Log system

GitLab has an advanced log system where everything is logged, so you can analyze your instance using various system log files. In addition to system log files, GitLab Enterprise Edition provides Audit Events.

System log files are typically plain text in a standard log file format. This guide talks about how to read and use these system log files.

Read more about the log system and using the logs:

Log Rotation

The logs for a given service may be managed and rotated by:

  • logrotate
  • svlogd (runit’s service logging daemon)
  • logrotate and svlogd
  • Or not at all

The following table includes information about what’s responsible for managing and rotating logs for the included services. Logs managed by svlogd are written to a file called current. The logrotate service built into GitLab manages all logs except those captured by runit.

Log type Managed by logrotate Managed by svlogd/runit
Alertmanager Logs No Yes
Crond Logs No Yes
Gitaly Yes Yes
GitLab Exporter for Omnibus No Yes
GitLab Pages Logs Yes Yes
GitLab Rails Yes No
GitLab Shell Logs Yes No
Grafana Logs No Yes
LogRotate Logs No Yes
Mailroom Yes Yes
NGINX Yes Yes
PostgreSQL Logs No Yes
Prometheus Logs No Yes
Puma Yes Yes
Redis Logs No Yes
Registry Logs No Yes
Workhorse Logs Yes Yes

production_json.log

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/production_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/production_json.log

When GitLab is running in an environment other than production, the corresponding log file is shown here.

It contains a structured log for Rails controller requests received from GitLab, thanks to Lograge. Requests from the API are logged to a separate file in api_json.log.

Each line contains JSON that can be ingested by services like Elasticsearch and Splunk. Line breaks were added to examples for legibility: 

{
  "method":"GET",
  "path":"/gitlab/gitlab-foss/issues/1234",
  "format":"html",
  "controller":"Projects::IssuesController",
  "action":"show",
  "status":200,
  "time":"2017-08-08T20:15:54.821Z",
  "params":[{"key":"param_key","value":"param_value"}],
  "remote_ip":"18.245.0.1",
  "user_id":1,
  "username":"admin",
  "queue_duration_s":0.0,
  "gitaly_calls":16,
  "gitaly_duration_s":0.16,
  "redis_calls":115,
  "redis_duration_s":0.13,
  "redis_read_bytes":1507378,
  "redis_write_bytes":2920,
  "correlation_id":"O1SdybnnIq7",
  "cpu_s":17.50,
  "db_duration_s":0.08,
  "view_duration_s":2.39,
  "duration_s":20.54
}

This example was a GET request for a specific issue. Each line also contains performance data, with times in seconds:

  • duration_s: Total time to retrieve the request
  • queue_duration_s: Total time the request was queued inside GitLab Workhorse
  • view_duration_s: Total time inside the Rails views
  • db_duration_s: Total time to retrieve data from PostgreSQL
  • cpu_s: Total time spent on CPU
  • gitaly_duration_s: Total time by Gitaly calls
  • gitaly_calls: Total number of calls made to Gitaly
  • redis_calls: Total number of calls made to Redis
  • redis_duration_s: Total time to retrieve data from Redis
  • redis_read_bytes: Total bytes read from Redis
  • redis_write_bytes: Total bytes written to Redis
  • redis_<instance>_calls: Total number of calls made to a Redis instance
  • redis_<instance>_duration_s: Total time to retrieve data from a Redis instance
  • redis_<instance>_read_bytes: Total bytes read from a Redis instance
  • redis_<instance>_write_bytes: Total bytes written to a Redis instance

User clone and fetch activity using HTTP transport appears in the log as action: git_upload_pack.

In addition, the log contains the originating IP address, (remote_ip), the user’s ID (user_id), and username (username).

Some endpoints (such as /search) may make requests to Elasticsearch if using Advanced Search. These additionally log elasticsearch_calls and elasticsearch_call_duration_s, which correspond to:

  • elasticsearch_calls: Total number of calls to Elasticsearch
  • elasticsearch_duration_s: Total time taken by Elasticsearch calls
  • elasticsearch_timed_out_count: Total number of calls to Elasticsearch that timed out and therefore returned partial results

ActionCable connection and subscription events are also logged to this file and they follow the previous format. The method, path, and format fields are not applicable, and are always empty. The ActionCable connection or channel class is used as the controller. 

