path: root/doc/install/aws/index.md

---
stage: Enablement
group: Distribution
info: To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#designated-technical-writers
type: howto
---

# Installing GitLab on Amazon Web Services (AWS)

This page offers a walkthrough of a common configuration
for GitLab on AWS. You should customize it to accommodate your needs.

NOTE: **Note:**
For organizations with 1,000 users or less, the recommended AWS installation method is to launch an EC2 single box [Omnibus Installation](https://about.gitlab.com/install/) and implement a snapshot strategy for backing up the data. See the [1,000 user reference architecture](../../administration/reference_architectures/1k_users.md) for more.

## Introduction

For the most part, we'll make use of Omnibus GitLab in our setup, but we'll also leverage native AWS services. Instead of using the Omnibus bundled PostgreSQL and Redis, we will use AWS RDS and ElastiCache.

In this guide, we'll go through a multi-node setup where we'll start by
configuring our Virtual Private Cloud and subnets to later integrate
services such as RDS for our database server and ElastiCache as a Redis
cluster to finally manage them within an auto scaling group with custom
scaling policies.

## Requirements

In addition to having a basic familiarity with [AWS](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/) and [Amazon EC2](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ec2/), you will need:

- [An AWS account](https://console.aws.amazon.com/console/home)
- [To create or upload an SSH key](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-key-pairs.html)
  to connect to the instance via SSH
- A domain name for the GitLab instance
- An SSL/TLS certificate to secure your domain. If you do not already own one, you can provision a free public SSL/TLS certificate through [AWS Certificate Manager](https://aws.amazon.com/certificate-manager/)(ACM) for use with the [Elastic Load Balancer](#load-balancer) we'll create.

NOTE: **Note:**
It can take a few hours to validate a certificate provisioned through ACM. To avoid delays later, request your certificate as soon as possible.

## Architecture

Below is a diagram of the recommended architecture.

![AWS architecture diagram](img/aws_ha_architecture_diagram.png)

## AWS costs

Here's a list of the AWS services we will use, with links to pricing information:

- **EC2**: GitLab will deployed on shared hardware which means
  [on-demand pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/)
  will apply. If you want to run it on a dedicated or reserved instance,
  consult the [EC2 pricing page](https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/) for more
  information on the cost.
- **S3**: We will use S3 to store backups, artifacts, LFS objects, etc. See the
  [Amazon S3 pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/).
- **ELB**: A Classic Load Balancer will be used to route requests to the
  GitLab instances. See the [Amazon ELB pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/pricing/).
- **RDS**: An Amazon Relational Database Service using PostgreSQL will be used. See the
  [Amazon RDS pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/rds/postgresql/pricing/).
- **ElastiCache**: An in-memory cache environment will be used to provide a
  Redis configuration. See the
  [Amazon ElastiCache pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/elasticache/pricing/).

## Create an IAM EC2 instance role and profile

As we'll be using [Amazon S3 object storage](#amazon-s3-object-storage), our EC2 instances need to have read, write, and list permissions for our S3 buckets. To avoid embedding AWS keys in our GitLab config, we'll make use of an [IAM Role](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/id_roles.html) to allow our GitLab instance with this access. We'll need to create an IAM policy to attach to our IAM role:

### Create an IAM Policy

1. Navigate to the IAM dashboard and click on **Policies** in the left menu.
1. Click **Create policy**, select the `JSON` tab, and add a policy. We want to [follow security best practices and grant _least privilege_](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/IAM/latest/UserGuide/best-practices.html#grant-least-privilege), giving our role only the permissions needed to perform the required actions.
   1. Assuming you prefix the S3 bucket names with `gl-` as shown in the diagram, add the following policy:

   ```json
   {   "Version": "2012-10-17",
       "Statement": [
           {
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Action": [
                   "s3:PutObject",
                   "s3:GetObject",
                   "s3:DeleteObject",
                   "s3:PutObjectAcl"
               ],
               "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::gl-*/*"
           },
           {
               "Effect": "Allow",
               "Action": [
                   "s3:ListBucket",
                   "s3:AbortMultipartUpload",
                   "s3:ListMultipartUploadParts",
                   "s3:ListBucketMultipartUploads"
               ],
               "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::gl-*"
           }
       ]
   }
   ```

1. Click **Review policy**, give your policy a name (we'll use `gl-s3-policy`), and click **Create policy**.

### Create an IAM Role

1. Still on the IAM dashboard, click on **Roles** in the left menu, and
   click **Create role**.
1. Create a new role by selecting **AWS service > EC2**, then click
   **Next: Permissions**.
1. In the policy filter, search for the `gl-s3-policy` we created above, select it, and click **Tags**.
1. Add tags if needed and click **Review**.
1. Give the role a name (we'll use `GitLabS3Access`) and click **Create Role**.

We'll use this role when we [create a launch configuration](#create-a-launch-configuration) later on.

## Configuring the network

We'll start by creating a VPC for our GitLab cloud infrastructure, then
we can create subnets to have public and private instances in at least
two [Availability Zones (AZs)](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-regions-availability-zones.html). Public subnets will require a Route Table keep and an associated
Internet Gateway.

