docker-gitlab/CI_MIGRATION.md

CI Migration Guide

Since version 8.0.0, CI is now a part of GitLab. You no longer need to run a separate instance of the CI server. This guide walks you through the procedure of migrating your existing CI data into GitLab.

This guide assumes that you are currently using sameersbn/gitlab and sameersbn/gitlab-ci for setting up your GitLab and CI requirements.

Note:

If your CI server and your GitLab server use the same database adapter no special care is needed. If your CI server uses MySQL and your GitLab server uses PostgreSQL you need to pass a special option in Step 4 - Upgrade CI > Create CI backup. If your CI server uses PostgreSQL and your GitLab server uses MySQL you cannot migrate your CI data to GitLab 8.0, Please refer to https://github.com/sameersbn/docker-gitlab/issues/429#issuecomment-152799995 for instructions to migrate from MySQL to PostgreSQL first.

Step 1 - Get Ready

Stop your GitLab and CI servers

docker stop gitlab-ci gitlab
docker rm gitlab-ci gitlab

Step 2 - Upgrade to the 7.14.3 releases

Migration to GitLab 8.0 can only be done from version 7.14.3. As a result we need to first migrate to the most recent versions of these images.

Upgrade to sameersbn/gitlab:7.14.3

docker run -it --rm [OPTIONS] \
  sameersbn/gitlab:7.14.3 app:init

Upgrade to sameersbn/gitlab-ci:7.14.3-1

docker run -it --rm [OPTIONS] \
  sameersbn/gitlab-ci:7.14.3-1 app:init

Step 3 - Generate Backups

Create backups to ensure that we can rollback in case you face issues during the migration

Create GitLab backup

docker run -it --rm [OPTIONS] \
  sameersbn/gitlab:7.14.3 app:rake gitlab:backup:create

Make a note of the backup archive xxxxxxxxxx_gitlab_backup.tar as it is the backup you will have to rollback to in case of errors.

Create GitLab CI backup

docker run -it --rm [OPTIONS] \
  sameersbn/gitlab-ci:7.14.3-1 app:rake backup:create

Make a note of the backup archive xxxxxxxxxx_gitlab_ci_backup.tar.gz as it is the backup you will have to rollback to in case of errors.

Note

: From this point only 8.0.x version images are used.

Step 4 - Upgrade CI

CI 8.x.x is only meant for the purpose of migrating to GitLab 8.0. Here we need to upgrade to version 8.x.x and generate a backup that will be imported into GitLab.

Upgrade to sameersbn/gitlab-ci:8.0.5

docker run -it --rm [OPTIONS] \
  sameersbn/gitlab-ci:8.0.5 app:init

Create CI backup

If you are converting from MySQL to PostgreSQL, add MYSQL_TO_POSTGRESQL=1 to the end of the below command.

docker run -it --rm [OPTIONS] \
  sameersbn/gitlab-ci:8.0.5 app:rake backup:create

Copy the generated backup archive xxxxxxxxxx_gitlab_ci_backup.tar into the backups/ directory of the GitLab server.

cp <gitlab-ci-host-volume-path>/backups/xxxxxxxxxx_gitlab_ci_backup.tar <gitlab-ce-host-volume-path>/backups/

We are done with CI. If the rest of the migration goes was planned you will not need to start sameersbn/gitlab-ci ever again.

Step 5 - Upgrade GitLab

Before we can upgrade to sameersbn/gitlab:8.0.5-1, we need to assign the value of GITLAB_CI_SECRETS_DB_KEY_BASE (from CI) to GITLAB_SECRETS_DB_KEY_BASE in GitLab's environment.

Next you also need to set the environment variable GITLAB_CI_HOST to the address of your CI server, eg. ci.example.com. This will make sure that your existing runners will be able to communicate to GitLab with the old url.

Upgrade to sameersbn/gitlab:8.0.5-1

docker run -it --rm [OPTIONS] \
  --env GITLAB_CI_HOST=ci.example.com --env GITLAB_SECRETS_DB_KEY_BASE=xxxxxx \
  sameersbn/gitlab:8.0.5-1 app:init

Migrate CI data

docker run -it --rm [OPTIONS] \
  --env GITLAB_CI_HOST=ci.example.com --env GITLAB_SECRETS_DB_KEY_BASE=xxxxxx \
  sameersbn/gitlab:8.0.5-1 app:rake ci:migrate

Step 6 - Fix DNS and reverse proxy configurations

Since GitLab and CI are now one, update your DNS configuration to make sure ci.example.com points to your GitLab instance.

If you are using a reverse proxy, update the configuration such that ci.example.com interfaces with the GitLab server.

Note

: The above changes results in connections from your runners redirect multiple times before ending up at the right location. If you want to avoid this redirection you can update the url in your runners configuration file to point to http://git.example.com/ci when using plain http, or https://git.example.com/ci if you are using SSL.

If you change the url on the runners you can also do away with the ci.example.com domain name altogether.

Step 7 - Done!

You can now start the GitLab server normally. Make sure that GITLAB_CI_HOST and GITLAB_SECRETS_DB_KEY_BASE are defined in your containers environment.