Install Docker Gitlab

• Registration-related commands
  • gitlab-runner register
  • gitlab-runner unregister
• Service-related commands
• Run-related commands
  • gitlab-runner exec
• Internal commands
• Troubleshooting

• Gitlab Install With Docker
• Install Docker Gitlab Ci
• Docker Install Gitlab-ce
• Install Docker Gitlab Synology
• Install Gitlab Docker Ubuntu

GitLab Runner contains a set of commands you use to register, manage, andrun your builds.

To create a backup of your repositories and GitLab metadata, follow the backup create documentation. Backup create will store a tar file in /var/opt/gitlab/backups. If you want to store your GitLab backups in a different directory, add the following setting to /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and run sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure. Gitlab-runner exec docker can only be used when Docker is installed locally. This is needed because GitLab Runner is using host-bind volumes to access the Git sources. Internal commands. GitLab Runner is distributed as a single binary and contains a few internal commands that are used during builds. Gitlab-runner artifacts-downloader.

You can check a recent list of commands by executing:

Append --help after a command to see its specific help page:

Using environment variables

Most of the commands support environment variables as a method to pass theconfiguration to the command.

You can see the name of the environment variable when invoking --help for aspecific command. For example, you can see below the help message for the runcommand:

The output is similar to:

Running in debug mode

Debug mode is especially useful when looking for the cause of some undefinedbehavior or error.

To run a command in debug mode, prepend the command with --debug:

Super-user permission

Commands that access the configuration of GitLab Runner behave differently whenexecuted as super-user (root). The file location depends on the user executingthe command.

When you execute gitlab-runner commands, you see the mode it is running in:

You should use user-mode if you are sure this is the mode youwant to work with. Otherwise, prefix your command with sudo:

In the case of Windows, you may need to run the command prompt asan administrator.

Configuration file

GitLab Runner configuration uses the TOML format.

You can find the file to be edited:

1. On *nix systems when GitLab Runner isexecuted as super-user (root): /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml
2. On *nix systems when GitLab Runner isexecuted as non-root: ~/.gitlab-runner/config.toml
3. On other systems: ./config.toml

Most of the commands accept an argument to specify a custom configuration file,so you can have a multiple different configurations on a single machine.To specify a custom configuration file, use the -c or --config flag, or usethe CONFIG_FILE environment variable.

Signals

You can use system signals to interact with GitLab Runner. Thefollowing commands support the following signals:

Command	Signal	Action
register	SIGINT	Cancel runner registration and delete if it was already registered.
run, exec, run-single	SIGINT, SIGTERM	Abort all running builds and exit as soon as possible. Use twice to exit now (forceful shutdown).
run, exec, run-single	SIGQUIT	Stop accepting a new builds. Exit as soon as currently running builds do finish (graceful shutdown).
run	SIGHUP	Force to reload configuration file.

For example, to force a reload of a runner’s configuration file, run:

For graceful shutdowns:

If your operating system is configured to automatically restart the service if it fails (which is the default on some platforms) it may automatically restart the runner if it’s shut down by the signals above.

Commands overview

This is what you see if you run gitlab-runner without any arguments:

Below we explain what each command does in detail.

Registration-related commands

Use the following commands to register a new runner, or list and verifythem if they are still registered.

• gitlab-runner register

These commands support the following arguments:

Parameter	Default	Description
--config	See the configuration file section	Specify a custom configuration file to be used

gitlab-runner register

This command registers your runner in GitLab by using the GitLab Runners API.

The registered runner isadded to the configuration file.You can use multiple configurations in a single installation of GitLab Runner. Executinggitlab-runner register adds a new configuration entry. It doesn’t remove theprevious ones.

There are two options to register a runner:

• interactive.
• non-interactive.

Interactive registration

This command is usually used in interactive mode (default). You areasked multiple questions during a runner’s registration.

