Omnibus GitLab High Availability Roles

Notes:

  • Introduced in GitLab EE 10.1.0
  • The majority of these roles will only work on an Enterprise Edition installation of GitLab.

Omnibus GitLab includes various software components/services to support running GitLab in a high availability configuration. By default, some of these supporting services are disabled, and Omnibus GitLab is configured to run as a single node installation. Each service can be enabled or disabled using configuration settings in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb, but the introduction of roles allows you to easily enable a group of services, and provides better default configuration based on the high availability roles you have enabled.

Not specifying any Roles (the default configuration)

When you don't configure GitLab with any roles, GitLab enables the default services for a single node install. These include things like PostgreSQL, Redis, Unicorn, Sidekiq, Gitaly, GitLab Workhorse, Nginx, etc.

These can still be individually enable/disabled by the settings in your /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb.

Specifying Roles

Roles are passed as an array in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb

Example specifying multiple roles:

roles ['redis_sentinel_role', 'redis_master_role']

Example specifying a single role:

roles ['geo_primary_role']

Roles

GitLab App Role

  • application_role

The GitLab App role is used to easily configure an instance where only GitLab is running. Redis, Postgres, and Consul services are disabled by default.

Redis Server Roles

Documentation on the use of the Redis Roles can be found in Configuring Redis HA

  • redis_sentinel_role

Enables the sentinel service on the machine,

By default, enables no other services.

  • redis_master_role

Enables the redis service and monitoring, and allows configuring the master password

By default, enables no other services.

  • redis_slave_role

Enables the redis service and monitoring

By default, enables no other services.

GitLab Geo Roles

The GitLab Geo roles are used when setting up the database replication for GitLab Geo. See the Geo Database Documentation for configuration steps.

  • geo_primary_role

Prepares the database for replication and configures the application as a Geo Primary.

By default, enables all of GitLab's standard single node services. (Nginx, Unicorn, Redis, Sidekiq, etc)

  • geo_secondary_role

Configures the secondary database for incoming replication and flags the application as a Geo Secondary

By default, enables all of GitLab's default single node services. (Nginx, Unicorn, Redis, Sidekiq, etc)

Postgres Roles

Documentation on the usage of the Postgres Roles can be found in Configuring Postgres HA

  • postgres_role

Enables the postgresql, repmgr, and consul services on the machine

By default, enables no other services.

  • pgbouncer_role

Enables the pgbouncer and consul services on the machine

By default, enables no other services.

  • consul_role

Enables the consul service on the machine

By default, enables no other services.