Configuring a Database for GitLab HA

You can choose to install and manage a database server (PostgreSQL/MySQL) yourself, or you can use GitLab Omnibus packages to help. GitLab recommends PostgreSQL. This is the database that will be installed if you use the Omnibus package to manage your database.

Important notes:

This document will focus only on configuration supported with GitLab Enterprise Edition Premium, using the Omnibus GitLab package.

If you are a Community Edition or Enterprise Edition Starter user, consider using a cloud hosted solution.

This document will not cover installations from source.

If HA setup is not what you were looking for, see the database configuration document for the Omnibus GitLab packages.

Configure your own database server

If you're hosting GitLab on a cloud provider, you can optionally use a managed service for PostgreSQL. For example, AWS offers a managed Relational Database Service (RDS) that runs PostgreSQL.

If you use a cloud-managed service, or provide your own PostgreSQL:

Setup PostgreSQL according to the database requirements document.
Set up a gitlab username with a password of your choice. The gitlab user needs privileges to create the gitlabhq_production database.
Configure the GitLab application servers with the appropriate details. This step is covered in Configuring GitLab for HA.

Configure using Omnibus for High Availability

Please read this document fully before attempting to configure PostgreSQL HA for GitLab.

This configuration is GA in EE 10.2.

The recommended configuration for a PostgreSQL HA requires:

A minimum of three database nodes
- Each node will run the following services:
- PostgreSQL - The database itself
- repmgrd - A service to monitor, and handle failover in case of a failure
- Consul agent - Used for service discovery, to alert other nodes when failover occurs
A minimum of three Consul server nodes
A minimum of one pgbouncer service node

You also need to take into consideration the underlying network topology, making sure you have redundant connectivity between all Database and GitLab instances, otherwise the networks will become a single point of failure.

Architecture

Database nodes run two services besides PostgreSQL

Repmgrd -- monitors the cluster and handles failover in case of an issue with the master

The failover consists of

Selecting a new master for the cluster
Promoting the new node to master
Instructing remaining servers to follow the new master node

On failure, the old master node is automatically evicted from the cluster, and should be rejoined manually once recovered.

Consul -- Monitors the status of each node in the database cluster, and tracks its health in a service definiton on the consul cluster.

Alongside pgbouncer, there is a consul agent that watches the status of the PostgreSQL service. If that status changes, consul runs a script which updates the configuration and reloads pgbouncer

Connection flow

Each service in the package comes with a set of default ports. You may need to make specific firewall rules for the connections listed below:

Application servers connect to PgBouncer default port
PgBouncer connects to the primary database servers PostgreSQL default port
Repmgr connects to the database servers PostgreSQL default port
Postgres secondaries connect to the primary database servers PostgreSQL default port
Consul servers and agents connect to each others Consul default ports

Required information

Before proceeding with configuration, you will need to collect all the necessary information.

Network information

PostgreSQL does not listen on any network interface by default. It needs to know which IP address to listen on in order to be accessible to other services. Similarly, PostgreSQL access is controlled based on the network source.

This is why you will need:

IP address of each nodes network interface

This can be set to 0.0.0.0 to listen on all interfaces. It cannot be set to the loopack address 127.0.0.1

Network Address

This can be in subnet (i.e. 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0) or CIDR (i.e. 192.168.0.0/24) form.

User information

Various services require different configuration to secure the communication as well as information required for running the service. Bellow you will find details on each service and the minimum required information you need to provide.

Consul information

When using default setup, minimum configuration requires:

CONSUL_USERNAME. Defaults to gitlab-consul
CONSUL_DATABASE_PASSWORD. Password for the database user.
CONSUL_PASSWORD_HASH. This is a hash generated out of consul username/password pair. Can be generated with: sh echo -n 'CONSUL_DATABASE_PASSWORDCONSUL_USERNAME' | md5sum
CONSUL_SERVER_NODES. The IP addresses or DNS records of the Consul server nodes.

