--- description: 'Learn how to install, configure, update, and maintain your GitLab instance.' --- # Administrator Docs **(CORE ONLY)** Learn how to administer your self-managed GitLab instance. GitLab has two product distributions available through [different subscriptions](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/): - 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). You can [install either GitLab CE or GitLab EE](https://about.gitlab.com/install/ce-or-ee/). However, the features you'll have access to depend on the subscription you choose (Core, Starter, Premium, or Ultimate). NOTE: **Note:** GitLab Community Edition installations only have access to Core features. GitLab.com is administered by GitLab, Inc., therefore, only GitLab team members have access to its admin configurations. If you're a GitLab.com user, please check the [user documentation](../user/index.md). NOTE: **Note:** Non-administrator users don’t have access to GitLab administration tools and settings. ## 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. - [Database load balancing](database_load_balancing.md): Distribute database queries among multiple database servers. **(STARTER ONLY)** - [Omnibus support for log forwarding](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/logs.html#udp-log-shipping-gitlab-enterprise-edition-only) **(STARTER ONLY)** - [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. - [Geo](geo/replication/index.md): Replicate your GitLab instance to other geographic locations as a read-only fully operational version. **(PREMIUM ONLY)** - [Disaster Recovery](geo/disaster_recovery/index.md): Quickly fail-over to a different site with minimal effort in a disaster situation. **(PREMIUM ONLY)** - [Pivotal Tile](../install/pivotal/index.md): Deploy GitLab as a preconfigured appliance using Ops Manager (BOSH) for Pivotal Cloud Foundry. **(PREMIUM ONLY)** - [Add License](../user/admin_area/license.md): Upload a license at install time to unlock features that are in paid tiers of GitLab. **(STARTER ONLY)** ### Configuring GitLab - [Adjust your instance's timezone](timezone.md): Customize the default time zone of GitLab. - [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. - [Global user settings](user_settings.md): Configure instance-wide user permissions. - [Polling](polling.md): Configure how often the GitLab UI polls for updates. - [GitLab Pages configuration](pages/index.md): Enable and configure GitLab Pages. - [GitLab Pages configuration for GitLab source installations](pages/source.md): Enable and configure GitLab Pages on [source installations](../install/installation.md#installation-from-source). - [Uploads administration](uploads.md): Configure GitLab uploads storage. - [Environment variables](environment_variables.md): Supported environment variables that can be used to override their defaults values in order to configure GitLab. - [Plugins](plugins.md): With custom plugins, GitLab administrators can introduce custom integrations without modifying GitLab's source code. - [Enforcing Terms of Service](../user/admin_area/settings/terms.md) - [Third party offers](../user/admin_area/settings/third_party_offers.md) - [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 GitLab's Advanced Global Search. Useful when you deal with a huge amount of data. **(STARTER ONLY)** - [External Classification Policy Authorization](../user/admin_area/settings/external_authorization.md) **(PREMIUM ONLY)** - [Upload a license](../user/admin_area/license.md): Upload a license to unlock features that are in paid tiers of GitLab. **(STARTER ONLY)** - [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's appearance - [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. - [Additional custom email text](../user/admin_area/settings/email.md#custom-additional-text-premium-only): Add additional custom text to emails sent from GitLab. **(PREMIUM ONLY)** ### Maintaining GitLab - [Rake tasks](../raketasks/README.md): Perform various tasks for maintenance, backups, automatic webhooks setup, and more. - [Backup and restore](../raketasks/backup_restore.md): Backup and restore your GitLab instance. - [Operations](operations/index.md): Keeping GitLab up and running (clean up Redis sessions, moving repositories, Sidekiq MemoryKiller, Puma). - [Restart GitLab](restart_gitlab.md): Learn how to restart GitLab and its components. - [Invalidate Markdown cache](invalidate_markdown_cache.md): Invalidate any cached Markdown. #### 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. - [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. - [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 - [Mattermost](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/gitlab-mattermost/): Integrate with [Mattermost](https://mattermost.com), an open source, private cloud workplace for web messaging. - [PlantUML](integration/plantuml.md): Create simple diagrams in AsciiDoc and Markdown documents created in snippets, wikis, and repositories. - [Web terminals](integration/terminal.md): Provide terminal access to your applications deployed to Kubernetes from within GitLab's CI/CD [environments](../ci/environments/index.md#web-terminals). ## User settings and permissions - [Creating users](../user/profile/account/create_accounts.md): Create users manually or through authentication integrations. - [Libravatar](libravatar.md): Use Libravatar instead of Gravatar for user avatars. - [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). - [Authentication and Authorization](auth/README.md): Configure external authentication with LDAP, SAML, CAS, and additional providers. - [Sync LDAP](auth/ldap/index.md) **(STARTER ONLY)** - [Kerberos