103 KiB
stage | group | info |
---|---|---|
Systems | Distribution | 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 |
Reference architecture: up to 5,000 users (PREMIUM SELF)
This page describes GitLab reference architecture for up to 5,000 users. For a full list of reference architectures, see Available reference architectures.
NOTE: This reference architecture is designed to help your organization achieve a highly-available GitLab deployment. If you do not have the expertise or need to maintain a highly-available environment, you can have a simpler and less costly-to-operate environment by using the 2,000-user reference architecture.
- Supported users (approximate): 5,000
- High Availability: Yes (Praefect needs a third-party PostgreSQL solution for HA)
- Estimated Costs: See cost table
- Cloud Native Hybrid Alternative: Yes
- Validation and test results: The Quality Engineering team does regular smoke and performance tests to ensure the reference architectures remain compliant
- Test requests per second (RPS) rates: API: 100 RPS, Web: 10 RPS, Git (Pull): 10 RPS, Git (Push): 2 RPS
- Latest Results
Service | Nodes | Configuration | GCP | AWS | Azure |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
External load balancing node3 | 1 | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
F2s v2 |
Redis2 | 3 | 2 vCPU, 7.5 GB memory | n1-standard-2 |
m5.large |
D2s v3 |
Consul1 + Sentinel2 | 3 | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
F2s v2 |
PostgreSQL1 | 3 | 4 vCPU, 15 GB memory | n1-standard-4 |
m5.xlarge |
D4s v3 |
PgBouncer1 | 3 | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
F2s v2 |
Internal load balancing node3 | 1 | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
F2s v2 |
Gitaly5 | 3 | 8 vCPU, 30 GB memory | n1-standard-8 |
m5.2xlarge |
D8s v3 |
Praefect5 | 3 | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
F2s v2 |
Praefect PostgreSQL1 | 1+ | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
F2s v2 |
Sidekiq | 4 | 2 vCPU, 7.5 GB memory | n1-standard-2 |
m5.large |
D2s v3 |
GitLab Rails | 3 | 16 vCPU, 14.4 GB memory | n1-highcpu-16 |
c5.4xlarge |
F16s v2 |
Monitoring node | 1 | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
F2s v2 |
Object storage4 | - | - | - | - | - |
NFS server (non-Gitaly) | 1 | 4 vCPU, 3.6 GB memory | n1-highcpu-4 |
c5.xlarge |
F4s v2 |
- Can be optionally run on reputable third-party external PaaS PostgreSQL solutions. Google Cloud SQL and Amazon RDS are known to work. However, Amazon Aurora is incompatible with load balancing enabled by default in 14.4.0, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL is not recommended due to performance issues. Consul is primarily used for PostgreSQL high availability so can be ignored when using a PostgreSQL PaaS setup. However, Consul is also used optionally by Prometheus for Omnibus auto host discovery.
- Can be optionally run on reputable third-party external PaaS Redis solutions. Google Memorystore and AWS ElastiCache are known to work.
- Can be optionally run on reputable third-party load balancing services (LB PaaS). AWS ELB is known to work.
- Should be run on reputable Cloud Provider or Self Managed solutions. More information can be found in the Configure the object storage section.
- Gitaly Cluster provides the benefits of fault tolerance, but comes with additional complexity of setup and management. Review the existing technical limitations and considerations before deploying Gitaly Cluster. If you want sharded Gitaly, use the same specs listed above for
Gitaly
.
NOTE: For all PaaS solutions that involve configuring instances, it is strongly recommended to implement a minimum of three nodes in three different availability zones to align with resilient cloud architecture practices.
@startuml 5k
skinparam linetype ortho
card "**External Load Balancer**" as elb #6a9be7
card "**Internal Load Balancer**" as ilb #9370DB
together {
collections "**GitLab Rails** x3" as gitlab #32CD32
collections "**Sidekiq** x4" as sidekiq #ff8dd1
}
together {
card "**Prometheus + Grafana**" as monitor #7FFFD4
collections "**Consul** x3" as consul #e76a9b
}
card "Gitaly Cluster" as gitaly_cluster {
collections "**Praefect** x3" as praefect #FF8C00
collections "**Gitaly** x3" as gitaly #FF8C00
card "**Praefect PostgreSQL***\n//Non fault-tolerant//" as praefect_postgres #FF8C00
praefect -[#FF8C00]-> gitaly
praefect -[#FF8C00]> praefect_postgres
}
card "Database" as database {
collections "**PGBouncer** x3" as pgbouncer #4EA7FF
card "**PostgreSQL** //Primary//" as postgres_primary #4EA7FF
collections "**PostgreSQL** //Secondary// x2" as postgres_secondary #4EA7FF
pgbouncer -[#4EA7FF]-> postgres_primary
postgres_primary .[#4EA7FF]> postgres_secondary
}
card "Redis" as redis {
collections "**Redis** x3" as redis_nodes #FF6347
}
cloud "**Object Storage**" as object_storage #white
elb -[#6a9be7]-> gitlab
elb -[#6a9be7,norank]--> monitor
gitlab -[#32CD32,norank]--> ilb
gitlab -[#32CD32]r-> object_storage
gitlab -[#32CD32]----> redis
gitlab .[#32CD32]----> database
gitlab -[hidden]-> monitor
gitlab -[hidden]-> consul
sidekiq -[#ff8dd1,norank]--> ilb
sidekiq -[#ff8dd1]r-> object_storage
sidekiq -[#ff8dd1]----> redis
sidekiq .[#ff8dd1]----> database
sidekiq -[hidden]-> monitor
sidekiq -[hidden]-> consul
ilb -[#9370DB]--> gitaly_cluster
ilb -[#9370DB]--> database
ilb -[hidden]--> redis
ilb -[hidden]u-> consul
ilb -[hidden]u-> monitor
consul .[#e76a9b]u-> gitlab
consul .[#e76a9b]u-> sidekiq
consul .[#e76a9b]r-> monitor
consul .[#e76a9b]-> database
consul .[#e76a9b]-> gitaly_cluster
consul .[#e76a9b,norank]--> redis
monitor .[#7FFFD4]u-> gitlab
monitor .[#7FFFD4]u-> sidekiq
monitor .[#7FFFD4]> consul
monitor .[#7FFFD4]-> database
monitor .[#7FFFD4]-> gitaly_cluster
monitor .[#7FFFD4,norank]--> redis
monitor .[#7FFFD4]> ilb
monitor .[#7FFFD4,norank]u--> elb
@enduml
Requirements
Before starting, you should take note of the following requirements / guidance for this reference architecture.
Supported CPUs
This reference architecture was built and tested on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) using the Intel Xeon E5 v3 (Haswell) CPU platform. On different hardware you may find that adjustments, either lower or higher, are required for your CPU or node counts. For more information, see our Sysbench-based CPU benchmarks.
Supported infrastructure
As a general guidance, GitLab should run on most infrastructure such as reputable Cloud Providers (AWS, GCP, Azure) and their services, or self managed (ESXi) that meet both the specs detailed above, as well as any requirements in this section. However, this does not constitute a guarantee for every potential permutation.
Be aware of the following specific call outs:
- Amazon Aurora is incompatible. See 14.4.0 for more details.
- Azure Database for PostgreSQL is not recommended due to known performance issues or missing features.
- Azure Blob Storage is recommended to be configured with Premium accounts to ensure consistent performance.
Praefect PostgreSQL
It's worth noting that at this time Praefect requires its own database server and
that to achieve full High Availability a third-party PostgreSQL database solution is required.
We hope to offer a built in solutions for these restrictions in the future but in the meantime a non HA PostgreSQL server
can be set up via Omnibus GitLab, which the above specs reflect. Refer to the following issues for more information: omnibus-gitlab#5919
& gitaly#3398
.
Setup components
To set up GitLab and its components to accommodate up to 5,000 users:
- Configure the external load balancer to handle the load balancing of the GitLab application services nodes.
- Configure the internal load balancer. to handle the load balancing of GitLab application internal connections.
- Configure Redis.
- Configure Consul and Sentinel.
- Configure PostgreSQL, the database for GitLab.
- Configure PgBouncer.
- Configure Gitaly Cluster, provides access to the Git repositories.
- Configure Sidekiq.
- Configure the main GitLab Rails application to run Puma, Workhorse, GitLab Shell, and to serve all frontend requests (which include UI, API, and Git over HTTP/SSH).
- Configure Prometheus to monitor your GitLab environment.
- Configure the object storage used for shared data objects.
- Configure Advanced Search (optional) for faster, more advanced code search across your entire GitLab instance.
- Configure NFS (optional, and not recommended) to have shared disk storage service as an alternative to Gitaly or object storage. You can skip this step if you're not using GitLab Pages (which requires NFS).
The servers start on the same 10.6.0.0/24 private network range, and can connect to each other freely on these addresses.
