Continuous Gitlab backup and restore using rsync

This article covers backup and restore guidelines for community version of gitlab.

Objective:

Step 1: Configure machine

sudo apt-get update

Step 2: Create LVM on machine for snapshot

# Install GUI partition software

$ sudo apt-get install gparted

# Display all disk partitions

$ sudo fdisk -l

$ sudo vgcreate ubuntu /dev/sda5

$ sudo lvcreate — extents 100%FREE — name lvgitlab ubuntu

$ sudo lvresize — size -100G /dev/mapper/ubuntu-lvgitlab

$ sudo lvcreate — size 14.5G — name lvgitlabswap ubuntu

$ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/ubuntu/lvgitlab

$ sudo mount /dev/ubuntu/lvgitlab /var/opt/gitlab/

Note: Guide Guide

Step 3: Configure LVM to mount permanent

$ sudo vi /etc/lvm/lvm.conf

# update use_lvmetad setting from 1 to 0

use_lvmetad = 0

Step 4: Install Gitlab: Installation of gitlab over Ubuntu is very easy just follow the steps provided in official documentation. https://about.gitlab.com/installation/#ubuntu or steps here.

Step 5: Configure Gitlab:

# Open gitlab configuration file

$ sudo nano /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb

## Backup settings

gitlab_rails[‘manage_backup_path’] \= true

gitlab_rails[‘backup_path’] = “/mnt/gitlabdb-backup”
gitlab_rails[‘backup_archive_permissions’] = 0644

gitlab_rails[‘backup_keep_time’] = 604800

## GitLab user privileges

gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_default_can_create_group’] = false

gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_username_changing_enabled’] = false

manage_accounts[‘enable’] = false

## Default project feature settings

gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_default_projects_features_issues’] = false

gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_default_projects_features_merge_requests’] = false

gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_default_projects_features_wiki’] = false

gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_default_projects_features_snippets’] = false

gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_default_projects_features_builds’] = false

gitlab_rails[‘gitlab_default_projects_features_container_registry’] = false

## LDAP settings

gitlab_rails[‘ldap_enabled’] = true

gitlab_rails[‘ldap_servers’] = YAML.load <<-’EOS’

main: # ‘main’ is the GitLab ‘provider ID’ of this LDAP server

label: ‘LDAP’

host: ‘’

port: 389

uid: ‘sAMAccountName’

bind_dn: ‘\’

password: ‘’

encryption: ‘plain’ # “start_tls” or “simple_tls” or “plain”

verify_certificates: true

active_directory: true

allow_username_or_email_login: true

block_auto_created_users: false

base: ‘’

user_filter: ‘’

# ## EE only

# group_base: ‘’

# admin_group: ‘’

# sync_ssh_keys: false

# Gitlab reconfigure

$ sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

# Disable SignUp

Admin Area > Settings > Sign-up Restrictions : Uncheck Sign-up enabled → Save

# Update Admin Profile:

User Settings > Account > Change username : replace root with gitlab.admin

User Settings > Edit Profile > Main settings > Email : ****@

Step 4: Backup:

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/gitlab-backup

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/gitlabdb-backup

Copy following scripts inside this folder:

$ sudo mkdir gitlab-scripts

# Weekly backup: ftp_backup.bash

# Daily backup: remotegitlab_backup.bash

# Daily Mail flush: postfix_flush.bash

# Daily Old files flush: clearold_backup.bash

$ chmod +x /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/ftp_backup.bash

$ chmod +x /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/remotegitlab_backup.bash

$ chmod +x /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/postfix_flush.bash

$ chmod +x /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/clearold_backup.bash

$ sudo crontab -e

# Configure crons

## weekly backup

30 6 * * 6 /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/ftp_backup.bash &> /dev/null

## daily backup

30 1 * * * /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/remotegitlab_backup.bash &> /dev/null

## daily flush

0 7 * * * /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/postfix_flush.bash &> /dev/null

## weekly clear

10 7 * * * /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/clearold_backup.bash &> /dev/null

Step 4: Setup Mail Server:

• Follow guidelines from here

Setup postfix as relay server, for creating app follow this link:

https://linode.com/docs/email/postfix/postfix-smtp-debian7/

$ sudo vi /etc/postfix/sasl/sasl_passwd

# Copy paste following (change app-password to account app password)

smtp.gmail.com]:587 noreply@.com:[app-password]