Few notes on the service itself:

The service runs under a system account, by default gitlab-consul.
- If you are using a different username, you will have to specify it. We will refer to it with CONSUL_USERNAME,
There will be a database user created with read only access to the repmgr database
Passwords will be stored in the following locations:
- /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb: hashed
- /var/opt/gitlab/pgbouncer/pg_auth: hashed
- /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-consul/.pgpass: plaintext

PostgreSQL information

When configuring PostgreSQL, we will set max_wal_senders to one more than the number of database nodes in the cluster. This is used to prevent replication from using up all of the available database connections.

Note:

In this document we are assuming 3 database nodes, which makes this configuration:

postgresql['max_wal_senders'] = 4

As previously mentioned, you'll have to prepare the network subnets that will be allowed to authenticate with the database. You'll also need to supply the IP addresses or DNS records of Consul server nodes.

We will need the following password information for the application's database user:

POSTGRESQL_USERNAME. Defaults to gitlab
POSTGRESQL_USER_PASSWORD. The password for the database user
POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH. This is a hash generated out of the username/password pair. Can be generated with: sh echo -n 'POSTGRESQL_USER_PASSWORDPOSTGRESQL_USERNAME' | md5sum

Pgbouncer information

When using default setup, minimum configuration requires:

PGBOUNCER_USERNAME. Defaults to pgbouncer
PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD. This is a password for pgbouncer service.
PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD_HASH. This is a hash generated out of pgbouncer username/password pair. Can be generated with: sh echo -n 'PGBOUNCER_PASSWORDPGBOUNCER_USERNAME' | md5sum
PGBOUNCER_NODE, is the IP address or a FQDN of the node running Pgbouncer.

Few notes on the service itself:

The service runs as the same system account as the database
- In the package, this is by default gitlab-psql
If you use a non-default user account for Pgbouncer service (by default pgbouncer), you will have to specify this username. We will refer to this requirement with PGBOUNCER_USERNAME.
The service will have a regular database user account generated for it
- This defaults to repmgr
Passwords will be stored in the following locations:
- /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb: hashed, and in plain text
- /var/opt/gitlab/pgbouncer/pg_auth: hashed

Repmgr information

When using default setup, you will only have to prepare the network subnets that will be allowed to authenticate with the service.

Few notes on the service itself:

The service runs under the same system account as the database
- In the package, this is by default gitlab-psql
The service will have a superuser database user account generated for it
- This defaults to gitlab_repmgr

Installing Omnibus GitLab

First, make sure to download/install GitLab Omnibus on each node.

Make sure you install the necessary dependencies from step 1, add GitLab package repository from step 2. When installing the GitLab package, do not supply EXTERNAL_URL value.

Initial node configuration

Each node needs to be configured to run only the services it needs.

Configuring the Consul nodes

On each Consul node perform the following:

Make sure you collect CONSUL_SERVER_NODES before executing the next step.

Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb replacing values noted in the # START user configuration section:

# Disable all components except Consul
bootstrap['enable'] = false
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
gitaly['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
mailroom['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
postgresql['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false
sidekiq['enable'] = false
prometheus['enable'] = false
unicorn['enable'] = false

consul['enable'] = true
# START user configuration
# Replace placeholders:
#
# Y.Y.Y.Y consul1.gitlab.example.com Z.Z.Z.Z
# with the addresses gathered for CONSUL_SERVER_NODES
consul['configuration'] = {
  server: true,
  retry_join: %w(Y.Y.Y.Y consul1.gitlab.example.com Z.Z.Z.Z)
}
#
# END user configuration

Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

After this is completed on each Consul server node, proceed further.

Configuring the Database nodes

On each database node perform the following:

Make sure you collect CONSUL_SERVER_NODES, PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD_HASH, POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH, Number of db nodes, and Network Address before executing the next step.

Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb replacing values noted in the # START user configuration section:

# Disable all components except PostgreSQL and Repmgr and Consul
bootstrap['enable'] = false
gitaly['enable'] = false
mailroom['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
unicorn['enable'] = false
sidekiq['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
prometheus_monitoring['enable'] = false

repmgr['enable'] = true
postgresql['enable'] = true
consul['enable'] = true

# PostgreSQL configuration
postgresql['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0'
postgresql['hot_standby'] = 'on'
postgresql['wal_level'] = 'replica'
postgresql['shared_preload_libraries'] = 'repmgr_funcs'

# Disable automatic database migrations
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false

# Configure the consul agent
consul['services'] = %w(postgresql)

# START user configuration
# Please set the real values as explained in Required Information section
#
# Replace PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD_HASH with a generated md5 value
postgresql['pgbouncer_user_password'] = 'PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD_HASH'
# Replace POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH with a generated md5 value
postgresql['sql_user_password'] = 'POSTGRESQL_PASSWORD_HASH'
# Replace X with value of number of db nodes + 1
postgresql['max_wal_senders'] = X

# Replace XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/YY with Network Address
postgresql['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/YY)
repmgr['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/YY)

# Replace placeholders:
#
# Y.Y.Y.Y consul1.gitlab.example.com Z.Z.Z.Z
# with the addresses gathered for CONSUL_SERVER_NODES
consul['configuration'] = {
  retry_join: %w(Y.Y.Y.Y consul1.gitlab.example.com Z.Z.Z.Z)
}
#
# END user configuration

Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Please note:

If you want your database to listen on a specific interface, change the config: postgresql['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0'

If your Pgbouncer service runs under a different user account, you also need to specify: postgresql['pgbouncer_user'] = PGBOUNCER_USERNAME in your configuration

Configuring the Pgbouncer node

Make sure you collect CONSUL_SERVER_NODES, CONSUL_PASSWORD_HASH, and PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD_HASH before executing the next step.

Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb replacing values noted in the # START user configuration section:

# Disable all components except Pgbouncer and Consul agent
bootstrap['enable'] = false
gitaly['enable'] = false
mailroom['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false
prometheus['enable'] = false
postgresql['enable'] = false
unicorn['enable'] = false
sidekiq['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false

pgbouncer['enable'] = true
consul['enable'] = true

# Configure Pgbouncer
pgbouncer['admin_users'] = %w(pgbouncer gitlab-consul)

# Configure Consul agent
consul['watchers'] = %w(postgresql)

# START user configuration
# Please set the real values as explained in Required Information section
# Replace CONSUL_PASSWORD_HASH with with a generated md5 value
# Replace PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD_HASH with with a generated md5 value
pgbouncer['users'] = {
  'gitlab-consul': {
    password: 'CONSUL_PASSWORD_HASH'
  },
  'pgbouncer': {
    password: 'PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD_HASH'
  }
}
# Replace placeholders:
#
# Y.Y.Y.Y consul1.gitlab.example.com Z.Z.Z.Z
# with the addresses gathered for CONSUL_SERVER_NODES
consul['configuration'] = {
  retry_join: %w(Y.Y.Y.Y consul1.gitlab.example.com Z.Z.Z.Z)
}
#
# END user configuration

Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Configuring the Application nodes

These will be the nodes running the gitlab-rails service. You may have other attributes set, but the following need to be set.

Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

# Disable PostgreSQL on the application node
postgresql['enable'] = false

gitlab_rails['db_host'] = 'PGBOUNCER_NODE'
gitlab_rails['db_port'] = 6432
gitlab_rails['db_password'] = 'POSTGRESQL_USER_PASSWORD'
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false

Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Node post-configuration

After reconfigure successfully runs, the following steps must be completed to get the cluster up and running.

Consul nodes post-configuration

Verify the nodes are all communicating:

/opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/consul members

The output should be similar to:

Node                 Address               Status  Type    Build  Protocol  DC
CONSUL_NODE_ONE      XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY:8301  alive   server  0.9.2  2         gitlab_consul
CONSUL_NODE_TWO      XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY:8301  alive   server  0.9.2  2         gitlab_consul
CONSUL_NODE_THREE    XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY:8301  alive   server  0.9.2  2         gitlab_consul
DATABASE_NODE_ONE    XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY:8301  alive   client  0.9.2  2         gitlab_consul
DATABASE_NODE_TWO    XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY:8301  alive   client  0.9.2  2         gitlab_consul
DATABASE_NODE_THREE  XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY:8301  alive   client  0.9.2  2         gitlab_consul
PGBOUNCER_NODE       XXX.XXX.XXX.YYY:8301  alive   client  0.9.0  2         gitlab_consul

Database nodes post-configuration

Primary node

Select one node as a primary node.