The following list includes descriptions of each server and its assigned IP:
10.6.0.10
: External Load Balancer10.6.0.61
: Redis Primary10.6.0.62
: Redis Replica 110.6.0.63
: Redis Replica 210.6.0.11
: Consul/Sentinel 110.6.0.12
: Consul/Sentinel 210.6.0.13
: Consul/Sentinel 310.6.0.31
: PostgreSQL primary10.6.0.32
: PostgreSQL secondary 110.6.0.33
: PostgreSQL secondary 210.6.0.21
: PgBouncer 110.6.0.22
: PgBouncer 210.6.0.23
: PgBouncer 310.6.0.20
: Internal Load Balancer10.6.0.51
: Gitaly 110.6.0.52
: Gitaly 210.6.0.93
: Gitaly 310.6.0.131
: Praefect 110.6.0.132
: Praefect 210.6.0.133
: Praefect 310.6.0.141
: Praefect PostgreSQL 1 (non HA)10.6.0.71
: Sidekiq 110.6.0.72
: Sidekiq 210.6.0.73
: Sidekiq 310.6.0.74
: Sidekiq 410.6.0.41
: GitLab application 110.6.0.42
: GitLab application 210.6.0.43
: GitLab application 310.6.0.81
: Prometheus
Configure the external load balancer
In a multi-node GitLab configuration, you need a load balancer to route traffic to the application servers. The specifics on which load balancer to use or its exact configuration is beyond the scope of GitLab documentation. We assume that if you're managing multi-node systems like GitLab, you already have a load balancer of choice and that the routing methods used are distributing calls evenly between all nodes. Some load balancer examples include HAProxy (open-source), F5 Big-IP LTM, and Citrix Net Scaler. This documentation outline the ports and protocols needed for use with GitLab.
This architecture has been tested and validated with HAProxy as the load balancer. Although other load balancers with similar feature sets could also be used, those load balancers have not been validated.
The next question is how you handle SSL in your environment. There are several different options:
- The application node terminates SSL.
- The 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 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 passes the connection to the application node's
NGINX service untouched. NGINX has the SSL certificate and listen on port 443.
See the NGINX HTTPS documentation 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 is then responsible for managing SSL certificates and
terminating SSL.
Since communication between the load balancer and GitLab is not secure, there is some additional configuration needed. See the NGINX proxied SSL documentation for details.
Load balancer terminates SSL with backend SSL
Configure your load balancers to use the 'HTTP(S)' protocol rather than 'TCP'. The load balancers are responsible for managing SSL certificates that end users see.
Traffic is also secure between the load balancers and NGINX in this scenario. There is no need to add configuration for proxied SSL since the connection is secure all the way. However, configuration needs to be added to GitLab to configure SSL certificates. See NGINX HTTPS documentation for details on managing SSL certificates and configuring NGINX.
Readiness checks
Ensure the external load balancer only routes to working services with built in monitoring endpoints. The readiness checks all require additional configuration on the nodes being checked, otherwise, the external load balancer is not able to connect.
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 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
andUpgrade
hop-by-hop headers. See the web terminal integration guide for more details. - (2): When using HTTPS protocol for port 443, you 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 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 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']
andgitlab_pages['external_https']
setting. See GitLab Pages documentation 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 requires 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 |
Configure the internal load balancer
The Internal Load Balancer is used to balance any internal connections the GitLab environment requires such as connections to PgBouncer and Praefect (Gitaly Cluster).
It's a separate node from the External Load Balancer and shouldn't have any access externally.
The following IP is used as an example:
10.6.0.40
: Internal Load Balancer
Here's how you could do it with HAProxy:
global
log /dev/log local0
log localhost local1 notice
log stdout format raw local0
defaults
log global
default-server inter 10s fall 3 rise 2
balance leastconn
frontend internal-pgbouncer-tcp-in
bind *:6432
mode tcp
option tcplog
default_backend pgbouncer
frontend internal-praefect-tcp-in
bind *:2305
mode tcp
option tcplog
option clitcpka
default_backend praefect
backend pgbouncer
mode tcp
option tcp-check
server pgbouncer1 10.6.0.21:6432 check
server pgbouncer2 10.6.0.22:6432 check
server pgbouncer3 10.6.0.23:6432 check
backend praefect
mode tcp
option tcp-check
option srvtcpka
server praefect1 10.6.0.131:2305 check
server praefect2 10.6.0.132:2305 check
server praefect3 10.6.0.133:2305 check
Refer to your preferred Load Balancer's documentation for further guidance. Also ensure that the routing methods used are distributing calls evenly across all nodes.
Configure Redis
Using Redis in scalable environment is possible using a Primary x Replica topology with a Redis Sentinel service to watch and automatically start the failover procedure.
Redis requires authentication if used with Sentinel. See Redis Security documentation for more information. We recommend using a combination of a Redis password and tight firewall rules to secure your Redis service. You are highly encouraged to read the Redis Sentinel documentation before configuring Redis with GitLab to fully understand the topology and architecture.
In this section, you are guided through configuring an external Redis instance to be used with GitLab. The following IPs are used as an example:
10.6.0.61
: Redis Primary10.6.0.62
: Redis Replica 110.6.0.63
: Redis Replica 2
Provide your own Redis instance
Managed Redis from cloud providers such as AWS ElastiCache works. If these services support high availability, be sure it is not the Redis Cluster type.
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.
Note the Redis node's IP address or hostname, port, and password (if required). These are necessary when configuring the GitLab application servers later.
Standalone Redis using Omnibus GitLab
This is the section where we install and set up the new Redis instances.
The requirements for a Redis setup are the following:
- All Redis nodes must be able to talk to each other and accept incoming
connections over Redis (
6379
) and Sentinel (26379
) ports (unless you change the default ones). - The server that hosts the GitLab application must be able to access the Redis nodes.
- Protect the nodes from access from external networks (Internet), using a firewall.
Both the primary and replica Redis nodes need the same password defined in
redis['password']
. At any time during a failover, the Sentinels can reconfigure
a node and change its status from primary to replica (and vice versa).
Configuring the primary Redis instance
-
SSH in to the Primary Redis server.
-
Download and install the Omnibus GitLab package of your choice. Be sure to both follow only installation steps 1 and 2 on the page, and to select the correct Omnibus GitLab package, with the same version and type (Community or Enterprise editions) as your current install.
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and add the contents:# Specify server role as 'redis_master_role' and enable Consul agent roles(['redis_master_role', 'consul_role']) # IP address pointing to a local IP that the other machines can reach to. # You can also set bind to '0.0.0.0' which listen in all interfaces. # If you really need to bind to an external accessible IP, make # sure you add extra firewall rules to prevent unauthorized access. redis['bind'] = '10.6.0.61' # Define a port so Redis can listen for TCP requests which will allow other # machines to connect to it. redis['port'] = 6379 # Set up password authentication for Redis (use the same password in all nodes). redis['password'] = 'redis-password-goes-here' ## Enable service discovery for Prometheus consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true ## The IPs of the Consul server nodes ## You can also use FQDNs and intermix them with IPs consul['configuration'] = { retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13), } # Set the network addresses that the exporters 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://10.6.0.61:6379', 'redis.password' => 'redis-password-goes-here', } # Prevent database migrations from running on upgrade automatically gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
-
Copy the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
file from the first Omnibus node you configured and add or replace the file of the same name on this server. If this is the first Omnibus node you are configuring then you can skip this step. -
Reconfigure Omnibus GitLab for the changes to take effect.
You can specify multiple roles, like sentinel and Redis, as:
roles(['redis_sentinel_role', 'redis_master_role'])
. Read more about
roles.
You can list the current Redis Primary, Replica status via:
/opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/redis-cli -h <host> -a 'redis-password-goes-here' info replication
Show running GitLab services via:
gitlab-ctl status
The output should be similar to the following:
run: consul: (pid 30043) 76863s; run: log: (pid 29691) 76892s
run: logrotate: (pid 31152) 3070s; run: log: (pid 29595) 76908s
run: node-exporter: (pid 30064) 76862s; run: log: (pid 29624) 76904s
run: redis: (pid 30070) 76861s; run: log: (pid 29573) 76914s
run: redis-exporter: (pid 30075) 76861s; run: log: (pid 29674) 76896s
Configuring the replica Redis instances
-
SSH in to the replica Redis server.
-
Download and install the Omnibus GitLab package of your choice. Be sure to both follow only installation steps 1 and 2 on the page, and to select the correct Omnibus GitLab package, with the same version and type (Community or Enterprise editions) as your current install.
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and add the contents:# Specify server role as 'redis_replica_role' and enable Consul agent roles(['redis_replica_role', 'consul_role']) # IP address pointing to a local IP that the other machines can reach to. # You can also set bind to '0.0.0.0' which listen in all interfaces. # If you really need to bind to an external accessible IP, make # sure you add extra firewall rules to prevent unauthorized access. redis['bind'] = '10.6.0.62' # Define a port so Redis can listen for TCP requests which will allow other # machines to connect to it. redis['port'] = 6379 # The same password for Redis authentication you set up for the primary node. redis['password'] = 'redis-password-goes-here' # The IP of the primary Redis node. redis['master_ip'] = '10.6.0.61' # Port of primary Redis server, uncomment to change to non default. Defaults # to `6379`. #redis['master_port'] = 6379 ## Enable service discovery for Prometheus consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true ## The IPs of the Consul server nodes ## You can also use FQDNs and intermix them with IPs consul['configuration'] = { retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13), } # Set the network addresses that the exporters 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://10.6.0.62:6379', 'redis.password' => 'redis-password-goes-here', } # Prevent database migrations from running on upgrade automatically gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
-
Copy the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
file from the first Omnibus node you configured and add or replace the file of the same name on this server. If this is the first Omnibus node you are configuring then you can skip this step. -
Reconfigure Omnibus GitLab for the changes to take effect.
