
   nginx['enable'] = true
   postgres_exporter['enable'] = false
   postgresql['enable'] = false
   redis['enable'] = false
   redis_exporter['enable'] = false
   sidekiq['enable'] = false
   puma['enable'] = false
   unicorn['enable'] = false
   node_exporter['enable'] = false
   gitlab_exporter['enable'] = false
   ```

1. Prometheus also needs some scrape configs to pull all the data from the various
   nodes where we configured exporters. Assuming that your nodes' IPs are:

   ```plaintext
   1.1.1.1: postgres
   1.1.1.2: redis
   1.1.1.3: gitaly1
   1.1.1.4: rails1
   1.1.1.5: rails2
   ```

   Add the following to `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb`:

   ```ruby
   prometheus['scrape_configs'] = [
     {
        'job_name': 'postgres',
        'static_configs' => [
        'targets' => ['1.1.1.1:9187'],
        ],
     },
     {
        'job_name': 'redis',
        'static_configs' => [
        'targets' => ['1.1.1.2:9121'],
        ],
     },
     {
        'job_name': 'gitaly',
        'static_configs' => [
        'targets' => ['1.1.1.3:9236'],
        ],
     },
     {
        'job_name': 'gitlab-nginx',
        'static_configs' => [
        'targets' => ['1.1.1.4:8060', '1.1.1.5:8060'],
        ],
     },
     {
        'job_name': 'gitlab-workhorse',
        'static_configs' => [
        'targets' => ['1.1.1.4:9229', '1.1.1.5:9229'],
        ],
     },
     {
        'job_name': 'gitlab-rails',
        'metrics_path': '/-/metrics',
        'static_configs' => [
        'targets' => ['1.1.1.4:8080', '1.1.1.5:8080'],
        ],
     },
     {
        'job_name': 'gitlab-sidekiq',
        'static_configs' => [
        'targets' => ['1.1.1.4:8082', '1.1.1.5:8082'],
        ],
     },
     {
        'job_name': 'node',
        'static_configs' => [
        'targets' => ['1.1.1.1:9100', '1.1.1.2:9100', '1.1.1.3:9100', '1.1.1.4:9100', '1.1.1.5:9100'],
        ],
     },
   ]
   ```

1. Save the file and [reconfigure GitLab](../restart_gitlab.md#omnibus-gitlab-reconfigure).
1. In the GitLab UI, set `admin/application_settings/metrics_and_profiling` > Metrics - Grafana to `/-/grafana` to
`http[s]://<MONITOR NODE>/-/grafana`

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## Troubleshooting

See the [troubleshooting documentation](troubleshooting.md).

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