{
  "method":null,
  "path":null,
  "format":null,
  "controller":"IssuesChannel",
  "action":"subscribe",
  "status":200,
  "time":"2020-05-14T19:46:22.008Z",
  "params":[{"key":"project_path","value":"gitlab/gitlab-foss"},{"key":"iid","value":"1"}],
  "remote_ip":"127.0.0.1",
  "user_id":1,
  "username":"admin",
  "ua":"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:76.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/76.0",
  "correlation_id":"jSOIEynHCUa",
  "duration_s":0.32566
}
noteStarting with GitLab 12.5, if an error occurs, an exception field is included with class, message, and backtrace. Previous versions included an error field instead of exception.class and exception.message. For example:
{
  "method": "GET",
  "path": "/admin",
  "format": "html",
  "controller": "Admin::DashboardController",
  "action": "index",
  "status": 500,
  "time": "2019-11-14T13:12:46.156Z",
  "params": [],
  "remote_ip": "127.0.0.1",
  "user_id": 1,
  "username": "root",
  "ua": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:70.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/70.0",
  "queue_duration": 274.35,
  "correlation_id": "KjDVUhNvvV3",
  "queue_duration_s":0.0,
  "gitaly_calls":16,
  "gitaly_duration_s":0.16,
  "redis_calls":115,
  "redis_duration_s":0.13,
  "correlation_id":"O1SdybnnIq7",
  "cpu_s":17.50,
  "db_duration_s":0.08,
  "view_duration_s":2.39,
  "duration_s":20.54
  "exception.class": "NameError",
  "exception.message": "undefined local variable or method `adsf' for #<Admin::DashboardController:0x00007ff3c9648588>",
  "exception.backtrace": [
    "app/controllers/admin/dashboard_controller.rb:11:in `index'",
    "ee/app/controllers/ee/admin/dashboard_controller.rb:14:in `index'",
    "ee/lib/gitlab/ip_address_state.rb:10:in `with'",
    "ee/app/controllers/ee/application_controller.rb:43:in `set_current_ip_address'",
    "lib/gitlab/session.rb:11:in `with_session'",
    "app/controllers/application_controller.rb:450:in `set_session_storage'",
    "app/controllers/application_controller.rb:444:in `set_locale'",
    "ee/lib/gitlab/jira/middleware.rb:19:in `call'"
  ]
}

production.log

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/production.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/production.log

When GitLab is running in an environment other than production, the corresponding log file is shown here.

It contains information about all performed requests. You can see the URL and type of request, IP address, and what parts of code were involved to service this particular request. Also, you can see all SQL requests performed, and how much time each took. This task is more useful for GitLab contributors and developers. Use part of this log file when you’re reporting bugs. For example: 

Started GET "/gitlabhq/yaml_db/tree/master" for 168.111.56.1 at 2015-02-12 19:34:53 +0200
Processing by Projects::TreeController#show as HTML
  Parameters: {"project_id"=>"gitlabhq/yaml_db", "id"=>"master"}

  ... [CUT OUT]

  Namespaces"."created_at" DESC, "namespaces"."id" DESC LIMIT 1 [["id", 26]]
  CACHE (0.0ms) SELECT  "members".* FROM "members"  WHERE "members"."source_type" = 'Project' AND "members"."type" IN ('ProjectMember') AND "members"."source_id" = $1 AND "members"."source_type" = $2 AND "members"."user_id" = 1  ORDER BY "members"."created_at" DESC, "members"."id" DESC LIMIT 1  [["source_id", 18], ["source_type", "Project"]]
  CACHE (0.0ms) SELECT  "members".* FROM "members"  WHERE "members"."source_type" = 'Project' AND "members".
  (1.4ms) SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "merge_requests"  WHERE "merge_requests"."target_project_id" = $1 AND ("merge_requests"."state" IN ('opened','reopened')) [["target_project_id", 18]]
  Rendered layouts/nav/_project.html.haml (28.0ms)
  Rendered layouts/_collapse_button.html.haml (0.2ms)
  Rendered layouts/_flash.html.haml (0.1ms)
  Rendered layouts/_page.html.haml (32.9ms)
Completed 200 OK in 166ms (Views: 117.4ms | ActiveRecord: 27.2ms)