-
Go through the steps again for all the other replica nodes, and make sure to set up the IPs correctly.
You can specify multiple roles, like sentinel and Redis, as:
roles(['redis_sentinel_role', 'redis_master_role'])
. Read more about
roles.
These values don't have to be changed again in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
after
a failover, as the nodes are managed by the Sentinels, and even after a
gitlab-ctl reconfigure
, they get their configuration restored by
the same Sentinels.
Advanced configuration options are supported and can be added if needed.
Configure Consul and Sentinel
Now that the Redis servers are all set up, let's configure the Sentinel servers. The following IPs are used as an example:
10.6.0.11
: Consul/Sentinel 110.6.0.12
: Consul/Sentinel 210.6.0.13
: Consul/Sentinel 3
NOTE:
If you're using an external Redis Sentinel instance, be sure to exclude the
requirepass
parameter from the Sentinel configuration. This parameter causes
clients to report NOAUTH Authentication required.
.
Redis Sentinel 3.2.x doesn't support password authentication.
To configure the Sentinel:
-
SSH in to the server that hosts Consul/Sentinel.
-
Download and install the Omnibus GitLab package of your choice. Be sure to both follow only installation steps 1 and 2 on the page, and to select the correct Omnibus GitLab package, with the same version and type (Community or Enterprise editions) as your current install.
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and add the contents:roles(['redis_sentinel_role', 'consul_role']) # Must be the same in every sentinel node redis['master_name'] = 'gitlab-redis' # The same password for Redis authentication you set up for the primary node. redis['master_password'] = 'redis-password-goes-here' # The IP of the primary Redis node. redis['master_ip'] = '10.6.0.61' # Define a port so Redis can listen for TCP requests which will allow other # machines to connect to it. redis['port'] = 6379 # Port of primary Redis server, uncomment to change to non default. Defaults # to `6379`. #redis['master_port'] = 6379 ## Configure Sentinel sentinel['bind'] = '10.6.0.11' # Port that Sentinel listens on, uncomment to change to non default. Defaults # to `26379`. # sentinel['port'] = 26379 ## Quorum must reflect the amount of voting sentinels it take to start a failover. ## Value must NOT be greater then the amount of sentinels. ## ## The quorum can be used to tune Sentinel in two ways: ## 1. If a the quorum is set to a value smaller than the majority of Sentinels ## we deploy, we are basically making Sentinel more sensible to primary failures, ## triggering a failover as soon as even just a minority of Sentinels is no longer ## able to talk with the primary. ## 1. If a quorum is set to a value greater than the majority of Sentinels, we are ## making Sentinel able to failover only when there are a very large number (larger ## than majority) of well connected Sentinels which agree about the primary being down.s sentinel['quorum'] = 2 ## Consider unresponsive server down after x amount of ms. # sentinel['down_after_milliseconds'] = 10000 ## Specifies the failover timeout in milliseconds. It is used in many ways: ## ## - The time needed to re-start a failover after a previous failover was ## already tried against the same primary by a given Sentinel, is two ## times the failover timeout. ## ## - The time needed for a replica replicating to a wrong primary according ## to a Sentinel current configuration, to be forced to replicate ## with the right primary, is exactly the failover timeout (counting since ## the moment a Sentinel detected the misconfiguration). ## ## - The time needed to cancel a failover that is already in progress but ## did not produced any configuration change (REPLICAOF NO ONE yet not ## acknowledged by the promoted replica). ## ## - The maximum time a failover in progress waits for all the replica to be ## reconfigured as replicas of the new primary. However even after this time ## the replicas will be reconfigured by the Sentinels anyway, but not with ## the exact parallel-syncs progression as specified. # sentinel['failover_timeout'] = 60000 ## Enable service discovery for Prometheus consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true ## The IPs of the Consul server nodes ## You can also use FQDNs and intermix them with IPs consul['configuration'] = { server: true, retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13), } # Set the network addresses that the exporters will listen on node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100' redis_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9121' # Prevent database migrations from running on upgrade automatically gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
-
Copy the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
file from the first Omnibus node you configured and add or replace the file of the same name on this server. If this is the first Omnibus node you are configuring then you can skip this step. -
Reconfigure Omnibus GitLab for the changes to take effect.
-
Go through the steps again for all the other Consul/Sentinel nodes, and make sure you set up the correct IPs.
A Consul leader is elected when the provisioning of the third Consul server is
complete. Viewing the Consul logs sudo gitlab-ctl tail consul
displays
...[INFO] consul: New leader elected: ...
.
You can list the current Consul members (server, client):
sudo /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/consul members
You can verify the GitLab services are running:
sudo gitlab-ctl status
The output should be similar to the following:
run: consul: (pid 30074) 76834s; run: log: (pid 29740) 76844s
run: logrotate: (pid 30925) 3041s; run: log: (pid 29649) 76861s
run: node-exporter: (pid 30093) 76833s; run: log: (pid 29663) 76855s
run: sentinel: (pid 30098) 76832s; run: log: (pid 29704) 76850s
Configure PostgreSQL
In this section, you are guided through configuring a highly available PostgreSQL cluster 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.
A reputable provider or solution should be used for this. Google Cloud SQL and Amazon RDS are known to work. However, Amazon Aurora is incompatible with load balancing enabled by default in 14.4.0, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL is not recommended due to performance issues.
If you use a cloud-managed service, or provide your own PostgreSQL:
- Set up PostgreSQL according to the database requirements document.
- Set up a
gitlab
username with a password of your choice. Thegitlab
user needs privileges to create thegitlabhq_production
database. - Configure the GitLab application servers with the appropriate details. This step is covered in Configuring the GitLab Rails application.
- For improved performance, configuring Database Load Balancing with multiple read replicas is recommended.
See Configure GitLab using an external PostgreSQL service for further configuration steps.
Standalone PostgreSQL using Omnibus GitLab
The recommended Omnibus GitLab configuration for a PostgreSQL cluster with replication and failover requires:
-
A minimum of three PostgreSQL nodes.
-
A minimum of three Consul server nodes.
-
A minimum of three PgBouncer nodes that track and handle primary database reads and writes.
- An internal load balancer (TCP) to balance requests between the PgBouncer nodes.
-
Database Load Balancing enabled.
A local PgBouncer service to be configured on each PostgreSQL node. Note that this is separate from the main PgBouncer cluster that tracks the primary.
The following IPs are used as an example:
10.6.0.31
: PostgreSQL primary10.6.0.32
: PostgreSQL secondary 110.6.0.33
: PostgreSQL secondary 2
First, make sure to install
the Linux GitLab package on each node. Following the steps,
install the necessary dependencies from step 1, and add the
GitLab package repository from step 2. When installing GitLab
in the second step, do not supply the EXTERNAL_URL
value.
PostgreSQL nodes
-
SSH in to one of the PostgreSQL nodes.
-
Generate a password hash for the PostgreSQL username/password pair. This assumes you use the default username of
gitlab
(recommended). The command requests a password and confirmation. Use the value that is output by this command in the next step as the value of<postgresql_password_hash>
:sudo gitlab-ctl pg-password-md5 gitlab
-
Generate a password hash for the PgBouncer username/password pair. This assumes you use the default username of
pgbouncer
(recommended). The command requests a password and confirmation. Use the value that is output by this command in the next step as the value of<pgbouncer_password_hash>
:sudo gitlab-ctl pg-password-md5 pgbouncer
-
Generate a password hash for the PostgreSQL replication username/password pair. This assumes you use the default username of
gitlab_replicator
(recommended). The command requests a password and a confirmation. Use the value that is output by this command in the next step as the value of<postgresql_replication_password_hash>
:sudo gitlab-ctl pg-password-md5 gitlab_replicator
-
Generate a password hash for the Consul database username/password pair. This assumes you use the default username of
gitlab-consul
(recommended). The command requests a password and confirmation. Use the value that is output by this command in the next step as the value of<consul_password_hash>
:sudo gitlab-ctl pg-password-md5 gitlab-consul
-
On every database node, edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
replacing values noted in the# START user configuration
section:# Disable all components except Patroni, PgBouncer and Consul roles(['patroni_role', 'pgbouncer_role']) # PostgreSQL configuration postgresql['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0' # Sets `max_replication_slots` to double the number of database nodes. # Patroni uses one extra slot per node when initiating the replication. patroni['postgresql']['max_replication_slots'] = 6 # Set `max_wal_senders` to one more than the number of replication slots in the cluster. # This is used to prevent replication from using up all of the # available database connections. patroni['postgresql']['max_wal_senders'] = 7 # Incoming recommended value for max connections is 500. See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/omnibus-gitlab/-/issues/5691. patroni['postgresql']['max_connections'] = 500 # Prevent database migrations from running on upgrade automatically gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false # Configure the Consul agent consul['services'] = %w(postgresql) ## Enable service discovery for Prometheus consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true # START user configuration # Please set the real values as explained in Required Information section # # Replace PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD_HASH with a generated md5 value postgresql['pgbouncer_user_password'] = '<pgbouncer_password_hash>' # Replace POSTGRESQL_REPLICATION_PASSWORD_HASH with a generated md5 value postgresql['sql_replication_password'] = '<postgresql_replication_password_hash>' # Replace POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH with a generated md5 value postgresql['sql_user_password'] = '<postgresql_password_hash>' # Set up basic authentication for the Patroni API (use the same username/password in all nodes). patroni['username'] = '<patroni_api_username>' patroni['password'] = '<patroni_api_password>' # Replace 10.6.0.0/24 with Network Addresses for your other patroni nodes patroni['allowlist'] = %w(10.6.0.0/24 127.0.0.1/32) # Replace 10.6.0.0/24 with Network Address postgresql['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(10.6.0.0/24 127.0.0.1/32) # Local PgBouncer service for Database Load Balancing pgbouncer['databases'] = { gitlabhq_production: { host: "127.0.0.1", user: "pgbouncer", password: '<pgbouncer_password_hash>' } } # Set the network addresses that the exporters will listen on for monitoring node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100' postgres_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9187' ## The IPs of the Consul server nodes ## You can also use FQDNs and intermix them with IPs consul['configuration'] = { retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13), } # # END user configuration
PostgreSQL, with Patroni managing its failover, defaults to use pg_rewind
by default to handle conflicts.