This question can be pre-filled by adding arguments when invoking the registration command:

Or by configuring the environment variable before the register command:

To check all possible arguments and environments execute:

Non-interactive registration

It’s possible to use registration in non-interactive / unattended mode.

You can specify the arguments when invoking the registration command:

Or by configuring the environment variable before the register command:

[[runners]] configuration template file

Additional options can be easily configured during runner registration using theconfiguration template file feature.

gitlab-runner list

This command lists all runners saved in theconfiguration file.

gitlab-runner verify

This command checks if the registered runners can connect to GitLab, but itdoesn’t verify if the runners are being used by the GitLab Runner service. Anexample output is:

To remove the old runners that have been removed from GitLab, execute the followingcommand.

gitlab-runner unregister

This command unregisters registered runners by using the GitLab Runners API.

It expects either:

• A full URL and the runner’s token.
• The runner’s name.

With the --all-runners option, it unregisters all the attached runners.

To unregister a specific runner, first get the runner’s details by executinggitlab-runner list:

Then use this information to unregister it, using one of the following commands.

By URL and token

By name

All runners

Service-related commands

The following commands allow you to manage the runner as a system or userservice. Use them to install, uninstall, start, and stop the runner service.

All service related commands accept these arguments:

Parameter	Default	Description
--service	gitlab-runner	Specify custom service name
--config	See the configuration file	Specify a custom configuration file to use

gitlab-runner install

This command installs GitLab Runner as a service. It accepts different sets ofarguments depending on which system it’s run on.

When run on Windows or as super-user, it accepts the --user flag whichallows you to drop privileges of builds run with the shell executor.

Parameter	Default	Description
--service	gitlab-runner	Specify service name to use
--config	See the configuration file	Specify a custom configuration file to use
--syslog	true (for non systemd systems)	Specify if the service should integrate with system logging service
--working-directory	the current directory	Specify the root directory where all data is stored when builds are run with the shell executor
--user	root	Specify the user that executes the builds
--password	none	Specify the password for the user that executes the builds

gitlab-runner uninstall

This command stops and uninstalls GitLab Runner from being run as anservice.

gitlab-runner start

This command starts the GitLab Runner service.

gitlab-runner stop

This command stops the GitLab Runner service.

gitlab-runner restart

This command stops and then starts the GitLab Runner service.

gitlab-runner status

This command prints the status of the GitLab Runner service. The exit code is zero when the service is running and non-zero when the service is not running.

Multiple services

By specifying the --service flag, it is possible to have multiple GitLabRunner services installed, with multiple separate configurations.

Run-related commands

This command allows to fetch and process builds from GitLab.

gitlab-runner run

This is main command that is executed when GitLab Runner is started as aservice. It reads all defined runners from config.toml and tries to run allof them.

The command is executed and works until it receives a signal.

It accepts the following parameters.

Parameter	Default	Description
--config	See configuration-file	Specify a custom configuration file to be used
--working-directory	the current directory	Specify the root directory where all data is stored when builds run with the shell executor
--user	the current user	Specify the user that executes builds
--syslog	false	Send all logs to SysLog (Unix) or EventLog (Windows)
--listen-address	empty	Address (<host>:<port>) on which the Prometheus metrics HTTP server should be listening

gitlab-runner run-single

This is a supplementary command that can be used to run only a single buildfrom a single GitLab instance. It doesn’t use any configuration file andrequires to pass all options either as parameters or environment variables.The GitLab URL and Runner token need to be specified too.

For example:

You can see all possible configuration options by using the --help flag:

You can use the --max-builds option to control how many builds the runner executes before exiting. Thedefault of 0 means that the runner has no build limit and jobs run forever.

You can also use the --wait-timeout option to control how long the runner waits for a job beforeexiting. The default of 0 means that the runner has no timeout and waits forever between jobs.

gitlab-runner exec

This command allows you to run builds locally, trying to replicate the CIenvironment as much as possible. It doesn’t need to connect to GitLab, insteadit reads the local .gitlab-ci.yml and creates a new build environment inwhich all the build steps are executed.