Open a database prompt:
```
gitlab-psql -d gitlabhq_production
```
Enable the pg_trgm extension:
```
CREATE EXTENSION pg_trgm;
```
Exit the database prompt by typing \q and Enter.

Verify the cluster is initialized with one node:

 gitlab-ctl repmgr cluster show

The output should be similar to the following:

 Role      | Name     | Upstream | Connection String
 ----------+----------|----------|----------------------------------------
 * master  | HOSTNAME |          | host=HOSTNAME user=gitlab_repmgr dbname=gitlab_repmgr

Note down the value in the Name column. We will refer to it in the next section as MASTER_NODE_NAME.

Secondary nodes

Setup the repmgr standby:

gitlab-ctl repmgr standby setup MASTER_NODE_NAME

Do note that this will remove the existing data on the node. The command has a wait time.

The output should be similar to the following:

# gitlab-ctl repmgr standby setup MASTER_NODE_NAME
Doing this will delete the entire contents of /var/opt/gitlab/postgresql/data
If this is not what you want, hit Ctrl-C now to exit
To skip waiting, rerun with the -w option
Sleeping for 30 seconds
Stopping the database
Removing the data
Cloning the data
Starting the database
Registering the node with the cluster
ok: run: repmgrd: (pid 19068) 0s

Verify the node now appears in the cluster:

 gitlab-ctl repmgr cluster show

The output should be similar to the following:

 Role      | Name    | Upstream  | Connection String
 ----------+---------|-----------|------------------------------------------------
 * master  | MASTER  |           | host=MASTER_NODE_NAME user=gitlab_repmgr dbname=gitlab_repmgr
   standby | STANDBY | MASTER    | host=STANDBY_HOSTNAME user=gitlab_repmgr dbname=gitlab_repmgr

Repeat the above steps on all secondary nodes.

Pgbouncer node post-configuration

Create a .pgpass file user for the CONSUL_USER account to be able to reload pgbouncer. Confirm PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD twice when asked:
```
 gitlab-ctl write-pgpass --host 127.0.0.1 --database pgbouncer --user pgbouncer --hostuser gitlab-consul
```

Ensure the node is talking to the current master:

 gitlab-ctl pgb-console # You will be prompted for PGBOUNCER_PASSWORD

Then run:

 show databases ; show clients ;

The output should be similar to the following:

         name         |  host       | port |      database       | force_user | pool_size | reserve_pool | pool_mode | max_connections | current_connections
 ---------------------+-------------+------+---------------------+------------+-----------+--------------+-----------+-----------------+---------------------
  gitlabhq_production | MASTER_HOST | 5432 | gitlabhq_production |            |        20 |            0 |           |               0 |                   0
  pgbouncer           |             | 6432 | pgbouncer           | pgbouncer  |         2 |            0 | statement |               0 |                   0
 (2 rows)

  type |   user    |      database       |  state  |   addr         | port  | local_addr | local_port |    connect_time     |    request_time     |    ptr    | link | remote_pid | tls
 ------+-----------+---------------------+---------+----------------+-------+------------+------------+---------------------+---------------------+-----------+------+------------+-----
  C    | (nouser)  | gitlabhq_production | waiting | IP_OF_APP_NODE | 56512 | 127.0.0.1  |       6432 | 2017-08-21 18:08:51 | 2017-08-21 18:08:51 | 0x22b3700 |      |          0 |
  C    | pgbouncer | pgbouncer           | active  | 127.0.0.1      | 56846 | 127.0.0.1  |       6432 | 2017-08-21 18:09:59 | 2017-08-21 18:10:48 | 0x22b3880 |      |          0 |
 (2 rows)

Application node post-configuration

Ensure that all migrations ran:

gitlab-rake gitlab:db:configure

Ensure GitLab is running

At this point, your GitLab instance should be up and running. Verify you are able to login, and create issues and merge requests. If you have troubles check the Troubleshooting section.