Like most failover handling methods, this has a small chance of leading to data loss.
Learn more about the various Patroni replication methods.
-
Copy the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
file from the first Omnibus node you configured and add or replace the file of the same name on this server. If this is the first Omnibus node you are configuring then you can skip this step. -
Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
Advanced configuration options are supported and can be added if needed.
PostgreSQL post-configuration
SSH in to any of the Patroni nodes on the primary site:
-
Check the status of the leader and cluster:
gitlab-ctl patroni members
The output should be similar to the following:
| Cluster | Member | Host | Role | State | TL | Lag in MB | Pending restart | |---------------|-----------------------------------|-----------|--------|---------|-----|-----------|-----------------| | postgresql-ha | <PostgreSQL primary hostname> | 10.6.0.31 | Leader | running | 175 | | * | | postgresql-ha | <PostgreSQL secondary 1 hostname> | 10.6.0.32 | | running | 175 | 0 | * | | postgresql-ha | <PostgreSQL secondary 2 hostname> | 10.6.0.33 | | running | 175 | 0 | * |
If the 'State' column for any node doesn't say "running", check the PostgreSQL replication and failover troubleshooting section before proceeding.
Configure PgBouncer
Now that the PostgreSQL servers are all set up, let's configure PgBouncer for tracking and handling reads/writes to the primary database.
The following IPs are used as an example:
10.6.0.21
: PgBouncer 110.6.0.22
: PgBouncer 210.6.0.23
: PgBouncer 3
-
On each PgBouncer node, edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
, and replace<consul_password_hash>
and<pgbouncer_password_hash>
with the password hashes you set up previously:# Disable all components except Pgbouncer and Consul agent roles(['pgbouncer_role']) # Configure PgBouncer pgbouncer['admin_users'] = %w(pgbouncer gitlab-consul) pgbouncer['users'] = { 'gitlab-consul': { password: '<consul_password_hash>' }, 'pgbouncer': { password: '<pgbouncer_password_hash>' } } # Incoming recommended value for max db connections is 150. See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/omnibus-gitlab/-/issues/5691. pgbouncer['max_db_connections'] = 150 # Configure Consul agent consul['watchers'] = %w(postgresql) consul['configuration'] = { retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13) } # Enable service discovery for Prometheus consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true # Set the network addresses that the exporters will listen on node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100' pgbouncer_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9188'
-
Copy the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
file from the first Omnibus node you configured and add or replace the file of the same name on this server. If this is the first Omnibus node you are configuring then you can skip this step. -
Reconfigure Omnibus GitLab for the changes to take effect.
-
Create a
.pgpass
file so Consul is able to reload PgBouncer. Enter the PgBouncer password twice when asked:gitlab-ctl write-pgpass --host 127.0.0.1 --database pgbouncer --user pgbouncer --hostuser gitlab-consul
-
Ensure each node is talking to the current master:
gitlab-ctl pgb-console # You will be prompted for PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD
If there is an error
psql: ERROR: Auth failed
after typing in the password, ensure you previously generated the MD5 password hashes with the correct format. The correct format is to concatenate the password and the username:PASSWORDUSERNAME
. For example,Sup3rS3cr3tpgbouncer
would be the text needed to generate an MD5 password hash for thepgbouncer
user. -
Once the console prompt is available, run the following queries:
show databases ; show clients ;
The output should be similar to the following:
name | host | port | database | force_user | pool_size | reserve_pool | pool_mode | max_connections | current_connections ---------------------+-------------+------+---------------------+------------+-----------+--------------+-----------+-----------------+--------------------- gitlabhq_production | MASTER_HOST | 5432 | gitlabhq_production | | 20 | 0 | | 0 | 0 pgbouncer | | 6432 | pgbouncer | pgbouncer | 2 | 0 | statement | 0 | 0 (2 rows) type | user | database | state | addr | port | local_addr | local_port | connect_time | request_time | ptr | link | remote_pid | tls ------+-----------+---------------------+---------+----------------+-------+------------+------------+---------------------+---------------------+-----------+------+------------+----- C | pgbouncer | pgbouncer | active | 127.0.0.1 | 56846 | 127.0.0.1 | 6432 | 2017-08-21 18:09:59 | 2017-08-21 18:10:48 | 0x22b3880 | | 0 | (2 rows)
-
Verify the GitLab services are running:
sudo gitlab-ctl status
The output should be similar to the following:
run: consul: (pid 31530) 77150s; run: log: (pid 31106) 77182s run: logrotate: (pid 32613) 3357s; run: log: (pid 30107) 77500s run: node-exporter: (pid 31550) 77149s; run: log: (pid 30138) 77493s run: pgbouncer: (pid 32033) 75593s; run: log: (pid 31117) 77175s run: pgbouncer-exporter: (pid 31558) 77148s; run: log: (pid 31498) 77156s
Configure Gitaly Cluster
Gitaly Cluster is a GitLab provided and recommended fault tolerant solution for storing Git repositories. In this configuration, every Git repository is stored on every Gitaly node in the cluster, with one being designated the primary, and failover occurs automatically if the primary node goes down.
NOTE: Gitaly Cluster provides the benefits of fault tolerance, but comes with additional complexity of setup and management. Review the existing technical limitations and considerations before deploying Gitaly Cluster. For implementations with sharded Gitaly, use the same Gitaly specs. Follow the separate Gitaly documentation instead of this section.
The recommended cluster setup includes the following components:
- 3 Gitaly nodes: Replicated storage of Git repositories.
- 3 Praefect nodes: Router and transaction manager for Gitaly Cluster.
- 1 Praefect PostgreSQL node: Database server for Praefect. A third-party solution is required for Praefect database connections to be made highly available.
- 1 load balancer: A load balancer is required for Praefect. The internal load balancer is used.
This section details how to configure the recommended standard setup in order. For more advanced setups refer to the standalone Gitaly Cluster documentation.
Configure Praefect PostgreSQL
Praefect, the routing and transaction manager for Gitaly Cluster, requires its own database server to store data on Gitaly Cluster status.
If you want to have a highly available setup, Praefect requires a third-party PostgreSQL database. A built-in solution is being worked on.
Praefect non-HA PostgreSQL standalone using Omnibus GitLab
The following IPs are used as an example:
10.6.0.141
: Praefect PostgreSQL
First, make sure to install
the Linux GitLab package in the Praefect PostgreSQL node. Following the steps,
install the necessary dependencies from step 1, and add the
GitLab package repository from step 2. When installing GitLab
in the second step, do not supply the EXTERNAL_URL
value.
-
SSH in to the Praefect PostgreSQL node.
-
Create a strong password to be used for the Praefect PostgreSQL user. Take note of this password as
<praefect_postgresql_password>
. -
Generate the password hash for the Praefect PostgreSQL username/password pair. This assumes you use the default username of
praefect
(recommended). The command requests the password<praefect_postgresql_password>
and confirmation. Use the value that is output by this command in the next step as the value of<praefect_postgresql_password_hash>
:sudo gitlab-ctl pg-password-md5 praefect
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
replacing values noted in the# START user configuration
section:# Disable all components except PostgreSQL and Consul roles(['postgres_role', 'consul_role']) # PostgreSQL configuration postgresql['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0' postgresql['max_connections'] = 200 # Prevent database migrations from running on upgrade automatically gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false # Configure the Consul agent ## Enable service discovery for Prometheus consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true # START user configuration # Please set the real values as explained in Required Information section # # Replace PRAEFECT_POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH with a generated md5 value postgresql['sql_user_password'] = "<praefect_postgresql_password_hash>" # Replace XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/YY with Network Address postgresql['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(10.6.0.0/24 127.0.0.1/32) # Set the network addresses that the exporters will listen on for monitoring node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100' postgres_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9187' ## The IPs of the Consul server nodes ## You can also use FQDNs and intermix them with IPs consul['configuration'] = { retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13), } # # END user configuration
-
Copy the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
file from the first Omnibus node you configured and add or replace the file of the same name on this server. If this is the first Omnibus node you are configuring then you can skip this step. -
Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
-
Follow the post configuration.