authentication](../integration/kerberos.md) **(STARTER ONLY)** - See also other [authentication](../topics/authentication/index.md#gitlab-administrators) topics (for example, enforcing 2FA). - [Email users](../tools/email.md): Email GitLab users from within GitLab. **(STARTER ONLY)** - [User Cohorts](../user/admin_area/user_cohorts.md): Display the monthly cohorts of new users and their activities over time. - [Audit logs and events](audit_events.md): View the changes made within the GitLab server for: - Groups and projects. **(STARTER)** - Instances. **(PREMIUM ONLY)** - [Auditor users](auditor_users.md): Users with read-only access to all projects, groups, and other resources on the GitLab instance. **(PREMIUM ONLY)** - [Incoming email](incoming_email.md): Configure incoming emails to allow users to [reply by email](reply_by_email.md), create [issues by email](../user/project/issues/managing_issues.md#new-issue-via-email) and [merge requests by email](../user/project/merge_requests/creating_merge_requests.md#new-merge-request-by-email-core-only), and to enable [Service Desk](../user/project/service_desk.md). - [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. - [Abuse reports](../user/admin_area/abuse_reports.md): View and resolve abuse reports from your users. - [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. **(ULTIMATE ONLY)** ## Project settings - [Issue closing pattern](issue_closing_pattern.md): Customize how to close an issue from commit messages. - [Gitaly](gitaly/index.md): Configuring Gitaly, GitLab's Git repository storage service. - [Default labels](../user/admin_area/labels.md): Create labels that will be automatically added to every new project. - [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. - [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. **(PREMIUM ONLY)** ## Package Registry administration - [Container Registry](packages/container_registry.md): Configure Container Registry with GitLab. - [Package Registry](packages/index.md): Enable GitLab to act as an NPM Registry and a Maven Repository. **(PREMIUM ONLY)** - [Dependency Proxy](packages/dependency_proxy.md): Configure the Dependency Proxy, a local proxy for frequently used upstream images/packages. **(PREMIUM ONLY)** ### 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. - [Repository storage types](repository_storage_types.md): Information about the different repository storage types. - [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. - [Limit repository size](../user/admin_area/settings/account_and_limit_settings.md): Set a hard limit for your repositories' size. **(STARTER ONLY)** - [Static objects external storage](static_objects_external_storage.md): Set external storage for static objects in a repository. ## 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. - [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. - [External Pipeline Validation](external_pipeline_validation.md): Enable, disable and configure external pipeline validation. - [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). - [Job logs](job_logs.md): Information about the job logs. - [Register Runners](../ci/runners/README.md#types-of-runners): Learn how to register and configure Runners. - [Shared Runners pipelines quota](../user/admin_area/settings/continuous_integration.md#shared-runners-pipeline-minutes-quota-starter-only): Limit the usage of pipeline minutes for Shared Runners. **(STARTER ONLY)** - [Enable/disable Auto DevOps](../topics/autodevops/index.md#enablingdisabling-auto-devops): Enable or disable Auto DevOps for your instance. ## Snippet settings - [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. ## Git configuration options - [Server hooks](server_hooks.md): Server hooks (on the filesystem) for when webhooks aren't enough. - [Git LFS configuration](lfs/index.md): Learn how to configure LFS for GitLab. - [Housekeeping](housekeeping.md): Keep your Git repositories tidy and fast. - [Configuring Git Protocol v2](git_protocol.md): Git protocol version 2 support. - [Manage large files with `git-annex` (Deprecated)](git_annex.md) ## Monitoring GitLab - [Monitoring GitLab](monitoring/index.md): - [Monitoring uptime](../user/admin_area/monitoring/health_check.md): Check the server status using the health check endpoint. - [IP whitelist](monitoring/ip_whitelist.md): Monitor endpoints that provide health check information when probed. - [Monitoring GitHub imports](monitoring/github_imports.md): GitLab's GitHub Importer displays Prometheus metrics to monitor the health and progress of the importer. ### Performance Monitoring - [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. ## Analytics - [Pseudonymizer](pseudonymizer.md): Export data from GitLab's database to CSV files in a secure way. **(ULTIMATE)** ## 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. - [Troubleshooting Elasticsearch](troubleshooting/elasticsearch.md) - [Navigating GitLab via Rails console](troubleshooting/navigating_gitlab_via_rails_console.md) - [GitLab application limits](instance_limits.md) ### 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. CAUTION: **Warning:** 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) - [Troubleshooting PostgreSQL](troubleshooting/postgresql.md) - [Guide to test environments](troubleshooting/test_environments.md) (for Support Engineers) - [GitLab Rails console commands](troubleshooting/gitlab_rails_cheat_sheet.md) (for Support Engineers) - [Troubleshooting SSL](troubleshooting/ssl.md) - 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) - [`Strace` zine](https://wizardzines.com/zines/strace/) - GitLab.com-specific resources: - [Group SAML/SCIM setup](troubleshooting/group_saml_scim.md)