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. Find more about them in Audit Events documentation.

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.

production_json.log

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/production_json.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/production_json.log for installations from source. 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. Note that requests from the API are logged to a separate file in api_json.log.

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

{
  "method":"GET",
  "path":"/gitlab/gitlab-foss/issues/1234",
  "format":"html",
  "controller":"Projects::IssuesController",
  "action":"show",
  "status":200,
  "duration":229.03,
  "view":174.07,
  "db":13.24,
  "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",
  "gitaly_calls":76,
  "gitaly_duration":7.41,
  "queue_duration": 112.47
}

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

  1. duration: total time taken to retrieve the request
  2. queue_duration: total time that the request was queued inside GitLab Workhorse
  3. view: total time taken inside the Rails views
  4. db: total time to retrieve data from the database
  5. gitaly_calls: total number of calls made to Gitaly
  6. gitaly_duration: total time taken by Gitaly calls

User clone and fetch activity using HTTP transport appears in this 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).

Note: Starting 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,
  "duration": 2584.11,
  "view": 0,
  "db": 9.21,
  "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",
  "cpu_s": 2.837645135999999,
  "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

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/production.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/production.log for installations from source. (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.

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/api_json.log for Omnibus GitLab packages, or in /home/git/gitlab/log/api_json.log for installations from source.

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 access to an internal endpoint to check whether an associated SSH key can download the project in question via a git fetch or git clone. In this example, we see:

  1. duration: total time in milliseconds taken to retrieve the request
  2. queue_duration: total time in milliseconds that the request was queued inside GitLab Workhorse
  3. method: The HTTP method used to make the request
  4. path: The relative path of the query
  5. params: Key-value pairs passed in a query string or HTTP body. Sensitive parameters (such as passwords and tokens) are filtered out.
  6. ua: The User-Agent of the requester

application.log

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/application.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/application.log for installations from source.

It helps you discover events happening in your instance such as user creation, project removing and so on. 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.

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/application_json.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/application_json.log for installations from source.

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

{
  "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

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/integrations_json.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/integrations_json.log for installations from source.

It contains information about integrations activities such as Jira, Asana, and Irker services. It uses JSON format like the example below:

{
  "severity":"ERROR",
  "time":"2018-09-06T14:56:20.439Z",
  "service_class":"JiraService",
  "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":"JiraService",
  "project_id":3,
  "project_path":"namespace2/project2",
  "message":"Successfully posted",
  "client_url":"http://jira.example.com"
}

kubernetes.log

Introduced in GitLab 11.6.

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/kubernetes.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/kubernetes.log for installations from source.

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

Each line contains a JSON line 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

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/git_json.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/git_json.log for installations from source.

Note: After 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, and in this case you will know what exactly happened. This log file contains all failed requests from GitLab to Git repositories. In the majority of cases this file will be 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

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/audit_json.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/audit_json.log for installations from source.

Changes to group or project settings 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.log

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/sidekiq.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/sidekiq.log for installations from source.

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 format above, 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 source installations, 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.

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/sidekiq_client.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/sidekiq_client.log for installations from source.

This file contains logging information about jobs before they are start being processed by Sidekiq, for example before being enqueued.

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

gitlab-shell.log

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitaly/gitlab-shell.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitaly/gitlab-shell.log for installations from source.

Note: For GitLab 12.5 and earlier, the file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-shell/gitlab-shell.log.

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

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....

unicorn_stderr.log

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/unicorn/unicorn_stderr.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/unicorn_stderr.log for installations from source.

Unicorn is a high-performance forking Web server which is used for serving the GitLab application. You can look at this log if, for example, your application does not respond. This log contains all information about the state of Unicorn processes at any given time.

I, [2015-02-13T06:14:46.680381 #9047]  INFO -- : Refreshing Gem list
I, [2015-02-13T06:14:56.931002 #9047]  INFO -- : listening on addr=127.0.0.1:8080 fd=12
I, [2015-02-13T06:14:56.931381 #9047]  INFO -- : listening on addr=/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/sockets/gitlab.socket fd=13
I, [2015-02-13T06:14:56.936638 #9047]  INFO -- : master process ready
I, [2015-02-13T06:14:56.946504 #9092]  INFO -- : worker=0 spawned pid=9092
I, [2015-02-13T06:14:56.946943 #9092]  INFO -- : worker=0 ready
I, [2015-02-13T06:14:56.947892 #9094]  INFO -- : worker=1 spawned pid=9094
I, [2015-02-13T06:14:56.948181 #9094]  INFO -- : worker=1 ready
W, [2015-02-13T07:16:01.312916 #9094]  WARN -- : #<Unicorn::HttpServer:0x0000000208f618>: worker (pid: 9094) exceeds memory limit (320626688 bytes > 247066940 bytes)
W, [2015-02-13T07:16:01.313000 #9094]  WARN -- : Unicorn::WorkerKiller send SIGQUIT (pid: 9094) alive: 3621 sec (trial 1)
I, [2015-02-13T07:16:01.530733 #9047]  INFO -- : reaped #<Process::Status: pid 9094 exit 0> worker=1
I, [2015-02-13T07:16:01.534501 #13379]  INFO -- : worker=1 spawned pid=13379
I, [2015-02-13T07:16:01.534848 #13379]  INFO -- : worker=1 ready

repocheck.log

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/repocheck.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/repocheck.log for installations from source.

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

importer.log

Introduced in GitLab 11.3.

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/importer.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/importer.log for installations from source.

auth.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.0.

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/auth.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/auth.log for installations from source.

This log records:

Note: From %12.1, user ID and username are also recorded on this log, if available.

graphql_json.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.0.

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/graphql_json.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/graphql_json.log for installations from source.

GraphQL queries are recorded in that file. For example:

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

migrations.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.3.

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/migrations.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/migrations.log for installations from source.

mail_room_json.log (default)

Introduced in GitLab 12.6.

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/mail_room/mail_room_json.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/mail_room_json.log for installations from source.

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 live 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 will start a Web server and listen to the defined port (default: 8082). Access logs will be generated in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/sidekiq_exporter.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/sidekiq_exporter.log for installations from source.

If Prometheus metrics and the Web Exporter are both enabled, Unicorn/Puma will start a Web server and listen to the defined port (default: 8083). Access logs will be generated in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/web_exporter.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/web_exporter.log for installations from source.

database_load_balancing.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.3.

Contains details of GitLab’s Database Load Balancing. It’s stored at:

  • /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/database_load_balancing.log for Omnibus GitLab packages.
  • /home/git/gitlab/log/database_load_balancing.log for installations from source.

elasticsearch.log

Introduced in GitLab 12.6.

This file lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/elasticsearch.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/elasticsearch.log for installations from source.

It logs information related to the Elasticsearch Integration including errors during indexing or searching Elasticsearch.

Each line contains a JSON line 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 lives in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-rails/exceptions_json.log for Omnibus GitLab packages or in /home/git/gitlab/log/exceptions_json.log for installations from source.

It logs the information about exceptions being tracked by Gitlab::ErrorTracking which provides a standard and consistent way of processing rescued exceptions.

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

{
  "severity": "ERROR",
  "time": "2019-12-17T11:49:29.485Z",
  "correlation_id": "AbDVUrrTvM1",
  "extra.server": {
    "os": {
      "name": "Darwin",
      "version": "Darwin Kernel Version 19.2.0",
      "build": "19.2.0",
    },
    "runtime": {
      "name": "ruby",
      "version": "ruby 2.6.5p114 (2019-10-01 revision 67812) [x86_64-darwin18]"
    }
  },
  "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!'"
  ]
}