Praefect HA PostgreSQL third-party solution
As noted, a third-party PostgreSQL solution for Praefect's database is recommended if aiming for full High Availability.
There are many third-party solutions for PostgreSQL HA. The solution selected must have the following to work with Praefect:
- A static IP for all connections that doesn't change on failover.
LISTEN
SQL functionality must be supported.
NOTE: With a third-party setup, it's possible to colocate Praefect's database on the same server as the main GitLab database as a convenience unless you are using Geo, where separate database instances are required for handling replication correctly. In this setup, the specs of the main database setup shouldn't need to be changed as the impact should be minimal.
A reputable provider or solution should be used for this. Google Cloud SQL and Amazon RDS are known to work. However, Amazon Aurora is incompatible with load balancing enabled by default in 14.4.0, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL is not recommended due to performance issues.
Once the database is set up, follow the post configuration.
Praefect PostgreSQL post-configuration
After the Praefect PostgreSQL server has been set up, you then need to configure the user and database for Praefect to use.
We recommend the user be named praefect
and the database praefect_production
, and these can be configured as standard in PostgreSQL.
The password for the user is the same as the one you configured earlier as <praefect_postgresql_password>
.
This is how this would work with a Omnibus GitLab PostgreSQL setup:
-
SSH in to the Praefect PostgreSQL node.
-
Connect to the PostgreSQL server with administrative access. The
gitlab-psql
user should be used here for this as it's added by default in Omnibus. The databasetemplate1
is used because it is created by default on all PostgreSQL servers./opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/psql -U gitlab-psql -d template1 -h POSTGRESQL_SERVER_ADDRESS
-
Create the new user
praefect
, replacing<praefect_postgresql_password>
:CREATE ROLE praefect WITH LOGIN CREATEDB PASSWORD <praefect_postgresql_password>;
-
Reconnect to the PostgreSQL server, this time as the
praefect
user:/opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/psql -U praefect -d template1 -h POSTGRESQL_SERVER_ADDRESS
-
Create a new database
praefect_production
:CREATE DATABASE praefect_production WITH ENCODING=UTF8;
Configure Praefect
Praefect is the router and transaction manager for Gitaly Cluster and all connections to Gitaly go through it. This section details how to configure it.
Praefect requires several secret tokens to secure communications across the Cluster:
<praefect_external_token>
: Used for repositories hosted on your Gitaly cluster and can only be accessed by Gitaly clients that carry this token.<praefect_internal_token>
: Used for replication traffic inside your Gitaly cluster. This is distinct frompraefect_external_token
because Gitaly clients must not be able to access internal nodes of the Praefect cluster directly; that could lead to data loss.<praefect_postgresql_password>
: The Praefect PostgreSQL password defined in the previous section is also required as part of this setup.
Gitaly Cluster nodes are configured in Praefect via a virtual storage
. Each storage contains
the details of each Gitaly node that makes up the cluster. Each storage is also given a name
and this name is used in several areas of the configuration. In this guide, the name of the storage is
default
. Also, this guide is geared towards new installs, if upgrading an existing environment
to use Gitaly Cluster, you may need to use a different name.
Refer to the Praefect documentation for more information.
The following IPs are used as an example:
10.6.0.131
: Praefect 110.6.0.132
: Praefect 210.6.0.133
: Praefect 3
To configure the Praefect nodes, on each one:
-
SSH in to the Praefect server.
-
Download and install the Omnibus GitLab package of your choice. Be sure to follow only installation steps 1 and 2 on the page.
-
Edit the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
file to configure Praefect:NOTE: You can't remove the
default
entry fromvirtual_storages
because GitLab requires it.
# Avoid running unnecessary services on the Praefect server
gitaly['enable'] = false
postgresql['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
puma['enable'] = false
sidekiq['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
prometheus['enable'] = false
alertmanager['enable'] = false
grafana['enable'] = false
gitlab_exporter['enable'] = false
gitlab_kas['enable'] = false
# Praefect Configuration
praefect['enable'] = true
praefect['listen_addr'] = '0.0.0.0:2305'
# Prevent database migrations from running on upgrade automatically
praefect['auto_migrate'] = false
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
# Configure the Consul agent
consul['enable'] = true
## Enable service discovery for Prometheus
consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true
# START user configuration
# Please set the real values as explained in Required Information section
#
# Praefect External Token
# This is needed by clients outside the cluster (like GitLab Shell) to communicate with the Praefect cluster
praefect['auth_token'] = '<praefect_external_token>'
# Praefect Database Settings
praefect['database_host'] = '10.6.0.141'
praefect['database_port'] = 5432
# `no_proxy` settings must always be a direct connection for caching
praefect['database_direct_host'] = '10.6.0.141'
praefect['database_direct_port'] = 5432
praefect['database_dbname'] = 'praefect_production'
praefect['database_user'] = 'praefect'
praefect['database_password'] = '<praefect_postgresql_password>'
# Praefect Virtual Storage config
# Name of storage hash must match storage name in git_data_dirs on GitLab
# server ('praefect') and in git_data_dirs on Gitaly nodes ('gitaly-1')
praefect['virtual_storages'] = {
'default' => {
'nodes' => {
'gitaly-1' => {
'address' => 'tcp://10.6.0.91:8075',
'token' => '<praefect_internal_token>'
},
'gitaly-2' => {
'address' => 'tcp://10.6.0.92:8075',
'token' => '<praefect_internal_token>'
},
'gitaly-3' => {
'address' => 'tcp://10.6.0.93:8075',
'token' => '<praefect_internal_token>'
},
}
}
}
# Set the network addresses that the exporters will listen on for monitoring
node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100'
praefect['prometheus_listen_addr'] = '0.0.0.0:9652'
## The IPs of the Consul server nodes
## You can also use FQDNs and intermix them with IPs
consul['configuration'] = {
retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13),
}
#
# END user configuration
-
Copy the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
file from the first Omnibus node you configured and add or replace the file of the same name on this server. If this is the first Omnibus node you are configuring then you can skip this step. -
Praefect requires to run some database migrations, much like the main GitLab application. For this you should select one Praefect node only to run the migrations, AKA the Deploy Node. This node must be configured first before the others as follows:
-
In the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
file, change thepraefect['auto_migrate']
setting value fromfalse
totrue
-
To ensure database migrations are only run during reconfigure and not automatically on upgrade, run:
sudo touch /etc/gitlab/skip-auto-reconfigure
- Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect and to run the Praefect database migrations.
-
-
On all other Praefect nodes, Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
Configure Gitaly
The Gitaly server nodes that make up the cluster have requirements that are dependent on data and load.
NOTE: The Reference Architecture specs have been designed with good headroom in mind but for Gitaly, increased specs or additional Gitaly Cluster arrays may be required for notably large data sets or load.
Due to Gitaly having notable input and output requirements, we strongly recommend that all Gitaly nodes use solid-state drives (SSDs). These SSDs should have a throughput of at least 8,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) for read operations and 2,000 IOPS for write operations. These IOPS values are initial recommendations, and may be adjusted to greater or lesser values depending on the scale of your environment's workload. If you're running the environment on a Cloud provider, refer to their documentation about how to configure IOPS correctly.
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.