In this example, the server processed an HTTP request with URL /gitlabhq/yaml_db/tree/master from IP 168.111.56.1 at 2015-02-12 19:34:53 +0200. The request was processed by Projects::TreeController.

api_json.log

Introduced in GitLab 10.0.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/api_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/api_json.log

It helps you see requests made directly to the API. For example: 

{
  "time":"2018-10-29T12:49:42.123Z",
  "severity":"INFO",
  "duration":709.08,
  "db":14.59,
  "view":694.49,
  "status":200,
  "method":"GET",
  "path":"/api/v4/projects",
  "params":[{"key":"action","value":"git-upload-pack"},{"key":"changes","value":"_any"},{"key":"key_id","value":"secret"},{"key":"secret_token","value":"[FILTERED]"}],
  "host":"localhost",
  "remote_ip":"::1",
  "ua":"Ruby",
  "route":"/api/:version/projects",
  "user_id":1,
  "username":"root",
  "queue_duration":100.31,
  "gitaly_calls":30,
  "gitaly_duration":5.36
}

This entry shows an internal endpoint accessed to check whether an associated SSH key can download the project in question by using a git fetch or git clone. In this example, we see:

  • duration: Total time in milliseconds to retrieve the request
  • queue_duration: Total time in milliseconds the request was queued inside GitLab Workhorse
  • method: The HTTP method used to make the request
  • path: The relative path of the query
  • params: Key-value pairs passed in a query string or HTTP body (sensitive parameters, such as passwords and tokens, are filtered out)
  • ua: The User-Agent of the requester

application.log

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/application.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/application.log

It helps you discover events happening in your instance such as user creation and project removal. For example: 

October 06, 2014 11:56: User "Administrator" (admin@example.com) was created
October 06, 2014 11:56: Documentcloud created a new project "Documentcloud / Underscore"
October 06, 2014 11:56: Gitlab Org created a new project "Gitlab Org / Gitlab Ce"
October 07, 2014 11:25: User "Claudie Hodkiewicz" (nasir_stehr@olson.co.uk)  was removed
October 07, 2014 11:25: Project "project133" was removed

application_json.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.7.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/application_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/application_json.log

It contains the JSON version of the logs in application.log, like this example: 

{
  "severity":"INFO",
  "time":"2020-01-14T13:35:15.466Z",
  "correlation_id":"3823a1550b64417f9c9ed8ee0f48087e",
  "message":"User \"Administrator\" (admin@example.com) was created"
}
{
  "severity":"INFO",
  "time":"2020-01-14T13:35:15.466Z",
  "correlation_id":"78e3df10c9a18745243d524540bd5be4",
  "message":"Project \"project133\" was removed"
}

integrations_json.log

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/integrations_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/integrations_json.log

It contains information about integration activities, such as Jira, Asana, and irker services. It uses JSON format, like this example: 

{
  "severity":"ERROR",
  "time":"2018-09-06T14:56:20.439Z",
  "service_class":"Integrations::Jira",
  "project_id":8,
  "project_path":"h5bp/html5-boilerplate",
  "message":"Error sending message",
  "client_url":"http://jira.gitlap.com:8080",
  "error":"execution expired"
}
{
  "severity":"INFO",
  "time":"2018-09-06T17:15:16.365Z",
  "service_class":"Integrations::Jira",
  "project_id":3,
  "project_path":"namespace2/project2",
  "message":"Successfully posted",
  "client_url":"http://jira.example.com"
}

kubernetes.log

Introduced in GitLab 11.6.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/kubernetes.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/kubernetes.log

It logs information related to the Kubernetes Integration, including errors during installing cluster applications on your managed Kubernetes clusters.

Each line contains JSON that can be ingested by services like Elasticsearch and Splunk. Line breaks have been added to the following example for clarity: 

{
  "severity":"ERROR",
  "time":"2018-11-23T15:14:54.652Z",
  "exception":"Kubeclient::HttpError",
  "error_code":401,
  "service":"Clusters::Applications::CheckInstallationProgressService",
  "app_id":14,
  "project_ids":[1],
  "group_ids":[],
  "message":"Unauthorized"
}
{
  "severity":"ERROR",
  "time":"2018-11-23T15:42:11.647Z",
  "exception":"Kubeclient::HttpError",
  "error_code":null,
  "service":"Clusters::Applications::InstallService",
  "app_id":2,
  "project_ids":[19],
  "group_ids":[],
  "message":"SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=error: certificate verify failed (unable to get local issuer certificate)"
}

git_json.log

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/git_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/git_json.log

After GitLab version 12.2, this file was renamed from githost.log to git_json.log and stored in JSON format.

