ClickHouse database

The GitLab chart can be configured to set up GitLab with an external ClickHouse database via the HTTP interface. Required parameters:

Parameter	Description
`global.clickhouse.main.url`	URL for the database
`global.clickhouse.main.username`	Database Username
`global.clickhouse.main.password.secret`	Name of the configured secret
`global.clickhouse.main.password.key`	Which key to use as the password within the secret
`global.clickhouse.main.database`	Database name

Using ClickHouse is intended for experimenting and testing purposes only at the moment.

Configuring the password

The password can be set manually using the kubectl CLI tool:

kubectl create secret generic gitlab-clickhouse-password --from-literal="main_password=PASSWORD_HERE"

Starting a chart with ClickHouse

You can fill in the details related to the ClickHouse server in the examples/kind/enable-clickhouse.yaml file.

Start the chart:

helm upgrade --install gitlab . \
  --timeout 600s \
  --set global.image.pullPolicy=Always \
  --set global.hosts.domain=YOUR_IP.nip.io \
  --set global.hosts.externalIP=YOUR_IP \
  -f examples/kind/values-base.yaml \
  -f examples/kind/values-no-ssl.yaml \
  -f examples/clickhouse/enable-clickhouse.yaml

ClickHouse setup

ClickHouse must be set up as per the guide provided in Run and configure ClickHouse.

The GitLab Helm chart will not perform the initial setup steps required to start using ClickHouse such as creating databases or creating a user with the appropriate permissions.

ClickHouse migrations

Database migrations for ClickHouse are executed using the GitLab-Migrations chart

The Webservice and Sidekiq charts create Deployments with an initContainer called dependencies. When ClickHouse is enabled for an installation, the dependencies initContainer fails if:

ClickHouse is not available.
Some database migrations have not been executed yet.

The behavior of this container can be controlled using these environment variables:

BYPASS_POST_DEPLOYMENT=true: The dependencies check passes if all regular migrations have been executed and only post-deployment migrations are pending.
BYPASS_CLICKHOUSE_SCHEMA_VERSION=true (not recommended): The dependencies check passes even if regular migrations for ClickHouse have not been executed.

Add these environment variables to the extraEnv configuration of the Webservice and Sidekiq charts.