For configuring Gitaly you should note the following:
git_data_dirs
should be configured to reflect the storage path for the specific Gitaly nodeauth_token
should be the same aspraefect_internal_token
The following IPs are used as an example:
10.6.0.91
: Gitaly 110.6.0.92
: Gitaly 210.6.0.93
: Gitaly 3
On each node:
- Download and install the Omnibus GitLab
package of your choice. Be sure to follow only installation steps 1 and 2
on the page, and do not provide the
EXTERNAL_URL
value. - Edit the Gitaly server node's
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
file to configure storage paths, enable the network listener, and to configure the token:
# Avoid running unnecessary services on the Gitaly server
postgresql['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
puma['enable'] = false
sidekiq['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
prometheus['enable'] = false
alertmanager['enable'] = false
grafana['enable'] = false
gitlab_exporter['enable'] = false
gitlab_kas['enable'] = false
# Prevent database migrations from running on upgrade automatically
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.
gitlab_rails['internal_api_url'] = 'https://gitlab.example.com'
# Gitaly
gitaly['enable'] = true
# 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 Auth Token
# Should be the same as praefect_internal_token
gitaly['auth_token'] = '<praefect_internal_token>'
# Gitaly Pack-objects cache
# Recommended to be enabled for improved performance but can notably increase disk I/O
# Refer to https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/gitaly/configure_gitaly.html#pack-objects-cache for more info
gitaly['pack_objects_cache_enabled'] = true
# Configure the Consul agent
consul['enable'] = true
## Enable service discovery for Prometheus
consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true
# START user configuration
# Please set the real values as explained in Required Information section
#
## The IPs of the Consul server nodes
## You can also use FQDNs and intermix them with IPs
consul['configuration'] = {
retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13),
}
# Set the network addresses that the exporters will listen on for monitoring
node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100'
gitaly['prometheus_listen_addr'] = '0.0.0.0:9236'
#
# END user configuration
-
Append the following to
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
for each respective server:-
On Gitaly node 1:
git_data_dirs({ "gitaly-1" => { "path" => "/var/opt/gitlab/git-data" } })
-
On Gitaly node 2:
git_data_dirs({ "gitaly-2" => { "path" => "/var/opt/gitlab/git-data" } })
-
On Gitaly node 3:
git_data_dirs({ "gitaly-3" => { "path" => "/var/opt/gitlab/git-data" } })
-
-
Copy the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
file from the first Omnibus node you configured and add or replace the file of the same name on this server. If this is the first Omnibus node you are configuring then you can skip this step. -
Save the file, and then reconfigure GitLab.
Gitaly Cluster TLS support
Praefect supports TLS encryption. To communicate with a Praefect instance that listens for secure connections, you must:
- Use a
tls://
URL scheme in thegitaly_address
of the corresponding storage entry in the GitLab configuration. - Bring your own certificates because this isn't provided automatically. The certificate corresponding to each Praefect server must be installed on that Praefect server.
Additionally the certificate, or its certificate authority, must be installed on all Gitaly servers and on all Praefect clients that communicate with it following the procedure described in GitLab custom certificate configuration (and repeated below).
Note the following:
- The certificate must specify the address you use to access the Praefect server. You must add the hostname or IP address as a Subject Alternative Name to the certificate.
- You can configure Praefect servers with both an unencrypted listening address
listen_addr
and an encrypted listening addresstls_listen_addr
at the same time. This allows you to do a gradual transition from unencrypted to encrypted traffic, if necessary. To disable the unencrypted listener, setpraefect['listen_addr'] = nil
. - The Internal Load Balancer will also access to the certificates and need to be configured to allow for TLS passthrough. Refer to the load balancers documentation on how to configure this.
To configure Praefect with TLS:
-
Create certificates for Praefect servers.
-
On the Praefect servers, create the
/etc/gitlab/ssl
directory and copy your key and certificate there: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
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and add:praefect['tls_listen_addr'] = "0.0.0.0:3305" praefect['certificate_path'] = "/etc/gitlab/ssl/cert.pem" praefect['key_path'] = "/etc/gitlab/ssl/key.pem"
-
Save the file and reconfigure.
-
On the Praefect clients (including each Gitaly server), copy the certificates, or their certificate authority, into
/etc/gitlab/trusted-certs
:sudo cp cert.pem /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/
-
On the Praefect clients (except Gitaly servers), edit
git_data_dirs
in/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
as follows:git_data_dirs({ "default" => { "gitaly_address" => 'tls://LOAD_BALANCER_SERVER_ADDRESS:3305', "gitaly_token" => 'PRAEFECT_EXTERNAL_TOKEN' } })
-
Save the file and reconfigure GitLab.
Configure Sidekiq
Sidekiq requires connection to the Redis, PostgreSQL and Gitaly instances. Object storage is also required to be configured.
10.6.0.71
: Sidekiq 110.6.0.72
: Sidekiq 210.6.0.73
: Sidekiq 310.6.0.74
: Sidekiq 4
To configure the Sidekiq nodes, one each one:
- SSH in to the Sidekiq server.
- Download and install the Omnibus GitLab package of your choice. Be sure to follow only installation steps 1 and 2 on the page.
- Create or edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and use the following configuration:
# Avoid running unnecessary services on the Sidekiq server
gitaly['enable'] = false
postgresql['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
puma['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
prometheus['enable'] = false
alertmanager['enable'] = false
grafana['enable'] = false
gitlab_exporter['enable'] = false
gitlab_kas['enable'] = false
# External URL
## This should match the URL of the external load balancer
external_url 'https://gitlab.example.com'
# Redis
## Must be the same in every sentinel node
redis['master_name'] = 'gitlab-redis'
## The same password for Redis authentication you set up for the master node.
redis['master_password'] = '<redis_primary_password>'
## A list of sentinels with `host` and `port`
gitlab_rails['redis_sentinels'] = [
{'host' => '10.6.0.11', 'port' => 26379},
{'host' => '10.6.0.12', 'port' => 26379},
{'host' => '10.6.0.13', 'port' => 26379},
]
# Gitaly Cluster
## git_data_dirs get configured for the Praefect virtual storage
## Address is Internal Load Balancer for Praefect
## Token is praefect_external_token
git_data_dirs({
"default" => {
"gitaly_address" => "tcp://10.6.0.40:2305", # internal load balancer IP
"gitaly_token" => '<praefect_external_token>'
}
})
# PostgreSQL
gitlab_rails['db_host'] = '10.6.0.40' # internal load balancer IP
gitlab_rails['db_port'] = 6432
gitlab_rails['db_password'] = '<postgresql_user_password>'
gitlab_rails['db_load_balancing'] = { 'hosts' => ['10.6.0.31', '10.6.0.32', '10.6.0.33'] } # PostgreSQL IPs
## Prevent database migrations from running on upgrade automatically
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
# Sidekiq
sidekiq['enable'] = true
sidekiq['listen_address'] = "0.0.0.0"
## Set number of Sidekiq queue processes to the same number as available CPUs
sidekiq['queue_groups'] = ['*'] * 4
## Set number of Sidekiq threads per queue process to the recommend number of 10
sidekiq['max_concurrency'] = 10
# Monitoring
consul['enable'] = true
consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true
consul['configuration'] = {
retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13)
}
## Set the network addresses that the exporters will listen on
node_exporter['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9100'
## Add the monitoring node's IP address to the monitoring whitelist
gitlab_rails['monitoring_whitelist'] = ['10.6.0.81/32', '127.0.0.0/8']
gitlab_rails['prometheus_address'] = '10.6.0.81:9090'
# Object Storage
## This is an example for configuring Object Storage on GCP
## Replace this config with your chosen Object Storage provider as desired
gitlab_rails['object_store']['enabled'] = true
gitlab_rails['object_store']['connection'] = {
'provider' => 'Google',
'google_project' => '<gcp-project-name>',
'google_json_key_location' => '<path-to-gcp-service-account-key>'
}
gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['artifacts']['bucket'] = "<gcp-artifacts-bucket-name>"
gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['external_diffs']['bucket'] = "<gcp-external-diffs-bucket-name>"
gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['lfs']['bucket'] = "<gcp-lfs-bucket-name>"
gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['uploads']['bucket'] = "<gcp-uploads-bucket-name>"
gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['packages']['bucket'] = "<gcp-packages-bucket-name>"
gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['dependency_proxy']['bucket'] = "<gcp-dependency-proxy-bucket-name>"
gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['terraform_state']['bucket'] = "<gcp-terraform-state-bucket-name>"
gitlab_rails['backup_upload_connection'] = {
'provider' => 'Google',
'google_project' => '<gcp-project-name>',
'google_json_key_location' => '<path-to-gcp-service-account-key>'
}
gitlab_rails['backup_upload_remote_directory'] = "<gcp-backups-state-bucket-name>"
-
Copy the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
file from the first Omnibus node you configured and add or replace the file of the same name on this server. If this is the first Omnibus node you are configuring then you can skip this step. -
To ensure database migrations are only run during reconfigure and not automatically on upgrade, run:
sudo touch /etc/gitlab/skip-auto-reconfigure
Only a single designated node should handle migrations as detailed in the GitLab Rails post-configuration section.
-
Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
-
Verify the GitLab services are running:
sudo gitlab-ctl status
The output should be similar to the following:
run: consul: (pid 30114) 77353s; run: log: (pid 29756) 77367s run: logrotate: (pid 9898) 3561s; run: log: (pid 29653) 77380s run: node-exporter: (pid 30134) 77353s; run: log: (pid 29706) 77372s run: sidekiq: (pid 30142) 77351s; run: log: (pid 29638) 77386s
NOTE: If you find that the environment's Sidekiq job processing is slow with long queues, more nodes can be added as required. You can also tune your Sidekiq nodes to run multiple Sidekiq processes.
Configure GitLab Rails
This section describes how to configure the GitLab application (Rails) component. Object storage is also required to be configured.
On each node perform the following:
-
If you're using NFS:
-
If necessary, install the NFS client utility packages using the following commands:
# Ubuntu/Debian apt-get install nfs-common # CentOS/Red Hat yum install nfs-utils nfs-utils-lib
-
Specify the necessary NFS mounts in
/etc/fstab
. The exact contents of/etc/fstab
depends on how you chose to configure your NFS server. See the NFS documentation for examples and the various options. -
Create the shared directories. These may be different depending on your NFS mount locations.