This command is useful for fast checking and verifying .gitlab-ci.yml as wellas debugging broken builds since everything is run locally.

When executing exec you need to specify the executor and the job name that ispresent in .gitlab-ci.yml. The command should be executed from the rootdirectory of your Git repository that contains .gitlab-ci.yml.

gitlab-runner exec clones the current state of the local Git repository.Make sure you have committed any changes you want to test beforehand.

For example, the following command executes the job named tests locallyusing a shell executor:

To see a list of available executors, run:

To see a list of all available options for the shell executor, run:

If you want to use the docker executor with the exec command, use that incontext of docker-machine shell or boot2docker shell. This is required toproperly map your local directory to the directory inside the Docker container.

Limitations of gitlab-runner exec

With the current implementation of exec, some of the features of GitLab CI/CDmay not work or may work partially.

We’re currently thinking about how to replace current exec implementation,to make it fully compatible with all features. Please track the issuefor more details.

Compatibility table - features based on .gitlab-ci.yml

The following features are supported. If a feature is not listed in this table, it is not supported.

GitLab CI feature	Available with exec	Comments
image	yes	Extended configuration (name, entrypoint) are also supported.
services	yes	Extended configuration (name, alias, entrypoint, command) are also supported.
before_script	yes	Supports both global and job-level before_script.
after_script	partially	Global after_script is not supported. Only job-level after_script; only commands are taken into consideration, when is hardcoded to always.
variables	yes	Supports default (partially), global and job-level variables; default variables are pre-set as can be seen in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-runner/blob/master/helpers/gitlab_ci_yaml_parser/parser.go#L147.
cache	partially	Regarding the specific configuration it may or may not work as expected.
YAML features	yes	Anchors (&), aliases (*), map merging (<<) are part of YAML specification and are handled by the parser.
pages	partially	Job’s script is executed if explicitly asked, but it doesn’t affect pages state, which is managed by GitLab.

Compatibility table - features based on variables

GitLab CI feature	Available with exec	Comments
GIT_STRATEGY	yes
GIT_CHECKOUT	yes
GIT_SUBMODULE_STRATEGY	yes
GET_SOURCES_ATTEMPTS	yes
ARTIFACT_DOWNLOAD_ATTEMPTS	no	Artifacts are not supported.
RESTORE_CACHE_ATTEMPTS	yes
GIT_DEPTH	yes

Compatibility table - other features

GitLab CI feature	Available with exec	Comments
Secret Variables	no
triggers	no
schedules	no
job timeout	no	Hardcoded to 1 hour.
[ci skip]	no

Gitlab Install With Docker

Other requirements and limitations

gitlab-runner exec docker can only be used when Docker is installed locally.This is needed because GitLab Runner is using host-bind volumes to access theGit sources.

Internal commands

GitLab Runner is distributed as a single binary and contains a few internalcommands that are used during builds.

gitlab-runner artifacts-downloader

Download the artifacts archive from GitLab.

gitlab-runner artifacts-uploader

Upload the artifacts archive to GitLab.

Install Docker Gitlab Ci

gitlab-runner cache-archiver

Create a cache archive, store it locally or upload it to an external server.

gitlab-runner cache-extractor

Restore the cache archive from a locally or externally stored file.

Troubleshooting

Below are some common pitfalls.

Access Denied when running the service-related commands

Usually the service related commands requireadministrator privileges:

• On Unix (Linux, macOS, FreeBSD) systems, prefix gitlab-runner with sudo
• On Windows systems use the elevated command prompt.Run an Administrator command prompt.The simplest way is to write Command Prompt in the Windows search field,right click and select Run as administrator. You are asked to confirmthat you want to execute the elevated command prompt.

Help & feedback

Get Help

If you didn't find what you were looking for,search the docs.

