96 lines
5.8 KiB
Markdown
96 lines
5.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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stage: Data Stores
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group: Application Performance
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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/product/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
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---
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# Image scaling guide
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This section contains a brief overview of the GitLab image scaler and how to work with it.
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For a general introduction to the history of image scaling at GitLab, you might be interested in
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[this Unfiltered blog post](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2020/11/02/scaling-down-how-we-prototyped-an-image-scaler-at-gitlab/).
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## Why image scaling?
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Since version 13.6, GitLab scales down images on demand to reduce the page data footprint.
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This both reduces the amount of data "on the wire", but also helps with rendering performance,
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since the browser has less work to do.
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## When do we scale images?
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Generally, the image scaler is triggered whenever a client requests an image resource by adding
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the `width` parameter to the query string. However, we only scale images of certain kinds and formats.
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Whether we allow an image to be rescaled or not is decided by combination of hard-coded rules and configuration settings.
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The hard-coded rules only permit:
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- [Project, group and user avatars](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/fd08748862a5fe5c25b919079858146ea85843ae/app/controllers/concerns/send_file_upload.rb#L65-67)
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- [PNGs or JPEGs](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/5dff8fa3814f2a683d8884f468cba1ec06a60972/lib/gitlab/file_type_detection.rb#L23)
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- [Specific dimensions](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/5dff8fa3814f2a683d8884f468cba1ec06a60972/app/models/concerns/avatarable.rb#L6)
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Furthermore, configuration in Workhorse can lead to the image scaler rejecting a request if:
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- The image file is too large (controlled by [`max_filesize`](- we only rescale images that do not exceed a configured size in bytes (see [`max_filesize`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/workhorse/config.toml.example#L22)))).
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- Too many image scalers are already running (controlled by [`max_scaler_procs`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/workhorse/config.toml.example#L21)).
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For instance, here are two different URLs that serve the GitLab project avatar both in its
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original size and scaled down to 64 pixels. Only the second request will trigger the image scaler:
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- [`/uploads/-/system/project/avatar/278964/logo-extra-whitespace.png`](https://gitlab.com/uploads/-/system/project/avatar/278964/logo-extra-whitespace.png)
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- [`/uploads/-/system/project/avatar/278964/logo-extra-whitespace.png?width=64`](https://gitlab.com/uploads/-/system/project/avatar/278964/logo-extra-whitespace.png?width=64)
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## Where do we scale images?
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Rails and Workhorse currently collaborate to rescale images. This is a common implementation and performance
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pattern in GitLab: important business logic such as request authentication and validation
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happens in Rails, whereas the "heavy lifting", scaling and serving the binary data, happens in Workhorse.
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The overall request flow is as follows:
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```mermaid
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sequenceDiagram
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Client->>+Workhorse: GET /uploads/-/system/project/avatar/278964/logo-extra-whitespace.png?width=64
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Workhorse->>+Rails: forward request
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Rails->>+Rails: validate request
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Rails->>+Rails: resolve image location
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Rails-->>-Workhorse: Gitlab-Workhorse-Send-Data: send-scaled-image
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Workhorse->>+Workhorse: invoke image scaler
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Workhorse-->>-Client: 200 OK
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```
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### Rails
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Currently, image scaling is limited to `Upload` entities, specifically avatars as mentioned above.
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Therefore, all image scaling related logic in Rails is currently found in the
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[`send_file_upload`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/app/controllers/concerns/send_file_upload.rb)
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controller mixin. Upon receiving a request coming from a client through Workhorse, we check whether
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it should trigger the image scaler as per the criteria mentioned above, and if so, render a special response
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header field (`Gitlab-Workhorse-Send-Data`) with the necessary parameters for Workhorse to carry
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out the scaling request. If Rails decides the request does not constitute a valid image scaling request,
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we follow the path we take to serve any ordinary upload.
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### Workhorse
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Assuming Rails decided the request to be valid, Workhorse will take over. Upon receiving the `send-scaled-image`
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instruction through the Rails response, a [special response injector](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/workhorse/internal/imageresizer/image_resizer.go)
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will be invoked that knows how to rescale images. The only inputs it requires are the location of the image
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(a path if the image resides in block storage, or a URL to remote storage otherwise) and the desired width.
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Workhorse will handle the location transparently so Rails does not need to be concerned with where the image
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actually resides.
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Additionally, to request validation in Rails, Workhorse will run several pre-condition checks to ensure that
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we can actually rescale the image, such as making sure we wouldn't outgrow our scaler process budget but also
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if the file meets the configured maximum allowed size constraint (to keep memory consumption in check).
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To actually scale the image, Workhorse will finally fork into a child process that performs the actual
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scaling work, and stream the result back to the client.
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#### Caching rescaled images
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We currently do not store rescaled images anywhere; the scaler runs every time a smaller version is requested.
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However, Workhorse implements standard conditional HTTP request strategies that allow us to skip the scaler
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if the image in the client cache is up-to-date.
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To that end we transmit a `Last-Modified` header field carrying the UTC
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timestamp of the original image file and match it against the `If-Modified-Since` header field in client requests.
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Only if the original image has changed and rescaling becomes necessary do we run the scaler again.
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