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
-
-
Download and install the Omnibus GitLab package of your choice. Be sure to follow only installation steps 1 and 2 on the page.
-
Create or edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and use the following configuration. To maintain uniformity of links across nodes, theexternal_url
on the application server should point to the external URL that users use to access GitLab. This would be the URL of the external load balancer which routes traffic to the GitLab application server:external_url 'https://gitlab.example.com' # git_data_dirs get configured for the Praefect virtual storage # Address is Internal Load Balancer for Praefect # Token is praefect_external_token git_data_dirs({ "default" => { "gitaly_address" => "tcp://10.6.0.40:2305", # internal load balancer IP "gitaly_token" => '<praefect_external_token>' } }) ## Disable components that will not be on the GitLab application server roles(['application_role']) gitaly['enable'] = false nginx['enable'] = true sidekiq['enable'] = false ## PostgreSQL connection details # Disable PostgreSQL on the application node postgresql['enable'] = false gitlab_rails['db_host'] = '10.6.0.20' # internal load balancer IP gitlab_rails['db_port'] = 6432 gitlab_rails['db_password'] = '<postgresql_user_password>' gitlab_rails['db_load_balancing'] = { 'hosts' => ['10.6.0.31', '10.6.0.32', '10.6.0.33'] } # PostgreSQL IPs # Prevent database migrations from running on upgrade automatically gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false ## Redis connection details ## Must be the same in every sentinel node redis['master_name'] = 'gitlab-redis' ## The same password for Redis authentication you set up for the Redis primary node. redis['master_password'] = '<redis_primary_password>' ## A list of sentinels with `host` and `port` gitlab_rails['redis_sentinels'] = [ {'host' => '10.6.0.11', 'port' => 26379}, {'host' => '10.6.0.12', 'port' => 26379}, {'host' => '10.6.0.13', 'port' => 26379} ] ## Enable service discovery for Prometheus consul['enable'] = true consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true # 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' ## The IPs of the Consul server nodes ## You can also use FQDNs and intermix them with IPs consul['configuration'] = { retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13), } # Add the monitoring node's IP address to the monitoring whitelist and allow it to # scrape the NGINX metrics gitlab_rails['monitoring_whitelist'] = ['10.6.0.81/32', '127.0.0.0/8'] nginx['status']['options']['allow'] = ['10.6.0.81/32', '127.0.0.0/8'] gitlab_rails['prometheus_address'] = '10.6.0.81:9090' ############################# ### Object storage ### ############################# # This is an example for configuring Object Storage on GCP # Replace this config with your chosen Object Storage provider as desired gitlab_rails['object_store']['enabled'] = true gitlab_rails['object_store']['connection'] = { 'provider' => 'Google', 'google_project' => '<gcp-project-name>', 'google_json_key_location' => '<path-to-gcp-service-account-key>' } gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['artifacts']['bucket'] = "<gcp-artifacts-bucket-name>" gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['external_diffs']['bucket'] = "<gcp-external-diffs-bucket-name>" gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['lfs']['bucket'] = "<gcp-lfs-bucket-name>" gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['uploads']['bucket'] = "<gcp-uploads-bucket-name>" gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['packages']['bucket'] = "<gcp-packages-bucket-name>" gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['dependency_proxy']['bucket'] = "<gcp-dependency-proxy-bucket-name>" gitlab_rails['object_store']['objects']['terraform_state']['bucket'] = "<gcp-terraform-state-bucket-name>" gitlab_rails['backup_upload_connection'] = { 'provider' => 'Google', 'google_project' => '<gcp-project-name>', 'google_json_key_location' => '<path-to-gcp-service-account-key>' } gitlab_rails['backup_upload_remote_directory'] = "<gcp-backups-state-bucket-name>" ## 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
-
If you're using Gitaly with TLS support, make sure the
git_data_dirs
entry is configured withtls
instead oftcp
:git_data_dirs({ "default" => { "gitaly_address" => "tls://10.6.0.40:2305", # internal load balancer IP "gitaly_token" => '<praefect_external_token>' } })
-
Copy the cert into
/etc/gitlab/trusted-certs
:sudo cp cert.pem /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/
-
-
Copy the
/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
file from the first Omnibus node you configured and add or replace the file of the same name on this server. If this is the first Omnibus node you are configuring then you can skip this step. -
To ensure database migrations are only run during reconfigure and not automatically on upgrade, run:
sudo touch /etc/gitlab/skip-auto-reconfigure
Only a single designated node should handle migrations as detailed in the GitLab Rails post-configuration section.
-
Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
-
Run
sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:gitaly:check
to confirm the node can connect to Gitaly. -
Tail the logs to see the requests:
sudo gitlab-ctl tail gitaly
-
Verify the GitLab services are running:
sudo gitlab-ctl status
The output should be similar to the following:
run: consul: (pid 4890) 8647s; run: log: (pid 29962) 79128s run: gitlab-exporter: (pid 4902) 8647s; run: log: (pid 29913) 79134s run: gitlab-workhorse: (pid 4904) 8646s; run: log: (pid 29713) 79155s run: logrotate: (pid 12425) 1446s; run: log: (pid 29798) 79146s run: nginx: (pid 4925) 8646s; run: log: (pid 29726) 79152s run: node-exporter: (pid 4931) 8645s; run: log: (pid 29855) 79140s run: puma: (pid 4936) 8645s; run: log: (pid 29656) 79161s
When you specify https
in the external_url
, as in the previous example,
GitLab expects that the SSL certificates are in /etc/gitlab/ssl/
. If the
certificates aren't present, NGINX fails to start. For more information, see
the NGINX documentation.
GitLab Rails post-configuration
-
Ensure that all migrations ran:
gitlab-rake gitlab:db:configure
If you encounter a
rake aborted!
error message stating that PgBouncer is failing to connect to PostgreSQL, it may be that your PgBouncer node's IP address is missing from PostgreSQL'strust_auth_cidr_addresses
ingitlab.rb
on your database nodes. Before proceeding, see PgBouncer errorERROR: pgbouncer cannot connect to server
. -
Configure fast lookup of authorized SSH keys in the database.
Configure Prometheus
The Omnibus GitLab package can be used to configure a standalone Monitoring node running Prometheus and Grafana:
-
SSH in to the Monitoring node.
-
Download and install the Omnibus GitLab package of your choice. Be sure to follow only installation steps 1 and 2 on the page.
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and add the contents:roles(['monitoring_role', 'consul_role']) external_url 'http://gitlab.example.com' # Prometheus prometheus['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9090' prometheus['monitor_kubernetes'] = false # Grafana grafana['admin_password'] = '<grafana_password>' grafana['disable_login_form'] = false # Enable service discovery for Prometheus consul['monitoring_service_discovery'] = true consul['configuration'] = { retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13) } # Configure Prometheus to scrape services not covered by discovery prometheus['scrape_configs'] = [ { 'job_name': 'pgbouncer', 'static_configs' => [ 'targets' => [ "10.6.0.31:9188", "10.6.0.32:9188", "10.6.0.33:9188", ], ], }, { 'job_name': 'praefect', 'static_configs' => [ 'targets' => [ "10.6.0.131:9652", "10.6.0.132:9652", "10.6.0.133:9652", ], ], }, ] # Nginx - For Grafana access nginx['enable'] = true
-
Save the file and reconfigure GitLab.
-
In the GitLab UI, set
admin/application_settings/metrics_and_profiling
> Metrics - Grafana to/-/grafana
tohttp[s]://<MONITOR NODE>/-/grafana
. -
Verify the GitLab services are running:
sudo gitlab-ctl status
The output should be similar to the following:
run: consul: (pid 31637) 17337s; run: log: (pid 29748) 78432s run: grafana: (pid 31644) 17337s; run: log: (pid 29719) 78438s run: logrotate: (pid 31809) 2936s; run: log: (pid 29581) 78462s run: nginx: (pid 31665) 17335s; run: log: (pid 29556) 78468s run: prometheus: (pid 31672) 17335s; run: log: (pid 29633) 78456s
Configure the object storage
GitLab supports using an object storage service for holding numerous types of data. It's recommended over NFS and in general it's better in larger setups as object storage is typically much more performant, reliable, and scalable.
GitLab has been tested on a number of object storage providers:
- Amazon S3
- Google Cloud Storage
- Digital Ocean Spaces
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
- OpenStack Swift (S3 compatibility mode)
- Azure Blob storage
- On-premises hardware and appliances from various storage vendors.
- MinIO. We have a guide to deploying this within our Helm Chart documentation.
There are two ways of specifying object storage configuration in GitLab:
- Consolidated form: A single credential is shared by all supported object types.
- Storage-specific form: Every object defines its own object storage connection and configuration.
Starting with GitLab 13.2, consolidated object storage configuration is available. It simplifies your GitLab configuration since the connection details are shared across object types. Refer to Consolidated object storage configuration guide for instructions on how to set it up.