GitLab has to interact with Git repositories, but in some rare cases something can go wrong. If this happens, you need to know exactly what happened. This log file contains all failed requests from GitLab to Git repositories. In the majority of cases this file is useful for developers only. For example: 

{
   "severity":"ERROR",
   "time":"2019-07-19T22:16:12.528Z",
   "correlation_id":"FeGxww5Hj64",
   "message":"Command failed [1]: /usr/bin/git --git-dir=/Users/vsizov/gitlab-development-kit/gitlab/tmp/tests/gitlab-satellites/group184/gitlabhq/.git --work-tree=/Users/vsizov/gitlab-development-kit/gitlab/tmp/tests/gitlab-satellites/group184/gitlabhq merge --no-ff -mMerge branch 'feature_conflict' into 'feature' source/feature_conflict\n\nerror: failed to push some refs to '/Users/vsizov/gitlab-development-kit/repositories/gitlabhq/gitlab_git.git'"
}

audit_json.log

noteGitLab Free tracks a small number of different audit events. GitLab Premium tracks many more.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/audit_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/audit_json.log

Changes to group or project settings and memberships (target_details) are logged to this file. For example: 

{
  "severity":"INFO",
  "time":"2018-10-17T17:38:22.523Z",
  "author_id":3,
  "entity_id":2,
  "entity_type":"Project",
  "change":"visibility",
  "from":"Private",
  "to":"Public",
  "author_name":"John Doe4",
  "target_id":2,
  "target_type":"Project",
  "target_details":"namespace2/project2"
}

Sidekiq Logs

noteIn Omnibus GitLab 12.10 or earlier, the Sidekiq log is at /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/sidekiq.log.

For Omnibus GitLab installations, some Sidekiq logs are in /var/log/gitlab/sidekiq/current and as follows.

sidekiq.log

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/sidekiq/current
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/sidekiq.log

GitLab uses background jobs for processing tasks which can take a long time. All information about processing these jobs are written down to this file. For example: 

2014-06-10T07:55:20Z 2037 TID-tm504 ERROR: /opt/bitnami/apps/discourse/htdocs/vendor/bundle/ruby/1.9.1/gems/redis-3.0.7/lib/redis/client.rb:228:in `read'
2014-06-10T18:18:26Z 14299 TID-55uqo INFO: Booting Sidekiq 3.0.0 with redis options {:url=>"redis://localhost:6379/0", :namespace=>"sidekiq"}

Instead of the previous format, you can opt to generate JSON logs for Sidekiq. For example: 

{
  "severity":"INFO",
  "time":"2018-04-03T22:57:22.071Z",
  "queue":"cronjob:update_all_mirrors",
  "args":[],
  "class":"UpdateAllMirrorsWorker",
  "retry":false,
  "queue_namespace":"cronjob",
  "jid":"06aeaa3b0aadacf9981f368e",
  "created_at":"2018-04-03T22:57:21.930Z",
  "enqueued_at":"2018-04-03T22:57:21.931Z",
  "pid":10077,
  "message":"UpdateAllMirrorsWorker JID-06aeaa3b0aadacf9981f368e: done: 0.139 sec",
  "job_status":"done",
  "duration":0.139,
  "completed_at":"2018-04-03T22:57:22.071Z",
  "db_duration":0.05,
  "db_duration_s":0.0005,
  "gitaly_duration":0,
  "gitaly_calls":0
}

For Omnibus GitLab installations, add the configuration option: 

sidekiq['log_format'] = 'json'

For installations from source, edit the gitlab.yml and set the Sidekiq log_format configuration option: 

  ## Sidekiq
  sidekiq:
    log_format: json

sidekiq_client.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.9.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/sidekiq_client.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/sidekiq_client.log

This file contains logging information about jobs before Sidekiq starts processing them, such as before being enqueued.

This log file follows the same structure as sidekiq.log, so it is structured as JSON if you’ve configured this for Sidekiq as mentioned above.

gitlab-shell.log

GitLab Shell is used by GitLab for executing Git commands and provide SSH access to Git repositories.

