-
John Gaughan authoredJohn Gaughan authored
stage: Systems
group: Distribution
info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/product/ux/technical-writing/#assignments
Database settings (FREE SELF)
GitLab supports only the PostgreSQL database management system.
Thus you have two options for database servers to use with a Linux package installation:
- Use the packaged PostgreSQL server included with the Linux package installation (no configuration required, recommended).
- Use an external PostgreSQL server.
Using the PostgreSQL database service shipped with the Linux package
Reconfigure and PostgreSQL restarts
Linux package installations normally restart any service on reconfigure if configuration settings for that service were
changed in the gitlab.rb
file. PostgreSQL is unique in that some of its settings take effect
with a reload (HUP), while others require PostgreSQL to be restarted. Because administrators
frequently want more control over exactly when PostgreSQL is restarted, Linux package installations are configured
to do a reload of PostgreSQL on reconfigure, and not a restart. This means that if you modify any
PostgreSQL setting that requires a restart, you will need to restart PostgreSQL manually after you
reconfigure.
The GitLab config template
identifies which PostgreSQL settings require a restart and which require only a reload. You can also
run a query against your database to determine if any individual setting requires a restart. Start a
database console with sudo gitlab-psql
, then replace <setting name>
in the following query
with the setting you are changing:
SELECT name,setting FROM pg_settings WHERE context = 'postmaster' AND name = '<setting name>';
If changing the setting will require a restart, the query will return the name of the setting and the current value of that setting in the running PostgreSQL instance.
Automatic restart when the PostgreSQL version changes
By default, Linux package installations automatically restart PostgreSQL when the underlying
version changes, as suggested by the upstream documentation.
This behavior can be controlled using the auto_restart_on_version_change
setting
available for postgresql
and geo-postgresql
.
To disable automatic restarts when the PostgreSQL version changes:
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and add the following line:# For PostgreSQL/Patroni postgresql['auto_restart_on_version_change'] = false # For Geo PostgreSQL geo_postgresql['auto_restart_on_version_change'] = false
-
Reconfigure GitLab:
sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure
NOTE: It is highly recommended to restart PostgreSQL when the underlying version changes, to avoid errors like the one related to loading necessary libraries.
Configuring SSL
Linux package installations automatically enable SSL on the PostgreSQL server, but it will accept
both encrypted and unencrypted connections by default. Enforcing SSL requires
using the hostssl
configuration in pg_hba.conf
. For more details, see the
pg_hba.conf
documentation.
SSL support depends on the following files:
- The public SSL certificate for the database (
server.crt
). - The corresponding private key for the SSL certificate (
server.key
). - A root certificate bundle that validates the server's certificate (
root.crt
). By default, Linux package installations use the embedded certificate bundle in/opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/cacert.pem
. This isn't required for self-signed certificates.
A 10-year self-signed certificate and private key are generated by a Linux package installation for use. If you'd prefer to use a CA-signed certificate or replace this with your own self-signed certificate, use the following steps.
Note that the location of these files can be configurable, but the private key
must be readable by the gitlab-psql
user. Linux package installations manage the permissions of
the files for you, but if the paths are customized, you must ensure that the
gitlab-psql
can access the directory in the files are placed in.
For more details, see the PostgreSQL documentation.
Note that server.crt
and server.key
may be different from the default SSL
certificates used to access GitLab. For example, suppose the external hostname
of your database is database.example.com
, and your external GitLab hostname
is gitlab.example.com
. You will either need a wildcard certificate for
*.example.com
or two different SSL certificates.
The ssl_cert_file
, ssl_key_file
, and ssl_ca_file
files direct PostgreSQL to where
on the filesystem to find the certificate, key, and bundle. These changes are applied to
postgresql.conf
. The directives internal_certificate
and internal_key
are used to
populate the contents of these files. The contents can be added directly or
loaded from file as shown in the following example.
After you have these files, enable SSL:
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
:postgresql['ssl_cert_file'] = '/custom/path/to/server.crt' postgresql['ssl_key_file'] = '/custom/path/to/server.key' postgresql['ssl_ca_file'] = '/custom/path/to/bundle.pem' postgresql['internal_certificate'] = File.read('/custom/path/to/server.crt') postgresql['internal_key'] = File.read('/custom/path/to/server.key')
Relative paths will be rooted in the PostgreSQL data directory (
/var/opt/gitlab/postgresql/data
by default). -
Reconfigure GitLab to apply the configuration changes.