For configuring object storage in GitLab 13.1 and earlier, or for storage types not supported by consolidated configuration form, refer to the following guides based on what features you intend to use:
Object storage type | Supported by consolidated configuration? |
---|---|
Backups | No |
Job artifacts including archived job logs | Yes |
LFS objects | Yes |
Uploads | Yes |
Container Registry (optional feature) | No |
Merge request diffs | Yes |
Mattermost | No |
Packages (optional feature) | Yes |
Dependency Proxy (optional feature) | Yes |
Autoscale runner caching (optional for improved performance) | No |
Terraform state files | Yes |
Using separate buckets for each data type is the recommended approach for GitLab. This ensures there are no collisions across the various types of data GitLab stores. There are plans to enable the use of a single bucket in the future.
Enable incremental logging
GitLab Runner returns job logs in chunks which Omnibus GitLab caches temporarily on disk in /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-ci/builds
by default, even when using consolidated object storage. With default configuration, this directory needs to be shared through NFS on any GitLab Rails and Sidekiq nodes.
While sharing the job logs through NFS is supported, it's recommended to avoid the need to use NFS by enabling incremental logging (required when no NFS node has been deployed). Incremental logging uses Redis instead of disk space for temporary caching of job logs.
Configure Advanced Search
You can leverage Elasticsearch and enable Advanced Search for faster, more advanced code search across your entire GitLab instance.
Elasticsearch cluster design and requirements are dependent on your specific data. For recommended best practices about how to set up your Elasticsearch cluster alongside your instance, read how to choose the optimal cluster configuration.
Configure NFS (optional)
Object storage, along with Gitaly are recommended over NFS wherever possible for improved performance.
See how to configure NFS.
WARNING: Engineering support for NFS for Git repositories is deprecated. Technical support is planned to be unavailable from GitLab 15.0. No further enhancements are planned for this feature.
Read:
Cloud Native Hybrid reference architecture with Helm Charts (alternative)
As an alternative approach, you can also run select components of GitLab as Cloud Native in Kubernetes via our official Helm Charts. In this setup, we support running the equivalent of GitLab Rails and Sidekiq nodes in a Kubernetes cluster, named Webservice and Sidekiq respectively. In addition, the following other supporting services are supported: NGINX, Task Runner, Migrations, Prometheus, and Grafana.
Hybrid installations leverage the benefits of both cloud native and traditional compute deployments. With this, stateless components can benefit from cloud native workload management benefits while stateful components are deployed in compute VMs with Omnibus to benefit from increased permanence.
NOTE: This is an advanced setup. Running services in Kubernetes is well known to be complex. This setup is only recommended if you have strong working knowledge and experience in Kubernetes. The rest of this section assumes this.
Cluster topology
The following tables and diagram detail the hybrid environment using the same formats as the normal environment above.
First are the components that run in Kubernetes. The recommendation at this time is to use Google Cloud's Kubernetes Engine (GKE) or AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) and associated machine types, but the memory and CPU requirements should translate to most other providers. We hope to update this in the future with further specific cloud provider details.
Service | Nodes | Configuration | GCP | AWS | Min Allocatable CPUs and Memory |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Webservice | 5 | 16 vCPU, 14.4 GB memory | n1-highcpu-16 |
c5.4xlarge |
79.5 vCPU, 62 GB memory |
Sidekiq | 3 | 4 vCPU, 15 GB memory | n1-standard-4 |
m5.xlarge |
11.8 vCPU, 38.9 GB memory |
Supporting services such as NGINX, Prometheus | 2 | 2 vCPU, 7.5 GB memory | n1-standard-2 |
m5.large |
3.9 vCPU, 11.8 GB memory |
- For this setup, we recommend and regularly test Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS). Other Kubernetes services may also work, but your mileage may vary.
- Nodes configuration is shown as it is forced to ensure pod vCPU / memory ratios and avoid scaling during performance testing.
- In production deployments, there is no need to assign pods to nodes. A minimum of three nodes in three different availability zones is strongly recommended to align with resilient cloud architecture practices.
Next are the backend components that run on static compute VMs via Omnibus (or External PaaS services where applicable):
Service | Nodes | Configuration | GCP | AWS |
---|---|---|---|---|
Redis2 | 3 | 2 vCPU, 7.5 GB memory | n1-standard-2 |
m5.large |
Consul1 + Sentinel2 | 3 | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
PostgreSQL1 | 3 | 4 vCPU, 15 GB memory | n1-standard-4 |
m5.xlarge |
PgBouncer1 | 3 | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
Internal load balancing node3 | 1 | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
Gitaly5 | 3 | 8 vCPU, 30 GB memory | n1-standard-8 |
m5.2xlarge |
Praefect5 | 3 | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
Praefect PostgreSQL1 | 1+ | 2 vCPU, 1.8 GB memory | n1-highcpu-2 |
c5.large |
Object storage4 | - | - | - | - |
- Can be optionally run on reputable third-party external PaaS PostgreSQL solutions. Google Cloud SQL and Amazon RDS are known to work. However, Amazon Aurora is incompatible with load balancing enabled by default in 14.4.0, and Azure Database for PostgreSQL is not recommended due to performance issues. Consul is primarily used for PostgreSQL high availability so can be ignored when using a PostgreSQL PaaS setup. However, Consul is also used optionally by Prometheus for Omnibus auto host discovery.
- Can be optionally run on reputable third-party external PaaS Redis solutions. Google Memorystore and AWS ElastiCache are known to work.
- Can be optionally run on reputable third-party load balancing services (LB PaaS). AWS ELB is known to work.
- Should be run on reputable Cloud Provider or Self Managed solutions. More information can be found in the Configure the object storage section.
- Gitaly Cluster provides the benefits of fault tolerance, but comes with additional complexity of setup and management. Review the existing technical limitations and considerations before deploying Gitaly Cluster. If you want sharded Gitaly, use the same specs listed above for
Gitaly
.
NOTE: For all PaaS solutions that involve configuring instances, it is strongly recommended to implement a minimum of three nodes in three different availability zones to align with resilient cloud architecture practices.
@startuml 5k
skinparam linetype ortho
card "Kubernetes via Helm Charts" as kubernetes {
card "**External Load Balancer**" as elb #6a9be7
together {
collections "**Webservice** x4" as gitlab #32CD32
collections "**Sidekiq** x4" as sidekiq #ff8dd1
}
card "**Supporting Services**" as support
}
card "**Internal Load Balancer**" as ilb #9370DB
collections "**Consul** x3" as consul #e76a9b
card "Gitaly Cluster" as gitaly_cluster {
collections "**Praefect** x3" as praefect #FF8C00
collections "**Gitaly** x3" as gitaly #FF8C00
card "**Praefect PostgreSQL***\n//Non fault-tolerant//" as praefect_postgres #FF8C00
praefect -[#FF8C00]-> gitaly
praefect -[#FF8C00]> praefect_postgres
}
card "Database" as database {
collections "**PGBouncer** x3" as pgbouncer #4EA7FF
card "**PostgreSQL** (Primary)" as postgres_primary #4EA7FF
collections "**PostgreSQL** (Secondary) x2" as postgres_secondary #4EA7FF
pgbouncer -[#4EA7FF]-> postgres_primary
postgres_primary .[#4EA7FF]> postgres_secondary
}
card "redis" as redis {
collections "**Redis** x3" as redis_nodes #FF6347
}
cloud "**Object Storage**" as object_storage #white
elb -[#6a9be7]-> gitlab
elb -[hidden]-> sidekiq
elb -[hidden]-> support
gitlab -[#32CD32]--> ilb
gitlab -[#32CD32]r--> object_storage
gitlab -[#32CD32,norank]----> redis
gitlab -[#32CD32]----> database
sidekiq -[#ff8dd1]--> ilb
sidekiq -[#ff8dd1]r--> object_storage
sidekiq -[#ff8dd1,norank]----> redis
sidekiq .[#ff8dd1]----> database
ilb -[#9370DB]--> gitaly_cluster
ilb -[#9370DB]--> database
ilb -[hidden,norank]--> redis
consul .[#e76a9b]--> database
consul .[#e76a9b,norank]--> gitaly_cluster
consul .[#e76a9b]--> redis
@enduml
Resource usage settings
The following formulas help when calculating how many pods may be deployed within resource constraints. The 5k reference architecture example values file documents how to apply the calculated configuration to the Helm Chart.
Webservice
Webservice pods typically need about 1 vCPU and 1.25 GB of memory per worker. Each Webservice pod consumes roughly 4 vCPUs and 5 GB of memory using the recommended topology because four worker processes are created by default and each pod has other small processes running.
For 5,000 users we recommend a total Puma worker count of around 40. With the provided recommendations this allows the deployment of up to 10 Webservice pods with 4 workers per pod and 2 pods per node. Expand available resources using the ratio of 1 vCPU to 1.25 GB of memory per each worker process for each additional Webservice pod.
For further information on resource usage, see the Webservice resources.
Sidekiq
Sidekiq pods should generally have 1 vCPU and 2 GB of memory.
The provided starting point allows the deployment of up to 8 Sidekiq pods. Expand available resources using the 1 vCPU to 2GB memory ratio for each additional pod.
For further information on resource usage, see the Sidekiq resources.