For GitLab versions 12.10 and up

For GitLab version 12.10 and later, there are two gitlab-shell.log files. Information containing git-{upload-pack,receive-pack} requests is at /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-shell/gitlab-shell.log. Information about hooks to GitLab Shell from Gitaly is at /var/log/gitlab/gitaly/gitlab-shell.log.

Example log entries for /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-shell/gitlab-shell.log: 

{
  "duration_ms": 74.104,
  "level": "info",
  "method": "POST",
  "msg": "Finished HTTP request",
  "time": "2020-04-17T20:28:46Z",
  "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v4/internal/allowed"
}
{
  "command": "git-upload-pack",
  "git_protocol": "",
  "gl_project_path": "root/example",
  "gl_repository": "project-1",
  "level": "info",
  "msg": "executing git command",
  "time": "2020-04-17T20:28:46Z",
  "user_id": "user-1",
  "username": "root"
}

Example log entries for /var/log/gitlab/gitaly/gitlab-shell.log: 

{
  "method": "POST",
  "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v4/internal/allowed",
  "duration": 0.058012959,
  "gitaly_embedded": true,
  "pid": 16636,
  "level": "info",
  "msg": "finished HTTP request",
  "time": "2020-04-17T20:29:08+00:00"
}
{
  "method": "POST",
  "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v4/internal/pre_receive",
  "duration": 0.031022552,
  "gitaly_embedded": true,
  "pid": 16636,
  "level": "info",
  "msg": "finished HTTP request",
  "time": "2020-04-17T20:29:08+00:00"
}

For GitLab versions 12.5 through 12.9

For GitLab 12.5 to 12.9, depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitaly/gitlab-shell.log
  • Installation from source: /home/git/gitaly/gitlab-shell.log

Example log entries: 

{
  "method": "POST",
  "url": "http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v4/internal/post_receive",
  "duration": 0.031809164,
  "gitaly_embedded": true,
  "pid": 27056,
  "level": "info",
  "msg": "finished HTTP request",
  "time": "2020-04-17T16:24:38+00:00"
}

For GitLab 12.5 and earlier

For GitLab 12.5 and earlier, the file is at /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-shell/gitlab-shell.log.

Example log entries: 

I, [2015-02-13T06:17:00.671315 #9291]  INFO -- : Adding project root/example.git at </var/opt/gitlab/git-data/repositories/root/dcdcdcdcd.git>.
I, [2015-02-13T06:17:00.679433 #9291]  INFO -- : Moving existing hooks directory and symlinking global hooks directory for /var/opt/gitlab/git-data/repositories/root/example.git.

User clone/fetch activity using SSH transport appears in this log as executing git command <gitaly-upload-pack....

Gitaly Logs

This file is in /var/log/gitlab/gitaly/current and is produced by runit. runit is packaged with Omnibus GitLab and a brief explanation of its purpose is available in the Omnibus GitLab documentation. Log files are rotated, renamed in Unix timestamp format, and gzip-compressed (like @1584057562.s).

grpc.log

This file is at /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/grpc.log for Omnibus GitLab packages. Native gRPC logging used by Gitaly.

gitaly_ruby_json.log

Introduced in GitLab 13.6.

This file is at /var/log/gitlab/gitaly/gitaly_ruby_json.log and is produced by gitaly-ruby. It contains an access log of gRPC calls made by Gitaly to gitaly-ruby.

Puma Logs

puma_stdout.log

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/puma/puma_stdout.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/puma_stdout.log

puma_stderr.log

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/puma/puma_stderr.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/puma_stderr.log

repocheck.log

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/repocheck.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/repocheck.log

It logs information whenever a repository check is run on a project.

importer.log

Introduced in GitLab 11.3.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/importer.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/importer.log

It logs the progress of the import process.

exporter.log

Introduced in GitLab 13.1.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/exporter.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/exporter.log

It logs the progress of the export process.

features_json.log

Introduced in GitLab 13.7.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/features_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/features_json.log

The modification events from Feature flags in development of GitLab are recorded in this file. For example: 