-
Restart PostgreSQL for the changes to take effect:
gitlab-ctl restart postgresql
If PostgreSQL fails to start, check the logs (for example,
/var/log/gitlab/postgresql/current
) for more details.
Require SSL
-
Add the following to
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
:gitlab_rails['db_sslmode'] = 'require'
-
Reconfigure GitLab to apply the configuration changes.
-
Restart PostgreSQL for the changes to take effect:
gitlab-ctl restart postgresql
If PostgreSQL fails to start, check the logs (for example,
/var/log/gitlab/postgresql/current
) for more details.
Disabling SSL
-
Add the following to
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
:postgresql['ssl'] = 'off'
-
Reconfigure GitLab to apply the configuration changes.
-
Restart PostgreSQL for the changes to take effect:
gitlab-ctl restart postgresql
If PostgreSQL fails to start, check the logs (for example,
/var/log/gitlab/postgresql/current
) for more details.
Verifying that SSL is being used
To determine whether SSL is being used by clients, you can run:
sudo gitlab-rails dbconsole --database main
In GitLab 14.1 and earlier:
sudo gitlab-rails dbconsole
At startup, you should see a banner as the following:
psql (9.6.5)
SSL connection (protocol: TLSv1.2, cipher: ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384, bits: 256, compression: on)
Type "help" for help.
To determine if clients are using SSL, issue this SQL query:
SELECT * FROM pg_stat_ssl;
For example:
gitlabhq_production=> select * from pg_stat_ssl;
pid | ssl | version | cipher | bits | compression | clientdn
------+-----+---------+------------------------+------+-------------+------------
384 | f | | | | |
386 | f | | | | |
998 | t | TLSv1.3 | TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | 256 | f | /CN=gitlab
933 | f | | | | |
1003 | t | TLSv1.3 | TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | 256 | f | /CN=gitlab
1016 | t | TLSv1.3 | TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | 256 | f | /CN=gitlab
1022 | t | TLSv1.3 | TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | 256 | f | /CN=gitlab
1211 | t | TLSv1.3 | TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | 256 | f | /CN=gitlab
1214 | t | TLSv1.3 | TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | 256 | f | /CN=gitlab
1213 | t | TLSv1.3 | TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | 256 | f | /CN=gitlab
1215 | t | TLSv1.3 | TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | 256 | f | /CN=gitlab
1252 | t | TLSv1.3 | TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | 256 | f |
1280 | t | TLSv1.3 | TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 | 256 | f | /CN=gitlab
382 | f | | | | |
381 | f | | | | |
383 | f | | | | |
(16 rows)
- Rows that have
t
listed under thessl
column are enabled. - Rows that have a value in the
clientdn
are using thecert
authentication method
Configure SSL client authentication
Client SSL certificates can be used to authenticate to the database server. Creating the certificates
is beyond the scope of omnibus-gitlab
. But users who have an existing SSL certificate management solution
can use this.
Configure the database server
-
Create a certificate and key for the server, the common name should equal the DNS name of the server
-
Copy the server certificate, key, and CA file to the PostgreSQL server, and ensure the permissions are correct
- The certificate should be owned by the database user (default:
gitlab-psql
) - The key file should be owned by the database user, and its permissions should be
0400
- The CA file should be owned by the database user, and its permissions should be
0400
NOTE: Don't use the filenames
server.crt
orserver.key
for these files. These filenames are reserved for the internal use ofomnibus-gitlab
. - The certificate should be owned by the database user (default:
-
Ensure the following is set in
gitlab.rb
:postgresql['ssl_cert_file'] = 'PATH_TO_CERTIFICATE' postgresql['ssl_key_file'] = 'PATH_TO_KEY_FILE' postgresql['ssl_ca_file'] = 'PATH_TO_CA_FILE' postgresql['listen_address'] = 'IP_ADDRESS' postgresql['cert_auth_addresses'] = { 'IP_ADDRESS' => { 'database' => 'gitlabhq_production', 'user' => 'gitlab' }
Set
listen_address
as the IP address of the server that the clients will use to connect to the database. Ensurecert_auth_addresses
contains a list of IP addresses and the databases and users that are allowed to connect to the database. You can use CIDR notation when specifying the key forcert_auth_addresses
to incorporate an IP address range. -
Run
gitlab-ctl reconfigure
, and thengitlab-ctl restart postgresql
for the new settings to take effect.
Configure the Rails client
For the rails client to connect to the server, you will need a certificate and key with the commonName
set to gitlab
, which is signed by a certificate authority trusted in the CA file specified in ssl_ca_file
on the database server.
