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Migrate GitLab CI to GitLab CE or EE

Beginning with version 8.0 of GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE), GitLab CI is no longer its own application, but is instead built into the CE and EE applications.

This guide will detail the process of migrating your CI installation and data into your GitLab CE or EE installation.

Before we begin

You need to have a working installation of GitLab CI version 8.0 to perform this migration. The older versions are not supported and will most likely break this migration procedure.

This migration cannot be performed online and takes a significant amount of time. Make sure to plan ahead.

If you are running a version of GitLab CI prior to 8.0 please follow the appropriate update guide before proceeding.

The migration is divided into four parts and covers both manual and Omnibus installations:

  1. GitLab CI
  2. Gitlab CE (or EE)
  3. Nginx configuration
  4. Finishing Up

Part I: GitLab CI

1. Stop GitLab CI

# Manual installation
sudo service gitlab_ci stop

# Omnibus installation
sudo gitlab-ctl stop ci-unicorn ci-sidekiq

2. Create a backup

The migration procedure modifies the structure of the CI database. If something goes wrong, you will not be able to revert to a previous version without a backup.

If your GitLab CI installation uses MySQL and your GitLab CE (or EE) installation uses PostgreSQL you'll need to convert the CI database by setting a MYSQL_TO_POSTGRESQL flag.

If you use the Omnibus package you most likely use PostgreSQL on both GitLab CE (or EE) and CI.

You can check which database each install is using by viewing their database configuration files:

cat /home/gitlab_ci/gitlab-ci/config/database.yml
cat /home/git/gitlab/config/database.yml

  • If both applications use the same database adapter, create the backup with this command:

    # Manual installation
cd /home/gitlab_ci/gitlab-ci
sudo -u gitlab_ci -H bundle exec rake backup:create RAILS_ENV=production

# Omnibus installation
sudo gitlab-ci-rake backup:create

  • If CI uses MySQL, and CE (or EE) uses PostgreSQL, create the backup with this command (note the MYSQL_TO_POSTGRESQL flag):

    # Manual installation
cd /home/gitlab_ci/gitlab-ci
sudo -u gitlab_ci -H bundle exec rake backup:create RAILS_ENV=production MYSQL_TO_POSTGRESQL=1

# Omnibus installation
sudo gitlab-ci-rake backup:create MYSQL_TO_POSTGRESQL=1

3. Remove cronjob

Note: This step is only required for manual installations. Omnibus users can skip to the next step.

# Manual installation
cd /home/gitlab_ci/gitlab-ci
sudo -u gitlab_ci -H bundle exec whenever --clear-crontab

Part II: GitLab CE (or EE)

1. Ensure GitLab is updated

Your GitLab CE or EE installation must be version 8.0. If it's not, follow the update guide before proceeding.

If you use the Omnibus packages simply run apt-get upgrade to install the latest version.

2. Prevent CI usage during the migration process

As an administrator, go to Admin Area -> Settings, and under Continuous Integration uncheck Disable to prevent CI usage until rake ci:migrate is run (8.0 only).

This will disable the CI integration and prevent users from creating CI projects until the migration process is completed.

3. Stop GitLab

Before you can migrate data you need to stop the GitLab service first:

# Manual installation
sudo service gitlab stop

# Omnibus installation
sudo gitlab-ctl stop unicorn sidekiq

4. Create a backup

This migration poses a significant risk of breaking your GitLab installation. Create a backup before proceeding:

# Manual installation
cd /home/git/gitlab
sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:backup:create RAILS_ENV=production

# Omnibus installation
sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:backup:create

It's possible to speed up backup creation by skipping repositories and uploads:

# Manual installation
cd /home/git/gitlab
sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:backup:create RAILS_ENV=production SKIP=repositories,uploads

# Omnibus installation
sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:backup:create SKIP=repositories,uploads

5. Copy secret tokens from CI

The secrets.yml file stores encryption keys for secure variables.

  • Manual installations need to copy the contents of GitLab CI's config/secrets.yml file to the same file in GitLab CE:

    # Manual installation
sudo cp /home/gitlab_ci/gitlab-ci/config/secrets.yml /home/git/gitlab/config/secrets.yml
sudo chown git:git /home/git/gitlab/config/secrets.yml
sudo chown 0600 /home/git/gitlab/config/secrets.yml

  • Omnibus installations where GitLab CI and CE (or EE) are on the same server don't need to do anything further, because the secrets are stored in /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json.

  • Omnibus installations where GitLab CI is on a different server than CE (or EE) will need to:

    1. On the CI server, copy the db_key_base value from /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json
    2. On the CE (or EE) server, add gitlab_ci['db_key_base'] = "VALUE_FROM_ABOVE" to the /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb file and run sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

6. New configuration options for gitlab.yml

Note: This step is only required for manual installations. Omnibus users can skip to the next step.