Example configuration

Here we'll show you some fully expanded example configurations.

Example recommended setup

This example uses 3 consul servers, 3 postgresql servers, and 1 application node.

We start with all servers on the same 10.6.0.0/16 private network range, they can connect to each freely other on those addresses.

Here is a list and description of each machine and the assigned IP:

10.6.0.11: Consul 1
10.6.0.12: Consul 2
10.6.0.13: Consul 3
10.6.0.21: PostgreSQL master
10.6.0.22: PostgreSQL secondary
10.6.0.23: PostgreSQL secondary
10.6.0.31: GitLab application

All passwords are set to toomanysecrets, please do not use this password or derived hashes.

The external_url for GitLab is http://gitlab.example.com

Please note that after the initial configuration, if a failover occurs, the PostgresSQL master will change to one of the available secondaries until it is failed back.

Example recommended setup for Consul servers

On each server edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

# Disable all components except Consul
bootstrap['enable'] = false
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
gitaly['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
mailroom['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
postgresql['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false
sidekiq['enable'] = false
prometheus['enable'] = false
unicorn['enable'] = false

consul['enable'] = true
consul['configuration'] = {
  server: true,
  retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13)
}

Reconfigure Omnibus GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Example recommended setup for PostgreSQL servers

On each server edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

# Disable all components except PostgreSQL and Repmgr and Consul
bootstrap['enable'] = false
gitaly['enable'] = false
mailroom['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
unicorn['enable'] = false
sidekiq['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
prometheus_monitoring['enable'] = false

repmgr['enable'] = true
postgresql['enable'] = true
consul['enable'] = true

# PostgreSQL configuration
postgresql['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0'
postgresql['hot_standby'] = 'on'
postgresql['wal_level'] = 'replica'
postgresql['shared_preload_libraries'] = 'repmgr_funcs'

# Disable automatic database migrations
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false

# Configure the consul agent
consul['services'] = %w(postgresql)

postgresql['pgbouncer_user_password'] = '771a8625958a529132abe6f1a4acb19c'
postgresql['sql_user_password'] = '450409b85a0223a214b5fb1484f34d0f'
postgresql['max_wal_senders'] = 4

postgresql['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(10.6.0.0/16)
repmgr['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(10.6.0.0/16)

consul['configuration'] = {
  retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13)
}

Reconfigure Omnibus GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Example recommended setup for application server

On the server edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

external_url 'http://gitlab.example.com'

gitlab_rails['db_host'] = '127.0.0.1'
gitlab_rails['db_port'] = 6432
gitlab_rails['db_password'] = 'toomanysecrets'
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false

postgresql['enable'] = false
pgbouncer['enable'] = true
consul['enable'] = true

# Configure Pgbouncer
pgbouncer['admin_users'] = %w(pgbouncer gitlab-consul)

# Configure Consul agent
consul['watchers'] = %w(postgresql)

pgbouncer['users'] = {
  'gitlab-consul': {
    password: '5e0e3263571e3704ad655076301d6ebe'
  },
  'pgbouncer': {
    password: '771a8625958a529132abe6f1a4acb19c'
  }
}

consul['configuration'] = {
  retry_join: %w(10.6.0.11 10.6.0.12 10.6.0.13)
}

Reconfigure Omnibus GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Example recommended setup manual steps

After deploying the configuration follow these steps:

On 10.6.0.21, our primary database

Enable the pg_trgm extension

gitlab-psql -d gitlabhq_production

CREATE EXTENSION pg_trgm;

On 10.6.0.22, our first standby database

Make this node a standby of the primary
```
gitlab-ctl repmgr standby setup 10.6.0.21
```
On 10.6.0.23, our second standby database

Make this node a standby of the primary
```
gitlab-ctl repmgr standby setup 10.6.0.21
```

On 10.6.0.31, our application server

Set gitlab-consul's pgbouncer password to toomanysecrets

gitlab-ctl write-pgpass --host 127.0.0.1 --database pgbouncer --user pgbouncer --hostuser gitlab-consul

Run database migrations

gitlab-rake gitlab:db:configure

Example minimal setup

This example uses 3 postgresql servers, and 1 application node.