-
Configure
gitlab.rb
gitlab_rails['db_host'] = 'IP_ADDRESS_OR_HOSTNAME_OF_DATABASE_SERVER' gitlab_rails['db_sslcert'] = 'PATH_TO_CERTIFICATE_FILE' gitlab_rails['db_sslkey'] = 'PATH_TO_KEY_FILE' gitlab_rails['db_rootcert'] = 'PATH_TO_CA_FILE'
-
Run
gitlab-ctl reconfigure
for the rails client to use the new settings -
Follow the steps in Verifying that SSL is being used to ensure the authentication is working.
Configure packaged PostgreSQL server to listen on TCP/IP
The packaged PostgreSQL server can be configured to listen for TCP/IP connections, with the caveat that some non-critical scripts expect UNIX sockets and may misbehave.
To configure the use of TCP/IP for the database service, make changes to both
the postgresql
and gitlab_rails
sections of gitlab.rb
.
Configure PostgreSQL block
The following settings are affected in the postgresql
block:
-
listen_address
: Controls the address on which PostgreSQL will listen. -
port
: Controls the port on which PostgreSQL listens to. The default is5432
. -
md5_auth_cidr_addresses
: A list of CIDR address blocks that are allowed to connect to the server, after authentication with a password. -
trust_auth_cidr_addresses
: A list of CIDR address blocks that are allowed to connect to the server, without authentication of any kind. Be very careful with this setting. It's suggested that this be limited to the loopback address of127.0.0.1/24
or even127.0.0.1/32
. -
sql_user
: Controls the expected username for MD5 authentication. This defaults togitlab
, and isn't a required setting. -
sql_user_password
: Sets the password that PostgreSQL will accept for MD5 authentication. Replacesecuresqlpassword
in the following example with an acceptable password.
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
:postgresql['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0' postgresql['port'] = 5432 postgresql['md5_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w() postgresql['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(127.0.0.1/24) postgresql['sql_user'] = "gitlab" ##! SQL_USER_PASSWORD_HASH can be generated using the command `gitlab-ctl pg-password-md5 'gitlab'`, ##! where 'gitlab' (single-quoted to avoid shell interpolation) is the name of the SQL user that connects to GitLab. postgresql['sql_user_password'] = "SQL_USER_PASSWORD_HASH" # force ssl on all connections defined in trust_auth_cidr_addresses and md5_auth_cidr_addresses postgresql['hostssl'] = true
-
Reconfigure GitLab and restart PostrgreSQL:
sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure sudo gitlab-ctl restart postgresql
Any client or GitLab service which will connect over the network will need to
provide the values of sql_user
for the username, and password provided to the
configuration when connecting to the PostgreSQL server. They must also be in the
network block provided to md5_auth_cidr_addresses
Configure GitLab Rails block
To configure the gitlab-rails
application to connect to the PostgreSQL database
over the network, several settings must be configured:
-
db_host
: Needs to be set to the IP address of the database server. If this is on the same instance as the PostgreSQL service, this can be127.0.0.1
and will not require password authentication. -
db_port
: Sets the port on the PostgreSQL server to connect to, and must be set ifdb_host
is set. -
db_username
: Configures the username with which to connect to PostgreSQL. This defaults togitlab
. -
db_password
: Must be provided if connecting to PostgreSQL over TCP/IP, and from an instance in thepostgresql['md5_auth_cidr_addresses']
block from settings above. This is not required if you are connecting to127.0.0.1
and have configuredpostgresql['trust_auth_cidr_addresses']
to include it.
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
:gitlab_rails['db_host'] = '127.0.0.1' gitlab_rails['db_port'] = 5432 gitlab_rails['db_username'] = "gitlab" gitlab_rails['db_password'] = "securesqlpassword"
-
Reconfigure GitLab and restart PostrgreSQL:
sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure sudo gitlab-ctl restart postgresql
Apply and restart services
After making the previous changes, an administrator should run gitlab-ctl reconfigure
.
If you experience any issues in regards to the service not listening on TCP, try
directly restarting the service with gitlab-ctl restart postgresql
.
Some included scripts of the Linux package (such as gitlab-psql
) expect the
connections to PostgreSQL to be handled over the UNIX socket, and may not function
properly. You can enable TCP/IP without disabling UNIX sockets.
