Skip to content

Back up GitLab running in a Docker container

DETAILS: Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: Self-managed

You can create a GitLab backup with:

docker exec -t <container name> gitlab-backup create

Read more on how to back up and restore GitLab.

NOTE: If configuration is provided entirely via the GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG environment variable (per the "Pre-configure Docker Container" steps), meaning no configuration is set directly in the gitlab.rb file, then there is no need to back up the gitlab.rb file.

WARNING: Backing up the GitLab secrets file is required to avoid complicated steps when recovering GitLab from backup. The secrets file is stored at /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json inside the container, or $GITLAB_HOME/config/gitlab-secrets.json on the container host.

Create a database backup

A database backup is required to roll back a GitLab upgrade if you encounter issues.

docker exec -t <container name> gitlab-backup create SKIP=artifacts,repositories,registry,uploads,builds,pages,lfs,packages,terraform_state

The backup is written to /var/opt/gitlab/backups which should be on a volume mounted by Docker.