Restoring a GitLab installation

To obtain a backup tarball of an existing GitLab instance that used other installation methods like an Omnibus GitLab package or Omnibus GitLab Helm chart, follow the instructions given in documentation

Note: If you are restoring a backup taken from another instance, you must migrate your existing instance to using object storage before taking the backup. See issue 646

It is recommended that you restore a backup to the same version of GitLab on which it was created.

GitLab backup restores are taken by running the backup-utility command on the task-runner pod provided in the chart.

Before running the restore for the first time, you should ensure the task-runner is properly configured for access to object storage

The backup utility provided by GitLab Helm chart supports restoring a tarball from any of the following locations

  1. The gitlab-backups bucket in the object storage service associated to the instance. This is the default scenario.
  2. A public URL that can be accessed from the pod.
  3. A local file that you can copy to the task-runner pod using kubectl cp

Restoring the secrets

Restore the rails secrets

The GitLab chart expects rails secrets to be provided as a Kubernetes Secret with content in YAML. Create a local file with the following content: 

production:
  db_key_base: <your key base value>
  secret_key_base: <your secret key base value>
  otp_key_base: <your otp key base value>
  openid_connect_signing_key: <your openid signing key>
  ci_jwt_signing_key: <your ci jwt signing key>

The values should be replaced with matching values from your backup instances rails secrets. For omnibus install they were found in the /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json file, and for other install types you should have a secrets.yml file that contains them.

Once you have the secrets created as a local YAML file:

  1. Find the object name for the rails secrets 

    kubectl get secrets | grep rails-secret

  2. Delete the existing secret 

    kubectl delete secret <rails-secret-name>

  3. Create the new secret using the same name as the old, and passing in your local YAML file 

    kubectl create secret generic <rails-secret-name> --from-file=secrets.yml=<local-yaml-filepath>

Restart the pods

In order to use the new secrets, the webservice, sidekiq and task-runner pods need to be restarted. The safest way to restart those pods is to run: 

kubectl delete pods -lapp=sidekiq,release=<helm release name>
kubectl delete pods -lapp=webservice,release=<helm release name>
kubectl delete pods -lapp=task-runner,release=<helm release name>

Restoring the backup file

The steps for restoring a GitLab installation are

  1. Make sure you have a running GitLab instance by deploying the charts. Ensure the task-runner pod is enabled and running by executing the following command 

    kubectl get pods -lrelease=RELEASE_NAME,app=task-runner
  2. Get the tarball ready in any of the above locations. Make sure it is named in the <timestamp>_<version>_gitlab_backup.tar format.

  3. Run the backup utility to restore the tarball 

    kubectl exec <task-runner pod name> -it -- backup-utility --restore -t <timestamp>_<version>

    Here, <timestamp>_<version> is from the name of the tarball stored in gitlab-backups bucket. In case you want to provide a public URL, use the following command 

    kubectl exec <task-runner pod name> -it -- backup-utility --restore -f <URL>

    You can provide a local path as a URL as long as it’s in the format: file://<path>

  4. This process will take time depending on the size of the tarball.
  5. The restoration process will erase the existing contents of database, move existing repositories to temporary locations and extract the contents of the tarball. Repositories will be moved to their corresponding locations on the disk and other data, like artifacts, uploads, LFS etc. will be uploaded to corresponding buckets in Object Storage.

During restoration, the backup tarball needs to be extracted to disk. This means the task-runner pod should have disk of necessary size available.

Restore the runner registration token

After restoring, the included runner will not be able to register to the instance because it no longer has the correct registration token. Follow these troubleshooting steps to get it updated.

If the restored backup was not from an existing installation of the chart, you will also need to enable some Kubernetes specific features after the restore. Such as incremental CI job logging.

  1. Find your task-runner pod by executing the following command 

    kubectl get pods -lrelease=RELEASE_NAME,app=task-runner

  2. Run the instance setup script to enable the necessary features 

  kubectl exec <task-runner pod name> -it -- /scripts/custom-instance-setup

Restart the pods

In order to use the new changes, the webservice and sidekiq pods need to be restarted. The safest way to restart those pods is to run: 

kubectl delete pods -lapp=sidekiq,release=<helm release name>
kubectl delete pods -lapp=webservice,release=<helm release name>

(Optional) Reset the root user’s password

The restoration process does not update the gitlab-initial-root-password secret with the value from backup. For logging in as root, use the original password included in the backup. In the case that the password is no longer accessible, follow the steps below to reset it.

  1. Attach to the webservice pod by executing the command 

    kubectl exec <webservice pod name> -it bash

  2. Run the following command to reset the password of root user. Replace #{password} with a password of your choice 

    /srv/gitlab/bin/rails runner "user = User.first; user.password='#{password}'; user.password_confirmation='#{password}'; user.save!"

Additional Information