Enabling PostgreSQL WAL (Write Ahead Log) Archiving
By default, WAL archiving of the packaged PostgreSQL isn't enabled. Consider the following when seeking to enable WAL archiving:
- The WAL level needs to be 'replica' or higher (9.6+ options are
minimal
,replica
, orlogical
) - Increasing the WAL level will increase the amount of storage consumed in regular operations
To enable WAL Archiving:
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
:# Replication settings postgresql['sql_replication_user'] = "gitlab_replicator" postgresql['wal_level'] = "replica" ... ... # Backup/Archive settings postgresql['archive_mode'] = "on" postgresql['archive_command'] = "/your/wal/archiver/here" postgresql['archive_timeout'] = "60"
-
Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect. This will result in a database restart.
Store PostgreSQL data in a different directory
By default, everything is stored under /var/opt/gitlab/postgresql
, controlled
by the postgresql['dir']
attribute.
This consists of:
- The database socket will be
/var/opt/gitlab/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432
. This is controlled bypostgresql['unix_socket_directory']
. - The
gitlab-psql
system user will have itsHOME
directory set to this. This is controlled bypostgresql['home']
. - The actual data will be stored in
/var/opt/gitlab/postgresql/data
.
To change the location of the PostgreSQL data
WARNING: If you have an existing database, you need to move the data to the new location first.
WARNING: This is an intrusive operation. It cannot be done without downtime on an existing installation
- If this is an existing installation, stop GitLab:
gitlab-ctl stop
. - Update
postgresql['dir']
to the desired location. - Run
gitlab-ctl reconfigure
. - Start GitLab
gitlab-ctl start
.
Upgrade packaged PostgreSQL server
The Linux package provides the gitlab-ctl pg-upgrade
command to update the
packaged PostgreSQL server to a later version (if one is included in the
package). This updates PostgreSQL to the default shipped version
during package upgrades, unless specifically opted out.
Before upgrading GitLab to a newer version, refer to the version-specific changes of the Linux package to see either:
- When a database version has changed.
- When an upgrade is warranted.
WARNING: Before upgrading, it's important that you fully read this section before running any commands. For single-node installations, this upgrade needs downtime, as the database must be down while the upgrade is being performed. The length of time depends on the size of your database.
NOTE:
If you encounter any problems during the upgrade, raise an issue with a full
description at the omnibus-gitlab
issue tracker.
To upgrade the PostgreSQL version, be sure that:
-
You're running the latest version of GitLab that supports your current version of PostgreSQL.
-
If you recently upgraded, you ran
sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure
successfully before you proceed. -
You have sufficient disk space for two copies of your database. Do not attempt to upgrade unless you have enough free space available.
- Check your database size using
sudo du -sh /var/opt/gitlab/postgresql/data
(or update your database path). - Check the space available using
sudo df -h
. If the partition where the database resides doesn't have enough space, pass the argument--tmp-dir $DIR
to the command. GitLab 13.3 and above include an available disk space check and aborts the upgrade if the requirements aren't met.
- Check your database size using
After you confirm that the above checklist is satisfied, you can proceed with the upgrade:
sudo gitlab-ctl pg-upgrade
To upgrade to a specific PostgreSQL version, use the -V
flag to append the
version. For example, to upgrade to PostgreSQL 14:
sudo gitlab-ctl pg-upgrade -V 14
NOTE:
pg-upgrade
can take arguments; for example, you can set the timeout for the
execution of the underlying commands (--timeout=1d2h3m4s5ms
). Run gitlab-ctl pg-upgrade -h
to see the full list.
gitlab-ctl pg-upgrade
performs the following steps:
- Checks to ensure the database is in a known good state.
- Checks if there's enough free disk space and abort otherwise. You can skip this by appending the
--skip-disk-check
flag. - Shuts down the existing database and any unnecessary services, and enables GitLab to deploy page.
- Changes the symlinks in
/opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/
for PostgreSQL to point to the newer version of the database. - Creates a new directory containing a new, empty database with a locale matching the existing database.
- Uses the
pg_upgrade
tool to copy the data from the old database to the new database. - Moves the old database out of the way.
- Moves the new database to the expected location.
- Calls
sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure
to do the required configuration changes and starts the new database server. - Runs
ANALYZE
to generate database statistics. - Starts the remaining services and removes the deploy page.
- If any errors are detected during this process, it reverts to the old version of the database.
After the upgrade is complete, verify that everything is working as expected.