It differs from the recommended setup by moving the consul servers into the same servers we use for PostgreSQL. The trade-off is between reducing server counts, against the increased operational complexity of needing to deal with postgres failover and restore procedures in addition to consul outage recovery on the same set of machines.

In this example we start with all servers on the same 10.6.0.0/16 private network range, they can connect to each freely other on those addresses.

Here is a list and description of each machine and the assigned IP:

10.6.0.21: PostgreSQL master
10.6.0.22: PostgreSQL secondary
10.6.0.23: PostgreSQL secondary
10.6.0.31: GitLab application

All passwords are set to toomanysecrets, please do not use this password or derived hashes.

The external_url for GitLab is http://gitlab.example.com

Please note that after the initial configuration, if a failover occurs, the PostgresSQL master will change to one of the available secondaries until it is failed back.

Example minimal configuration for database servers

On each server edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

# Disable all components except PostgreSQL, Repmgr, and Consul
bootstrap['enable'] = false
gitaly['enable'] = false
mailroom['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
unicorn['enable'] = false
sidekiq['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
prometheus_monitoring['enable'] = false

repmgr['enable'] = true
postgresql['enable'] = true
consul['enable'] = true

# PostgreSQL configuration
postgresql['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0'
postgresql['hot_standby'] = 'on'
postgresql['wal_level'] = 'replica'
postgresql['shared_preload_libraries'] = 'repmgr_funcs'

# Disable automatic database migrations
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false

# Configure the consul agent
consul['services'] = %w(postgresql)

postgresql['pgbouncer_user_password'] = '771a8625958a529132abe6f1a4acb19c'
postgresql['sql_user_password'] = '450409b85a0223a214b5fb1484f34d0f'
postgresql['max_wal_senders'] = 4

postgresql['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(10.6.0.0/16)
repmgr['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(10.6.0.0/16)

consul['configuration'] = {
  server: true,
  retry_join: %w(10.6.0.21 10.6.0.22 10.6.0.23)
}

Reconfigure Omnibus GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Example minimal configuration for application server

On the server edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

external_url 'http://gitlab.example.com'

gitlab_rails['db_host'] = '127.0.0.1'
gitlab_rails['db_port'] = 6432
gitlab_rails['db_password'] = 'toomanysecrets'
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false

postgresql['enable'] = false
pgbouncer['enable'] = true
consul['enable'] = true

# Configure Pgbouncer
pgbouncer['admin_users'] = %w(pgbouncer gitlab-consul)

# Configure Consul agent
consul['watchers'] = %w(postgresql)

pgbouncer['users'] = {
  'gitlab-consul': {
    password: '5e0e3263571e3704ad655076301d6ebe'
  },
  'pgbouncer': {
    password: '771a8625958a529132abe6f1a4acb19c'
  }
}

consul['configuration'] = {
  retry_join: %w(10.6.0.21 10.6.0.22 10.6.0.23)
}

Reconfigure Omnibus GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Example minimal setup manual steps

The manual steps for this configuration are the same as for the example recommended setup.

Failover procedure

By default, if the master database fails, repmgrd should promote one of the standby nodes to master automatically, and consul will update pgbouncer with the new master.

If you need to failover manually, you have two options:

Shutdown the current master database

Run:

gitlab-ctl stop postgresql

The automated failover process will see this and failover to one of the standby nodes.

