Maintaining manual gitlab installation with ansible

A long time ago we started using GitLab. It was a greate step forward and definitly the right decision to switch from SVN to a distributed version control system. If you want to try GitLab you should definitly install it using GitLab Omnibus distribution.

Manual installation

But this long time ago there was no omnibus installation available so we installed GitLab with a manual git checkout. Their monthly release cycle brought some upgrade effort every month - there was an upgrade tool available which was marked as discontinued - so i started to write some anisble scripts to handle the upgrade process.

Dependencies to shell and workhorse

GitLab uses now several different modular packages as GitLab workhorse and GitLab shell which have some version dependencies, so it would be great if ansible could determine these versions from GitLab checkout itself.

Ansible gitlab role

I’ve created a gitlab role which upgrades all parts of GitLab with just one single command:

gitlab
├── defaults
│   └── main.yml
├── handlers
│   └── main.yml
└── tasks
    ├── gitlab-shell.yml
    ├── gitlab-workhorse.yml
    ├── gitlab.yml
    └── main.yml

3 directories, 6 files

Role explained

1. First we have to detect the installed version and compare it to required one, which is set in gitlab/tasks/defaults.yml. If version is already installed, we’re finished.

   File: ansible-roles/gitlab/defaults/main.yml

   ---
       # -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
       # ATTENTION: Please strip leading `v` from version information
       # valid: 7.12.2
       # invalid: v7.12.2
       # -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
       gitlab_user: git
       gitlab_version: 8.4.0
       

2. Now fetch GitLab remote repository and checkout required version. installed one. If it is different to current installed one we have multiple tasks to be executed in given order.

   File: ansible-roles/gitlab/tasks/gitlab.yml

   ---
       - name: copy new init script
         shell: cp /home/{{ gitlab_user }}/gitlab/lib/support/init.d/gitlab /etc/init.d/gitlab
       
       - name: replace socket to tcp listener in init script (apache only)
         replace: dest=/etc/init.d/gitlab
                  regexp='^(gitlab_workhorse_options=".+ -listenNetwork) unix (-listenAddr) \$socket_path/gitlab-workhorse\.socket (.+) -authSocket \$rails_socket (.+)$'
                  replace='\1 tcp \2 127.0.0.1:8181 \3 \4'
                  backup=no
       
       - name: install using bundler
         shell: chdir=/home/{{ gitlab_user }}/gitlab PATH=$PATH:/usr/pgsql-9.4/bin bundle install --deployment --without development test mysql
         sudo_user: "{{ gitlab_user }}"
       
       - name: run database migration
         shell: chdir=/home/{{ gitlab_user }}/gitlab bundle exec rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production
         sudo_user: "{{ gitlab_user }}"
       
       - name: recompile assets
         shell: chdir=/home/{{ gitlab_user }}/gitlab bundle exec rake assets:clean assets:precompile cache:clear RAILS_ENV=production
         sudo_user: "{{ gitlab_user }}"
       

3. If the version differs from current installed version, check new required shell version and checkout new shell if required.

   File: ansible-roles/gitlab/tasks/gitlab-shell.yml

   ---
       - name: read required shell version
         command: chdir=/home/{{ gitlab_user }}/gitlab cat GITLAB_SHELL_VERSION
         register: gitlab_shell_required_version
       
       - name: fetch remote and checkout required shell version
         git: repo=https://github.com/gitlabhq/gitlab-shell.git
              dest=/home/{{ gitlab_user }}/gitlab-shell
              version=v{{ gitlab_shell_required_version.stdout }}
              force=yes
         sudo_user: "{{ gitlab_user }}"
         when: gitlab_shell_required_version.changed
       

4. If the version differs from current installed version, check new required workhorse version and checkout new workhorse if required. After checkout compile workhorse.

   File: ansible-roles/gitlab/tasks/gitlab-workhorse.yml

   ---
       - name: read required workhorse version
         command: chdir=/home/{{ gitlab_user }}/gitlab cat GITLAB_WORKHORSE_VERSION
         register: gitlab_workhorse_required_version
       
       # No semantic versioning, see: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-git-http-server/issues/14
       - name: fetch remote and checkout required workhorse version
         git: repo=https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-workhorse.git
              dest=/home/{{ gitlab_user }}/gitlab-workhorse
              version={{ gitlab_workhorse_required_version.stdout }}
              force=yes
         sudo_user: "{{ gitlab_user }}"
         when: gitlab_workhorse_required_version.changed
       
       - name: compile workhorse
         command: make chdir=/home/{{ gitlab_user }}/gitlab-workhorse
         sudo_user: "{{ gitlab_user }}"
         when: gitlab_workhorse_required_version.changed
       

5. Restart gitlab and apache service if a version has changed.

   File: ansible-roles/gitlab/handlers/main.yml

   ---
       - name: restart gitlab
         service:
           name: gitlab
           state: restarted
           enabled: true
       
       - name: restart apache
         service:
           name: httpd
           state: restarted
           enabled: true
       

Final words

Of course these formulas are specific to your setup, that’s why i did not push them into a public repo. If you use nginx as webserver, these may be different and you could use unix sockets instead of tcp listeners.

But anyway - feel free to submit your comments and reuse parts you need.