Environment variables

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GitLab exposes certain environment variables which can be used to override their defaults values.

People usually configure GitLab with:

  • /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb for Linux package installations.
  • gitlab.yml for self-compiled installations.

You can use the following environment variables to override certain values:

Supported environment variables

Variable Type Description
DATABASE_URL string The database URL; is of the form: postgresql://localhost/blog_development.
ENABLE_BOOTSNAP string Toggles Bootsnap for speeding up initial Rails boot. Enabled by default for non-production environments. Set to 0 to disable.
EXTERNAL_URL string Specify the external URL at the time of installation.
EXTERNAL_VALIDATION_SERVICE_TIMEOUT integer Timeout, in seconds, for an external CI/CD pipeline validation service. Default is 5.
EXTERNAL_VALIDATION_SERVICE_URL string URL to an external CI/CD pipeline validation service.
EXTERNAL_VALIDATION_SERVICE_TOKEN string The X-Gitlab-Token for authentication with an external CI/CD pipeline validation service.
GITLAB_CDN_HOST string Sets the base URL for a CDN to serve static assets (for example, https://mycdnsubdomain.fictional-cdn.com).
GITLAB_EMAIL_DISPLAY_NAME string The name used in the From field in emails sent by GitLab.
GITLAB_EMAIL_FROM string The email address used in the From field in emails sent by GitLab.
GITLAB_EMAIL_REPLY_TO string The email address used in the Reply-To field in emails sent by GitLab.
GITLAB_EMAIL_SUBJECT_SUFFIX string The email subject suffix used in emails sent by GitLab.
GITLAB_HOST string The full URL of the GitLab server (including http:// or https://).
GITLAB_MARKUP_TIMEOUT string Timeout, in seconds, for rest2html and pod2html commands executed by the gitlab-markup gem. Default is 10.
GITLAB_ROOT_PASSWORD string Sets the password for the root user on installation.
GITLAB_SHARED_RUNNERS_REGISTRATION_TOKEN string Sets the initial registration token used for runners. Deprecated in GitLab 16.11.
RAILS_ENV string The Rails environment; can be one of production, development, staging, or test.
GITLAB_RAILS_CACHE_DEFAULT_TTL_SECONDS integer The default TTL used for entries stored in the Rails-cache. Default is 28800. Introduced in 15.3.
GITLAB_CI_CONFIG_FETCH_TIMEOUT_SECONDS integer Timeout for resolving remote includes in CI config in seconds. Must be between 0 and 60. Default is 30. Introduced in 15.11.
GITLAB_DISABLE_TOKEN_EXPIRATION_BANNER string If set to true, 1, or yes, the token expiration banner is not shown. Default is false.
GITLAB_DISABLE_MARKDOWN_TIMEOUT string If set to true, 1, or yes, Markdown rendering on the backend does not time out. Default is false. Introduced in 17.4.
GITLAB_LFS_MAX_OID_TO_FETCH integer Sets the maximum number of LFS objects to link. Default is 100,000.
SIDEKIQ_SEMI_RELIABLE_FETCH_TIMEOUT integer Sets the timeout for Sidekiq semi-reliable fetch. Default is 5. Before GitLab 16.7, default was 3. If you experience high Redis CPU consumption on GitLab 16.6 and earlier, or if you have customized this variable, you should update this variable to 5.

Adding more variables

We welcome merge requests to make more settings configurable by using variables. Make changes to the config/initializers/1_settings.rb file, and use the naming scheme GITLAB_#{name in 1_settings.rb in upper case}.

Linux package installation configuration

To set environment variables, follow these instructions.

It’s possible to preconfigure the GitLab Docker image by adding the environment variable GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG to the docker run command. For more information, see Pre-configure Docker container.