Or perform a manual failover

Ensure the old master node is not still active.
Login to the server that should become the new master and run:
```
gitlab-ctl repmgr standby promote
```
If there are any other standby servers in the cluster, have them follow the new master server:
```
gitlab-ctl repmgr standby follow NEW_MASTER
```

Restore procedure

If a node fails, it can be removed from the cluster, or added back as a standby after it has been restored to service.

If you want to remove the node from the cluster, on any other node in the cluster, run:
```
gitlab-ctl repmgr standby unregister --node=X
```
where X is the value of node in repmgr.conf on the old server.

To find this, you can use:
```
awk -F = '$1 == "node" { print $2 }' /var/opt/gitlab/postgresql/repmgr.conf
```
It will output something like:
```
959789412
```
Then you will use this id to unregister the node:
```
gitlab-ctl repmgr standby unregister --node=959789412
```
To add the node as a standby server:
```
gitlab-ctl repmgr standby follow NEW_MASTER
gitlab-ctl restart repmgrd
```
CAUTION: Warning: When the server is brought back online, and before you switch it to a standby node, repmgr will report that there are two masters. If there are any clients that are still attempting to write to the old master, this will cause a split, and the old master will need to be resynced from scratch by performing a standby setup NEW_MASTER.

Alternate configurations

Database authorization

By default, we give any host on the database network the permission to perform repmgr operations using PostgreSQL's trust method. If you do not want this level of trust, there are alternatives.

You can trust only the specific nodes that will be database clusters, or you can require md5 authentication.

Trust specific addresses

If you know the IP address, or FQDN of all database and pgbouncer nodes in the cluster, you can trust only those nodes.

In /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb on all of the database nodes, set repmgr['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] to an array of strings containing all of the addresses.

If setting to a node's FQDN, they must have a corresponding PTR record in DNS. If setting to a node's IP address, specify it as XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/32.

For example:

repmgr['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = %w(192.168.1.44/32 db2.example.com)

MD5 Authentication

If you are running on an untrusted network, repmgr can use md5 authentication with a .pgpass file to authenticate.

You can specify by IP address, FQDN, or by subnet, using the same format as in the previous section:

On the current master node, create a password for the gitlab and gitlab_repmgr user:

gitlab-psql -d template1
template1=# \password gitlab_repmgr
Enter password: ****
Confirm password: ****
template1=# \password gitlab

On each database node:
1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:
2. Ensure repmgr['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] is not set
3. Set postgresql['md5_auth_cidr_addresses'] to the desired value
4. Set postgresql['sql_replication_user'] = 'gitlab_repmgr'
5. Reconfigure with gitlab-ctl reconfigure
6. Restart postgresql with gitlab-ctl restart postgresql
7. Create a .pgpass file. Enter the gitlab_repmgr password twice to when asked:
```
gitlab-ctl write-pgpass --user gitlab_repmgr --hostuser gitlab-psql --database '*'
```
On each pgbouncer node, edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:
1. Ensure gitlab_rails['db_password'] is set to the plaintext password for the gitlab database user
2. Reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect

Troubleshooting

Consul and PostgreSQL changes not taking effect.

Due to the potential impacts, gitlab-ctl reconfigure only reloads Consul and PostgreSQL, it will not restart the services. However, not all changes can be activated by reloading.

To restart either service, run gitlab-ctl restart SERVICE

For PostgreSQL, it is usually safe to restart the master node by default. Automatic failover defaults to a 1 minute timeout. Provided the database returns before then, nothing else needs to be done. To be safe, you can stop repmgrd on the standby nodes first with gitlab-ctl stop repmgrd, then start afterwards with gitlab-ctl start repmgrd.

On the consul server nodes, it is important to restart the consul service in a controlled fashion. Read our consul documentation for instructions on how to restart the service.

Issues with other components

If you're running into an issue with a component not outlined here, be sure to check the troubleshooting section of their specific documentation page.

Configure using Omnibus

Note: We recommend that you follow the instructions here for a full PostgreSQL cluster. If you are reading this section due to an old bookmark, you can find that old documentation in the repository.

Read more on high-availability configuration: