Back up GitLab running in a Docker container

  • Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate
  • Offering: GitLab Self-Managed

You can create a GitLab backup with:

docker exec -t <container name> gitlab-backup create

For more information, see Back up and restore GitLab.

If your GitLab configuration is provided entirely using the GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG environment variable (by using the “Pre-configure Docker Container” steps), the configuration settings are not stored in the gitlab.rb file so you do not need to back up the gitlab.rb file.

To avoid complicated steps when recovering GitLab from a backup, you should also follow the instructions in Backing up the GitLab secrets file. The secrets file is stored either in the /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json file inside the container or in the $GITLAB_HOME/config/gitlab-secrets.json file on the container host.

Create a database backup

Before you upgrade GitLab, create a database-only backup. If you encounter issues during the GitLab upgrade, you can restore the database backup to roll back the upgrade. To create a database backup, run this command:

docker exec -t <container name> gitlab-backup create SKIP=artifacts,repositories,registry,uploads,builds,pages,lfs,packages,terraform_state

The backup is written to /var/opt/gitlab/backups which should be on a volume mounted by Docker.

For more information on using the backup to roll back an upgrade, see roll back a Docker instance.