If you want help with something specific and could use community support,post on the GitLab forum.

For problems setting up or using this feature (depending on your GitLabsubscription).

Docker Install Gitlab-ce

Request supportPlease enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

• Backup and restore Omnibus GitLab configuration

Backup and restore Omnibus GitLab configuration

It is recommended to keep a copy of /etc/gitlab, or at least of/etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json, in a safe place. If you everneed to restore a GitLab application backup you need to also restoregitlab-secrets.json. If you do not, GitLab users who are usingtwo-factor authentication will lose access to your GitLab serverand ‘secure variables’ stored in GitLab CI will be lost.

It is not recommended to store your configuration backup in thesame place as your application data backup, see below.

All configuration for Omnibus GitLab is stored in /etc/gitlab. To backup yourconfiguration, just run sudo gitlab-ctl backup-etc. It will create a tararchive in /etc/gitlab/config_backup/. Directory and backup files will bereadable only to root.

To create a daily application backup, edit the cron table for user root:

The cron table will appear in an editor.

Enter the command to create a compressed tar file containing the contents of/etc/gitlab/. For example, schedule the backup to run every morning after aweekday, Tuesday (day 2) through Saturday (day 6):

You can extract the .tar file as follows.

Remember to run sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure after restoring a configurationbackup.

Separate configuration backups from application data

Do not store your GitLab application backups (Git repositories, SQLdata) in the same place as your configuration backup (/etc/gitlab).The gitlab-secrets.json file (and possibly also the gitlab.rbfile) contain database encryption keys to protect sensitive datain the SQL database:

• GitLab two-factor authentication (2FA) user secrets (‘QR codes’)
• GitLab CI ‘secure variables’

If you separate your configuration backup from your application data backup,you reduce the chance that your encrypted application data will belost/leaked/stolen together with the keys needed to decrypt it.

Creating an application backup

To create a backup of your repositories and GitLab metadata, follow thebackup create documentation.

Backup create will store a tar file in /var/opt/gitlab/backups.

If you want to store your GitLab backups in a different directory, add thefollowing setting to /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and run sudo gitlab-ctlreconfigure:

Creating backups for GitLab instances in Docker containers

Backups can be scheduled on the host by prepending docker exec -t <your container name> to the commands.

Backup application:

Backup configuration and secrets:

1. /secret/gitlab/backups.
2. /var/opt/gitlab for all application data, which includes backups.

3. /var/opt/gitlab/backups (optional). The gitlab-backup tool writes to this directory by default.While this directory is nested inside /var/opt/gitlab, Docker sorts these mounts, allowing them to work in harmony.

   This configuration enables, for example:

   • Application data on regular local storage (through the second mount).
   • A backup volume on network storage (through the third mount).

Restoring an application backup

See backup restore documentation.

Backup and restore using non-packaged database

If you are using non-packaged database see documentation on using non-packaged database.

Upload backups to remote (cloud) storage

For details check backup restore document of GitLab CE.

Manually manage backup directory

Omnibus GitLab creates the backup directory set with gitlab_rails['backup_path']. The directory is owned by the user that is running GitLab and it has strict permissions set to be accessible to only that user.That directory will hold backup archives and they contain sensitive information.In some organizations permissions need to be different because of, for example, shipping the backup archives offsite.

Install Docker Gitlab Synology

To disable backup directory management, in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb set:

Warning If you set this configuration option, it is up to you to create the directory specified in gitlab_rails['backup_path'] and to set permissionswhich will allow user specified in user['username'] to have correct access. Failing to do so will prevent GitLab from creating the backup archive.

Help & feedback

Get Help

If you didn't find what you were looking for,search the docs.

If you want help with something specific and could use community support,post on the GitLab forum.

For problems setting up or using this feature (depending on your GitLabsubscription).

Install Gitlab Docker Ubuntu

Request supportPlease enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.