Housekeeping on gitlab and practical examples using gitlab-ctl

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In this section we will see some important housekeeping tasks while maintaining gitlab server.

We will list out some of the important configuration services present in gitlab and best housekeeping tips.
The important configuration file for gitlab is: /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-rails/config/gitlab.yml
Once the changes are made to this file it should be followed up running the reconfigure to apply the changes.
The chef server reads the config files and then updates the system wide configuration resources.

Reconfiguring the gitlab

[vamshi@gitlab ~]$ sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

This command reloads the configuration from the configuration files and also migrated if any changes regiuired to the Postgresql database.

View all the current logs run the gitlab-ctl tail command.

[vamshi@node01 ~]$ sudo gitlab-ctl tail
==> /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-shell/gitlab-shell.log <==

==> /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/sidekiq.log <==
2020-04-o2_13:30:24.29475 2020-04-02T13:30:24.293Z 8872 TID-or0k2ve5w PagesDomainVerificationCronWorker JID-e46ed1d452563ca9b7d4adca INFO: done: 0.357 sec
-- OUTPUT TRUNCATED --

This in one of the first command you need when troubleshooting your gitlab server..
This prints the logs from various components present in gitlab and you as an administrator will be able to effectively identify the issues.
To start the interactive ruby console and debug mostly used for Database interaction operations, it takes -e as argument and takes you to the production environment. -s takes you to the sandbox environment.

gitlab-rails console <-e|-s> [environment]

For example we can get the complete gitlab information using the following gitlab:env:info:

[vamshi@gitlab ~]$ sudo gitlab-rails gitlab:env:info
[sudo] password for vamshi:

System information
System: 
Proxy: no
Current User: git
Using RVM: no
Ruby Version: 2.5.3p105
Gem Version: 2.7.6
Bundler Version:1.17.3
Rake Version: 12.3.2
Redis Version: 3.2.12
Git Version: 2.18.1
GitLab information
Version: 11.10.4-ee
Revision: 88a3c791734

GitLab Shell
Version: 9.0.0

-- OUTPUT TRUNCATED --

Some more important commands for gitlab Houseeping:

[vamshi@gitlab ~]$ sudo gitlab-rails gitlab:check
[sudo] password for vamshi:
Checking GitLab subtasks ...

Checking GitLab Shell ...

-- OUTPUT TRUNCATED --

How to restart the gitlab serer from command line ?

[vamshi@gitlab ~]$ sudo gitlab-rails restart

How to clear the gitlab logs by truncating them to Zero bytes?

[vamshi@gitlab ~]$ sudo gitlab-rails log:clear

How To print the high level stats of gitlab server?

[vamshi@gitlab ~]$ sudo gitlab-rails stats

What is GitLab housekeeping?

GitLab supports and automates housekeeping tasks within your current repository such as: Compressing Git objects. Removing unreachable objects.

What is GitLab housekeeping?

How do I clean up GitLab repository?

  • To clean up a repository:
  • Go to the project for the repository.
  • Navigate to Settings > Repository.
  • Upload a list of objects. For example, a commit-map file created by git filter-repo which is located in the filter-
  • repo directory. …
  • Click Start cleanup.

What is Git repack?

DESCRIPTION. This command is used to combine all objects that do not currently reside in a “pack”, into a pack. It can also be used to re-organize existing packs into a single, more efficient pack.

What does Git prune do?

The git prune command is an internal housekeeping utility that cleans up unreachable or “orphaned” Git objects. Unreachable objects are those that are inaccessible by any refs. Any commit that cannot be accessed through a branch or tag is considered unreachable.

How do I know if GitLab is running?

When a user goes to your GitLab URL, they will be shown an arbitrary Deploy in progress page. To remove the page, you simply run sudo gitlab-ctl deploy-page down . You can also check the status of the deploy page with sudo gitlab-ctl deploy-page status.

How do I maintain a Git repository?

Manually reviewing large files in your repository

  • Download the script to your local system.
  • Put it in a well known location accessible to your Git repository.
  • Make the script an executable: …
  • Clone the repository to your local system.
  • Change directory to your repository root.
  • Run the Git garbage collector manually.

How do I purge Gitlab?

uninstall Gitlab:

  1. Stop the gitlab service. Command : sudo gitlab-ctl stop.
  2. Start commonde of service facility. command : sudo gitlab-ctl uninstall.
  3. Delete the package of gitlab. command : Locat gitlab.
  4. restart machine.

How do I empty a Gitlab project?

Delete a project

  1. On the top bar, select Menu > Projects and find your project.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Settings > General.
  3. Expand Advanced.
  4. In the “Delete project” section, select Delete project.
  5. Confirm the action when asked to.

Are git repos compressed?

Thirdly, Git stores its data as compressed objects, whereas SVN stores them as uncompressed copies. Go into any . svn/text-base directory, and you’ll find uncompressed copies of the (base) files.

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