There are new configuration options available for gitlab.yml. View them with the command below and apply them manually to your current gitlab.yml:

git diff origin/7-14-stable:config/gitlab.yml.example origin/8-0-stable:config/gitlab.yml.example

The new options include configuration settings for GitLab CI.

7. Copy backup from GitLab CI

# Manual installation
sudo cp -v /home/gitlab_ci/gitlab-ci/tmp/backups/*_gitlab_ci_backup.tar /home/git/gitlab/tmp/backups
sudo chown git:git /home/git/gitlab/tmp/backups/*_gitlab_ci_backup.tar

# Omnibus installation
sudo cp -v /var/opt/gitlab/ci-backups/*_gitlab_ci_backup.tar /var/opt/gitlab/backups/
sudo chown git:git /var/opt/gitlab/backups/*_gitlab_ci_backup.tar

If moving across the servers you can use scp. However, this requires you to provide an authorized key or password to login to the GitLab CE (or EE) server from the CI server. You can try to use ssh-agent from your local machine to have that: login to your GitLab CI server using ssh -A.

# Manual installation
scp /home/gitlab_ci/gitlab-ci/tmp/backups/*_gitlab_ci_backup.tar root@gitlab.example.com:/home/git/gitlab/tmp/backup

# Omnibus installation
scp /var/opt/gitlab/ci-backups/*_gitlab_ci_backup.tar root@gitlab.example.com:/var/opt/gitlab/backups/

8. Import GitLab CI backup

Now you'll import the GitLab CI database dump that you created earlier into the GitLab CE or EE database:

# Manual installation
sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake ci:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

# Omnibus installation
sudo gitlab-rake ci:migrate

This task will take some time.

This migration task automatically re-enables the CI setting that you disabled earlier.

9. Start GitLab

You can start GitLab CE (or EE) now and see if everything is working:

# Manual installation
sudo service gitlab start

# Omnibus installation
sudo gitlab-ctl restart unicorn sidekiq

Part III: Nginx configuration

This section is only required for manual installations. Omnibus users can skip to the final step.

1. Update Nginx configuration

To ensure that your existing CI runners are able to communicate with the migrated installation, and that existing build triggers still work, you'll need to update your Nginx configuration to redirect requests for the old locations to the new ones.

Edit /etc/nginx/sites-available/gitlab_ci and paste:

# GITLAB CI
server {
  listen 80 default_server;         # e.g., listen 192.168.1.1:80;
  server_name YOUR_CI_SERVER_FQDN;  # e.g., server_name source.example.com;

  access_log  /var/log/nginx/gitlab_ci_access.log;
  error_log   /var/log/nginx/gitlab_ci_error.log;

  # expose API to fix runners
  location /api {
    proxy_read_timeout    300;
    proxy_connect_timeout 300;
    proxy_redirect        off;
    proxy_set_header      X-Real-IP $remote_addr;

    # You need to specify your DNS servers that are able to resolve YOUR_GITLAB_SERVER_FQDN
    resolver 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4;
    proxy_pass $scheme://YOUR_GITLAB_SERVER_FQDN/ci$request_uri;
  }

  # redirect all other CI requests
  location / {
    return 301 $scheme://YOUR_GITLAB_SERVER_FQDN/ci$request_uri;
  }

  # adjust this to match the largest build log your runners might submit,
  # set to 0 to disable limit
  client_max_body_size 10m;
}

Make sure you substitute these placeholder values with your real ones:

  1. YOUR_CI_SERVER_FQDN: The existing public-facing address of your GitLab CI install (e.g., ci.gitlab.com).
  2. YOUR_GITLAB_SERVER_FQDN: The current public-facing address of your GitLab CE (or EE) install (e.g., gitlab.com).

Make sure not to remove the /ci$request_uri part. This is required to properly forward the requests.

You should also make sure that you can:

  1. curl https://YOUR_GITLAB_SERVER_FQDN/ from your previous GitLab CI server.
  2. curl https://YOUR_CI_SERVER_FQDN/ from your GitLab CE (or EE) server.

2. Check Nginx configuration

sudo nginx -t

3. Restart Nginx

sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Part IV: Finishing Up

If everything went well you should be able to access your migrated CI install by visiting https://gitlab.example.com/ci/. If you visit the old GitLab CI address, you should be redirected to the new one.

Enjoy!

Troubleshooting

Restore from backup

If something went wrong and you need to restore a backup, consult the Backup restoration guide.