Jobs artifacts administration
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab 8.2 and GitLab Runner 0.7.0.
- Starting with GitLab 8.4 and GitLab Runner 1.0, the artifacts archive format changed to
ZIP
.- Starting with GitLab 8.17, builds are renamed to jobs.
- This is the administration documentation. For the user guide see pipelines/job_artifacts.
Artifacts is a list of files and directories which are attached to a job after it completes successfully. This feature is enabled by default in all GitLab installations. Keep reading if you want to know how to disable it.
Disabling job artifacts
To disable artifacts site-wide, follow the steps below.
In Omnibus installations:
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and add the following line:gitlab_rails['artifacts_enabled'] = false
Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
In installations from source:
-
Edit
/home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml
and add or amend the following lines:artifacts: enabled: false
Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.
Storing job artifacts
After a successful job, GitLab Runner uploads an archive containing the job artifacts to GitLab.
Using local storage
To change the location where the artifacts are stored locally, follow the steps below.
In Omnibus installations:
The artifacts are stored by default in
/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/artifacts
.
-
To change the storage path for example to
/mnt/storage/artifacts
, edit/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and add the following line:gitlab_rails['artifacts_path'] = "/mnt/storage/artifacts"
Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
In installations from source:
The artifacts are stored by default in
/home/git/gitlab/shared/artifacts
.
-
To change the storage path for example to
/mnt/storage/artifacts
, edit/home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml
and add or amend the following lines:artifacts: enabled: true path: /mnt/storage/artifacts
Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.
Using object storage
Notes:
- Introduced in GitLab Enterprise Edition Premium 9.4.
- Since version 9.5, artifacts are browsable, when object storage is enabled. 9.4 lacks this feature.
If you don't want to use the local disk where GitLab is installed to store the artifacts, you can use an object storage like AWS S3 instead. This configuration relies on valid AWS credentials to be configured already.
In Omnibus installations:
The artifacts are stored by default in
/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/artifacts
.
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and add the following lines by replacing with the values you want:gitlab_rails['artifacts_enabled'] = true gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_enabled'] = true gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_remote_directory'] = "artifacts" gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_connection'] = { 'provider' => 'AWS', 'region' => 'eu-central-1', 'aws_access_key_id' => 'AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID', 'aws_secret_access_key' => 'AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY' }
NOTE: For GitLab 9.4+, if you are using AWS IAM profiles, be sure to omit the AWS access key and secret acces key/value pairs. For example:
gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_connection'] = { 'provider' => 'AWS', 'region' => 'eu-central-1', 'use_iam_profile' => true }
Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
-
Migrate any existing local artifacts to the object storage:
gitlab-rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate
Currently this has to be executed manually and it will allow you to migrate the existing artifacts to the object storage, but all new artifacts will still be stored on the local disk. In the future you will be given an option to define a default storage artifacts for all new files.
In installations from source:
The artifacts are stored by default in
/home/git/gitlab/shared/artifacts
.
-
Edit
/home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml
and add or amend the following lines:artifacts: enabled: true object_store: enabled: true remote_directory: "artifacts" # The bucket name connection: provider: AWS # Only AWS supported at the moment aws_access_key_id: AWS_ACESS_KEY_ID aws_secret_access_key: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY region: eu-central-1
Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.
-
Migrate any existing local artifacts to the object storage:
sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate RAILS_ENV=production
Currently this has to be executed manually and it will allow you to migrate the existing artifacts to the object storage, but all new artifacts will still be stored on the local disk. In the future you will be given an option to define a default storage artifacts for all new files.
Expiring artifacts
If an expiry date is used for the artifacts, they are marked for deletion
right after that date passes. Artifacts are cleaned up by the
expire_build_artifacts_worker
cron job which is run by Sidekiq every hour at
50 minutes (50 * * * *
).
To change the default schedule on which the artifacts are expired, follow the steps below.
In Omnibus installations:
-
Edit
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
and comment out or add the following linegitlab_rails['expire_build_artifacts_worker_cron'] = "50 * * * *"
Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
In installations from source:
-
Edit
/home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml
and add or amend the following lines:expire_build_artifacts_worker: cron: "50 * * * *"
Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.
Validation for dependencies
Introduced in GitLab 10.3.
To disable the dependencies validation, you can flip the feature flag from a Rails console.
In Omnibus installations:
-
Enter the Rails console:
sudo gitlab-rails console
-
Flip the switch and disable it:
Feature.enable('ci_disable_validates_dependencies')
In installations from source:
-
Enter the Rails console:
cd /home/git/gitlab RAILS_ENV=production sudo -u git -H bundle exec rails console
-
Flip the switch and disable it:
Feature.enable('ci_disable_validates_dependencies')
Set the maximum file size of the artifacts
Provided the artifacts are enabled, you can change the maximum file size of the artifacts through the Admin area settings.
Storage statistics
You can see the total storage used for job artifacts on groups and projects in the administration area, as well as through the groups and projects APIs.
Implementation details
When GitLab receives an artifacts archive, an archive metadata file is also generated by GitLab Workhorse. This metadata file describes all the entries that are located in the artifacts archive itself. The metadata file is in a binary format, with additional GZIP compression.
GitLab does not extract the artifacts archive in order to save space, memory and disk I/O. It instead inspects the metadata file which contains all the relevant information. This is especially important when there is a lot of artifacts, or an archive is a very large file.
When clicking on a specific file, GitLab Workhorse extracts it from the archive and the download begins. This implementation saves space, memory and disk I/O.