{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-11-24T02:30:59.860Z","correlation_id":null,"key":"cd_auto_rollback","action":"enable","extra.thing":"true"}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-11-24T02:31:29.108Z","correlation_id":null,"key":"cd_auto_rollback","action":"enable","extra.thing":"true"}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-11-24T02:31:29.129Z","correlation_id":null,"key":"cd_auto_rollback","action":"disable","extra.thing":"false"}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-11-24T02:31:29.177Z","correlation_id":null,"key":"cd_auto_rollback","action":"enable","extra.thing":"Project:1"}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-11-24T02:31:29.183Z","correlation_id":null,"key":"cd_auto_rollback","action":"disable","extra.thing":"Project:1"}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-11-24T02:31:29.188Z","correlation_id":null,"key":"cd_auto_rollback","action":"enable_percentage_of_time","extra.percentage":"50"}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-11-24T02:31:29.193Z","correlation_id":null,"key":"cd_auto_rollback","action":"disable_percentage_of_time"}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-11-24T02:31:29.198Z","correlation_id":null,"key":"cd_auto_rollback","action":"enable_percentage_of_actors","extra.percentage":"50"}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-11-24T02:31:29.203Z","correlation_id":null,"key":"cd_auto_rollback","action":"disable_percentage_of_actors"}
{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-11-24T02:31:29.329Z","correlation_id":null,"key":"cd_auto_rollback","action":"remove"}

auth.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.0.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/auth.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/auth.log

This log records:

  • Information whenever Rack Attack registers an abusive request.
  • Requests over the Rate Limit on raw endpoints.
  • Protected paths abusive requests.
  • In GitLab versions 12.3 and later, user ID and username, if available.

graphql_json.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.0.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/graphql_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/graphql_json.log

GraphQL queries are recorded in the file. For example: 

{"query_string":"query IntrospectionQuery{__schema {queryType { name },mutationType { name }}}...(etc)","variables":{"a":1,"b":2},"complexity":181,"depth":1,"duration_s":7}

migrations.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.3.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/migrations.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/migrations.log

mail_room_json.log (default)

Introduced in GitLab 12.6.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/mailroom/current
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/mail_room_json.log

This structured log file records internal activity in the mail_room gem. Its name and path are configurable, so the name and path may not match the above.

Reconfigure logs

Reconfigure log files are in /var/log/gitlab/reconfigure for Omnibus GitLab packages. Installations from source don’t have reconfigure logs. A reconfigure log is populated whenever gitlab-ctl reconfigure is run manually or as part of an upgrade.

Reconfigure logs files are named according to the UNIX timestamp of when the reconfigure was initiated, such as 1509705644.log

sidekiq_exporter.log and web_exporter.log

If Prometheus metrics and the Sidekiq Exporter are both enabled, Sidekiq starts a Web server and listen to the defined port (default: 8082). By default, Sidekiq Exporter access logs are disabled but can be enabled based on your installation method:

  • Omnibus GitLab: Use the sidekiq['exporter_log_enabled'] = true option in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
  • Installations from source: Use the sidekiq_exporter.log_enabled option in gitlab.yml

When enabled, depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/sidekiq_exporter.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/sidekiq_exporter.log

If Prometheus metrics and the Web Exporter are both enabled, Puma starts a Web server and listen to the defined port (default: 8083), and access logs are generated in a location based on your installation method:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/web_exporter.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/web_exporter.log

database_load_balancing.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.3.

Contains details of GitLab Database Load Balancing. Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/database_load_balancing.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/database_load_balancing.log

elasticsearch.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.6.

This file logs information related to the Elasticsearch Integration, including errors during indexing or searching Elasticsearch. Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/elasticsearch.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/elasticsearch.log

Each line contains JSON that can be ingested by services like Elasticsearch and Splunk. Line breaks have been added to the following example line for clarity: 

{
  "severity":"DEBUG",
  "time":"2019-10-17T06:23:13.227Z",
  "correlation_id":null,
  "message":"redacted_search_result",
  "class_name":"Milestone",
  "id":2,
  "ability":"read_milestone",
  "current_user_id":2,
  "query":"project"
}

exceptions_json.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.6.

This file logs the information about exceptions being tracked by Gitlab::ErrorTracking, which provides a standard and consistent way of processing rescued exceptions. Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/exceptions_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/exceptions_json.log

Each line contains JSON that can be ingested by Elasticsearch. For example: 

{
  "severity": "ERROR",
  "time": "2019-12-17T11:49:29.485Z",
  "correlation_id": "AbDVUrrTvM1",
  "extra.project_id": 55,
  "extra.relation_key": "milestones",
  "extra.relation_index": 1,
  "exception.class": "NoMethodError",
  "exception.message": "undefined method `strong_memoize' for #<Gitlab::ImportExport::RelationFactory:0x00007fb5d917c4b0>",
  "exception.backtrace": [
    "lib/gitlab/import_export/relation_factory.rb:329:in `unique_relation?'",
    "lib/gitlab/import_export/relation_factory.rb:345:in `find_or_create_object!'"
  ]
}

service_measurement.log

Introduced in GitLab 13.0.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/service_measurement.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/service_measurement.log

It contains only a single structured log with measurements for each service execution. It contains measurements such as the number of SQL calls, execution_time, gc_stats, and memory usage.

For example: 

{ "severity":"INFO", "time":"2020-04-22T16:04:50.691Z","correlation_id":"04f1366e-57a1-45b8-88c1-b00b23dc3616","class":"Projects::ImportExport::ExportService","current_user":"John Doe","project_full_path":"group1/test-export","file_path":"/path/to/archive","gc_stats":{"count":{"before":127,"after":127,"diff":0},"heap_allocated_pages":{"before":10369,"after":10369,"diff":0},"heap_sorted_length":{"before":10369,"after":10369,"diff":0},"heap_allocatable_pages":{"before":0,"after":0,"diff":0},"heap_available_slots":{"before":4226409,"after":4226409,"diff":0},"heap_live_slots":{"before":2542709,"after":2641420,"diff":98711},"heap_free_slots":{"before":1683700,"after":1584989,"diff":-98711},"heap_final_slots":{"before":0,"after":0,"diff":0},"heap_marked_slots":{"before":2542704,"after":2542704,"diff":0},"heap_eden_pages":{"before":10369,"after":10369,"diff":0},"heap_tomb_pages":{"before":0,"after":0,"diff":0},"total_allocated_pages":{"before":10369,"after":10369,"diff":0},"total_freed_pages":{"before":0,"after":0,"diff":0},"total_allocated_objects":{"before":24896308,"after":24995019,"diff":98711},"total_freed_objects":{"before":22353599,"after":22353599,"diff":0},"malloc_increase_bytes":{"before":140032,"after":6650240,"diff":6510208},"malloc_increase_bytes_limit":{"before":25804104,"after":25804104,"diff":0},"minor_gc_count":{"before":94,"after":94,"diff":0},"major_gc_count":{"before":33,"after":33,"diff":0},"remembered_wb_unprotected_objects":{"before":34284,"after":34284,"diff":0},"remembered_wb_unprotected_objects_limit":{"before":68568,"after":68568,"diff":0},"old_objects":{"before":2404725,"after":2404725,"diff":0},"old_objects_limit":{"before":4809450,"after":4809450,"diff":0},"oldmalloc_increase_bytes":{"before":140032,"after":6650240,"diff":6510208},"oldmalloc_increase_bytes_limit":{"before":68537556,"after":68537556,"diff":0}},"time_to_finish":0.12298400001600385,"number_of_sql_calls":70,"memory_usage":"0.0 MiB","label":"process_48616"}

geo.log

Introduced in 9.5.

Geo stores structured log messages in a geo.log file. For Omnibus GitLab installations, this file is at /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/geo.log.

This file contains information about when Geo attempts to sync repositories and files. Each line in the file contains a separate JSON entry that can be ingested into (for example, Elasticsearch or Splunk).

For example: 

{"severity":"INFO","time":"2017-08-06T05:40:16.104Z","message":"Repository update","project_id":1,"source":"repository","resync_repository":true,"resync_wiki":true,"class":"Gitlab::Geo::LogCursor::Daemon","cursor_delay_s":0.038}

This message shows that Geo detected that a repository update was needed for project 1.

update_mirror_service_json.log

Introduced in GitLab 11.12.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/update_mirror_service_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/update_mirror_service_json.log

This file contains information about LFS errors that occurred during project mirroring. While we work to move other project mirroring errors into this log, the general log can be used. 

{
   "severity":"ERROR",
   "time":"2020-07-28T23:29:29.473Z",
   "correlation_id":"5HgIkCJsO53",
   "user_id":"x",
   "project_id":"x",
   "import_url":"https://mirror-source/group/project.git",
   "error_message":"The LFS objects download list couldn't be imported. Error: Unauthorized"
}

Registry Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, Container Registry logs are in /var/log/gitlab/registry/current.

NGINX Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, NGINX logs are in:

  • /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_access.log: A log of requests made to GitLab
  • /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_error.log: A log of NGINX errors for GitLab
  • /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_pages_access.log: A log of requests made to Pages static sites
  • /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_pages_error.log: A log of NGINX errors for Pages static sites
  • /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_registry_access.log: A log of requests made to the Container Registry
  • /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_registry_error.log: A log of NGINX errors for the Container Registry
  • /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_mattermost_access.log: A log of requests made to Mattermost
  • /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_mattermost_error.log: A log of NGINX errors for Mattermost

Below is the default GitLab NGINX access log format: 

$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" $status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" "$http_user_agent"

Pages Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, Pages logs are in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-pages/current.

For example: 

{
  "level": "info",
  "msg": "GitLab Pages Daemon",
  "revision": "52b2899",
  "time": "2020-04-22T17:53:12Z",
  "version": "1.17.0"
}
{
  "level": "info",
  "msg": "URL: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-pages",
  "time": "2020-04-22T17:53:12Z"
}
{
  "gid": 998,
  "in-place": false,
  "level": "info",
  "msg": "running the daemon as unprivileged user",
  "time": "2020-04-22T17:53:12Z",
  "uid": 998
}

Mattermost Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, Mattermost logs are in /var/log/gitlab/mattermost/mattermost.log.

Workhorse Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, Workhorse logs are in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-workhorse/.

PostgreSQL Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, PostgreSQL logs are in /var/log/gitlab/postgresql/.

Prometheus Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, Prometheus logs are in /var/log/gitlab/prometheus/.

Redis Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, Redis logs are in /var/log/gitlab/redis/.

Alertmanager Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, Alertmanager logs are in /var/log/gitlab/alertmanager/.

Crond Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, crond logs are in /var/log/gitlab/crond/.

Grafana Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, Grafana logs are in /var/log/gitlab/grafana/.

LogRotate Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, logrotate logs are in /var/log/gitlab/logrotate/.

GitLab Monitor Logs

For Omnibus GitLab installations, GitLab Monitor logs are in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-monitor/.

GitLab Exporter

For Omnibus GitLab installations, GitLab Exporter logs are in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-exporter/.

GitLab Kubernetes Agent Server

For Omnibus GitLab installations, GitLab Kubernetes Agent Server logs are in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-kas/.

Performance bar stats

Introduced in GitLab 13.7.

Depending on your installation method, this file is located at:

  • Omnibus GitLab: /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/performance_bar_json.log
  • Installations from source: /home/git/gitlab/log/performance_bar_json.log

Performance bar statistics (currently only duration of SQL queries) are recorded in that file. For example: 

{"severity":"INFO","time":"2020-12-04T09:29:44.592Z","correlation_id":"33680b1490ccd35981b03639c406a697","filename":"app/models/ci/pipeline.rb","method_path":"app/models/ci/pipeline.rb:each_with_object","request_id":"rYHomD0VJS4","duration_ms":26.889,"count":2,"type": "sql"}

These statistics are logged on .com only, disabled on self-deployments.

Gathering logs

When troubleshooting issues that aren’t localized to one of the previously listed components, it’s helpful to simultaneously gather multiple logs and statistics from a GitLab instance.

noteGitLab Support often asks for one of these, and maintains the required tools.

Briefly tail the main logs

If the bug or error is readily reproducible, save the main GitLab logs to a file while reproducing the problem a few times: 

sudo gitlab-ctl tail | tee /tmp/<case-ID-and-keywords>.log

Conclude the log gathering with Control + C.

GitLabSOS

If performance degradations or cascading errors occur that can’t readily be attributed to one of the previously listed GitLab components, GitLabSOS can provide a broader perspective of the GitLab instance. For more details and instructions to run it, read the GitLabSOS documentation.

Fast-stats

Fast-stats is a tool for creating and comparing performance statistics from GitLab logs. For more details and instructions to run it, read the documentation for fast-stats.