# HG changeset patch
# User Harsh Chouraria <hchouraria@gitlab.com>
# Date 1634875327 0
#      Fri Oct 22 04:02:07 2021 +0000
# Node ID b7c26bfde2772654a62e21d60693df05b15e77e0
# Parent  1324185799582d8ae50eb7339be90f9cc99729e9
Clarify disabling DB migrations

diff --git a/doc/settings/database.md b/doc/settings/database.md
--- a/doc/settings/database.md
+++ b/doc/settings/database.md
@@ -948,20 +948,20 @@
 If you have multiple GitLab servers sharing a database, you will want to limit the
 number of nodes that are performing the migration steps during reconfiguration.
 
-Edit `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb`:
+Edit `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` to append:
 
 ```ruby
 # Enable or disable automatic database migrations
+# on all hosts except the designated deploy node
 gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
 ```
 
-Don't forget to remove the `#` comment characters at the beginning of this
-line.
-
 `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` should have file permissions `0600` because it contains
 plain-text passwords.
 
-The next time a reconfigure is triggered, the migration steps will not be performed.
+The next time hosts carrying the above configuration are reconfigured, the migration steps are not performed.
+
+To avoid schema related post-upgrade errors, the host marked as [the deploy node](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/update/zero_downtime.html#multi-node--ha-deployment) must have `gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = true` during upgrades.
 
 ### Setting client statement_timeout