# Create the hash db file for Postfix by running the postmap command:

sudo postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd

# Run the following commands to change the ownership to root and update the permissions for the two files:

sudo chown root:root /etc/postfix/sasl/sasl_passwd /etc/postfix/sasl/sasl_passwd.db

sudo chmod 0600 /etc/postfix/sasl/sasl_passwd /etc/postfix/sasl/sasl_passwd.db

# Configure postfix:

sudo vi /etc/postfix/main.cf

# Add specify SMTP relay host

relayhost =[smtp.gmail.com]:587

Add following at the end of file:

# enable SASL authentication

smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes

# disallow methods that allow anonymous authentication.

smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous

# where to find sasl_passwd

smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl/sasl_passwd

# Enable STARTTLS encryption

smtp_use_tls = yes

# where to find CA certificates

smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

That’s it now restart postfix

sudo service postfix restart

# Testing Postfix

echo “This is the body of the email” | mail -s “This is the subject line” ankurlnmiit@gmail.com

Step 5: Check the permissions of following folders:

# Git repositories directory

/var/opt/gitlab/git-data 0700 git:root

# Git repositories

/var/opt/gitlab/git-data/repositories 2770 git:git

# Holds large object directories

/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared 0751 git:gitlab-www

# Holds CI artifacts

/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/artifacts 0700 git:root

# Holds LFS objects

/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/lfs-objects 0700 git:root

# Holds user attachments

/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/uploads 0700 git:root

# Holds user pages

/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/pages 0750 git:gitlab-www

# Holds CI build logs

/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-ci/builds 0700 git:root

# Holds authorized keys

/var/opt/gitlab/.ssh 0700 git:git

Step 7: Configure routing as git..com

$ ssh ankur@

$ sudo vi /etc/hosts

# Add following

git..com

# Create nginx configuration file

$ sudo vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/git

# update: server_name, proxy_pass

server {

listen *:80;

server_name http://git..com;

client_max_body_size 200M;

location / {

proxy_set_header Host $host;

proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;

proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;

proxy_pass http://git..com;

}

}

# Enable nginx site configuration

$ sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/git /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/git

$ sudo service nginx reload

Step 6: Restore

This step is only needed in-case if we are setting up new gitlab server for local network and would like to restore it from remote gitlab server.

# Restore from remote gitlab server script

$ sudo vi restore_gitlab.bash

#! bin/bash

$ chmod +x restore_gitlab.bash

$ ./restore_gitlab.bash

Note: Open Gitlab in browser and check whether everything is working correctly or not.

clearold_backup.sh

#! /bin/bash

# Path : /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/clearold_backup.bash

# clear db files older than 5 days

sudo find ‘/mnt/gitlabdb-backup/’ -mtime +4 -type f -delete

local_backup_restore.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Path: /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/local_backup_restore.bash

# Resync backups to local gitlab server

[[ $( whoami ) != ‘root’ ]] && echo “sudo please” && exit 1

set -o errexit

set -o nounset

# Remote path

postfix_flush.bash

#!/bin/bash

# Path: /home/ubuntu/gitlab-scripts/postfix_flush.bash

sudo systemctl restart postfix

postqueue -f

restore_backup.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Backup tar file for restore

backup_path=/mnt/gitlabdb-backup/

BACKUPFILE=`ls -t $backup_path | head -n 1`

# gitlab backup git-data path

git_data=/mnt/gitlab-backup/git-data

# copy backup git-data to /var/opt/gitlab/git-data

echo “copying $git_data to /var/opt/gitlab” >&2

#sudo cp -r $git_data /var/opt/gitlab/

#sudo sh -c ‘rsync — archive — verbose — bwlimit=50M /mnt/gitlab-backup/git-data/repositories/. /var/opt/gitlab/git-data/repositories’

#sudo chown -R git:git /var/opt/gitlab/git-data

echo “Start Copying”

# copy gitlab db backup tar

sudo cp $backup_path$BACKUPFILE /var/opt/gitlab/backups/

sudo chown -R git:git /var/opt/gitlab/backups/

echo “Restarting Gitlab”

sudo gitlab-ctl stop unicorn

sudo gitlab-ctl stop sidekiq

fname=”${BACKUPFILE%_gitlab_backup.tar}”

sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:backup:restore BACKUP=$fname force=yes

sudo gitlab-ctl restart

echo “DONE”