If there was an error in the output while running the ANALYZE
step, your upgrade
will still be working but will have poor database performance until the
database statistics are generated. Use gitlab-psql
to determine whether ANALYZE
should be run manually:
sudo gitlab-psql -c "SELECT relname, last_analyze, last_autoanalyze FROM pg_stat_user_tables WHERE last_analyze IS NULL AND last_autoanalyze IS NULL;"
You can run ANALYZE
manually if the query above returned any rows:
sudo gitlab-psql -c 'SET statement_timeout = 0; ANALYZE VERBOSE;'
After you have verified that your GitLab instance is running correctly, you can clean up the old database files:
sudo rm -rf /var/opt/gitlab/postgresql/data.<old_version>
sudo rm -f /var/opt/gitlab/postgresql-version.old
You can find details of PostgreSQL versions shipped with various GitLab versions in PostgreSQL versions shipped with the Linux package.
Opt out of automatic PostgreSQL upgrades
To opt out of automatic PostgreSQL upgrades during GitLab package upgrades, run:
sudo touch /etc/gitlab/disable-postgresql-upgrade
Revert packaged PostgreSQL server to the previous version
WARNING: This operation will revert your current database, including its data, to its state before your last upgrade. Be sure to create a backup before attempting to downgrade your packaged PostgreSQL database.
On GitLab versions which ship multiple PostgreSQL versions, users can downgrade
an already upgraded PostgreSQL version to the earlier version using the gitlab-ctl revert-pg-upgrade
command. This command also supports the -V
flag to specify
a target version for scenarios where more than two PostgreSQL versions are shipped in
the package (for example: GitLab 12.8 where PostgreSQL 9.6.x, 10.x, and 11.x are
shipped).
To specify a target PostgreSQL version of 12:
gitlab-ctl revert-pg-upgrade -V 12
If the target version is not specified, it will use the version in /var/opt/gitlab/postgresql-version.old
if available. Otherwise, it falls back to the default version shipped with GitLab.
On other GitLab versions that ship only one PostgreSQL version, you can't downgrade your PostgreSQL version. You must downgrade GitLab to an older version for this.
Configuring multiple database connections
The
gitlab:db:decomposition:connection_status
Rake task was introduced in GitLab 15.11.
In GitLab 16.0, GitLab defaults to using two database connections that point to the same PostgreSQL database.
Before upgrading to GitLab 16.0, check that the PostgreSQL max_connections
setting is high enough so that more than 50% of available connections show as being unused.
For example, if max_connections
is set to 100 and you see 75 connections in use, you must increase max_connections
to at least 150 before upgrading because after
upgrading, the in-use connections will double to 150.
You can verify this by running the following Rake task:
sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:db:decomposition:connection_status
If the task indicates that max_connections
is high enough, then you can proceed with the upgrade.
If, for any reason, you wish to remain on single connection, and you are upgrading
from GitLab 15.11 or earlier to GitLab 16.0, or switch back to single database connection
update this setting in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
:
gitlab_rails['databases']['ci']['enable'] = false
In a multi-node environment, this setting should be updated on all Rails and Sidekiq nodes.
Using a non-packaged PostgreSQL database management server
By default, GitLab is configured to use the PostgreSQL server that's included in the Linux package. You can also reconfigure it to use an external instance of PostgreSQL.
WARNING: If you are using a non-packaged PostgreSQL server, you need to make sure that PostgreSQL is set up according to the database requirements document.
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
:# Disable the built-in Postgres postgresql['enable'] = false # Fill in the connection details for database.yml gitlab_rails['db_adapter'] = 'postgresql' gitlab_rails['db_encoding'] = 'utf8' gitlab_rails['db_host'] = '127.0.0.1' gitlab_rails['db_port'] = 5432 gitlab_rails['db_username'] = 'USERNAME' gitlab_rails['db_password'] = 'PASSWORD'
Don't forget to remove the
#
comment characters at the beginning of these lines.Note that:
-
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
should have file permissions0600
because it contains plain-text passwords. -
PostgreSQL allows listening on multiple addresses
If you use multiple addresses in
gitlab_rails['db_host']
, comma-separated, the first address in the list will be used for the connection.
-
-
Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
UNIX socket configuration for non-packaged PostgreSQL
If you want to use your system's PostgreSQL server (installed on the same system as GitLab) instead of the one bundled with GitLab, you can do so by using a UNIX socket:
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
:# Disable the built-in Postgres postgresql['enable'] = false # Fill in the connection details for database.yml gitlab_rails['db_adapter'] = 'postgresql' gitlab_rails['db_encoding'] = 'utf8' # The path where the socket lives gitlab_rails['db_host'] = '/var/run/postgresql/'
-
Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect:
sudo gitlab-ctl-reconfigure