### Creating the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

We'll now create a VPC, a virtual networking environment that you'll control:

1. Navigate to <https://console.aws.amazon.com/vpc/home>.
1. Select **Your VPCs** from the left menu and then click **Create VPC**.
   At the "Name tag" enter `gitlab-vpc` and at the "IPv4 CIDR block" enter
   `10.0.0.0/16`. If you don't require dedicated hardware, you can leave
   "Tenancy" as default. Click **Yes, Create** when ready.

   ![Create VPC](img/create_vpc.png)

1. Select the VPC, click **Actions**, click **Edit DNS resolution**, and enable DNS resolution. Hit **Save** when done.

### Subnets

Now, let's create some subnets in different Availability Zones. Make sure
that each subnet is associated to the VPC we just created and
that CIDR blocks don't overlap. This will also
allow us to enable multi AZ for redundancy.

We will create private and public subnets to match load balancers and
RDS instances as well:

1. Select **Subnets** from the left menu.
1. Click **Create subnet**. Give it a descriptive name tag based on the IP,
   for example `gitlab-public-10.0.0.0`, select the VPC we created previously, select an availability zone (we'll use `us-west-2a`),
   and at the IPv4 CIDR block let's give it a 24 subnet `10.0.0.0/24`:

   ![Create subnet](img/create_subnet.png)

1. Follow the same steps to create all subnets:

   | Name tag                  | Type    | Availability Zone | CIDR block    |
   | ------------------------- | ------- | ----------------- | ------------- |
   | `gitlab-public-10.0.0.0`  | public  | `us-west-2a`      | `10.0.0.0/24` |
   | `gitlab-private-10.0.1.0` | private | `us-west-2a`      | `10.0.1.0/24` |
   | `gitlab-public-10.0.2.0`  | public  | `us-west-2b`      | `10.0.2.0/24` |
   | `gitlab-private-10.0.3.0` | private | `us-west-2b`      | `10.0.3.0/24` |

1. Once all the subnets are created, enable **Auto-assign IPv4** for the two public subnets:
   1. Select each public subnet in turn, click **Actions**, and click **Modify auto-assign IP settings**. Enable the option and save.

### Internet Gateway

Now, still on the same dashboard, go to Internet Gateways and
create a new one:

1. Select **Internet Gateways** from the left menu.
1. Click **Create internet gateway**, give it the name `gitlab-gateway` and
   click **Create**.
1. Select it from the table, and then under the **Actions** dropdown choose
   "Attach to VPC".

   ![Create gateway](img/create_gateway.png)

1. Choose `gitlab-vpc` from the list and hit **Attach**.

### Create NAT Gateways

Instances deployed in our private subnets need to connect to the internet for updates, but should not be reachable from the public internet. To achieve this, we'll make use of [NAT Gateways](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/vpc-nat-gateway.html) deployed in each of our public subnets:

1. Navigate to the VPC dashboard and click on **NAT Gateways** in the left menu bar.
1. Click **Create NAT Gateway** and complete the following:
   1. **Subnet**: Select `gitlab-public-10.0.0.0` from the dropdown.
   1. **Elastic IP Allocation ID**: Enter an existing Elastic IP or click **Allocate Elastic IP address** to allocate a new IP to your NAT gateway.
   1. Add tags if needed.
   1. Click **Create NAT Gateway**.

Create a second NAT gateway but this time place it in the second public subnet, `gitlab-public-10.0.2.0`.

### Route Tables

#### Public Route Table

We need to create a route table for our public subnets to reach the internet via the internet gateway we created in the previous step.

On the VPC dashboard:

1. Select **Route Tables** from the left menu.
1. Click **Create Route Table**.
1. At the "Name tag" enter `gitlab-public` and choose `gitlab-vpc` under "VPC".
1. Click **Create**.

We now need to add our internet gateway as a new target and have
it receive traffic from any destination.

1. Select **Route Tables** from the left menu and select the `gitlab-public`
   route to show the options at the bottom.
1. Select the **Routes** tab, click **Edit routes > Add route** and set `0.0.0.0/0`
   as the destination. In the target column, select the `gitlab-gateway` we created previously.
   Hit **Save routes** once done.

Next, we must associate the **public** subnets to the route table:

1. Select the **Subnet Associations** tab and click **Edit subnet associations**.
1. Check only the public subnets and click **Save**.

#### Private Route Tables

We also need to create two private route tables so that instances in each private subnet can reach the internet via the NAT gateway in the corresponding public subnet in the same availability zone.

1. Follow the same steps as above to create two private route tables. Name them `gitlab-private-a` and `gitlab-private-b` respectively.
1. Next, add a new route to each of the private route tables where the destination is `0.0.0.0/0` and the target is one of the NAT gateways we created earlier.
   1. Add the NAT gateway we created in `gitlab-public-10.0.0.0` as the target for the new route in the `gitlab-private-a` route table.
   1. Similarly, add the NAT gateway in `gitlab-public-10.0.2.0` as the target for the new route in the `gitlab-private-b`.
1. Lastly, associate each private subnet with a private route table.
   1. Associate `gitlab-private-10.0.1.0` with `gitlab-private-a`.
   1. Associate `gitlab-private-10.0.3.0` with `gitlab-private-b`.

## Load Balancer

We'll create a load balancer to evenly distribute inbound traffic on ports `80` and `443` across our GitLab application servers. Based the on the [scaling policies](#create-an-auto-scaling-group) we'll create later, instances will be added to or removed from our load balancer as needed. Additionally, the load balance will perform health checks on our instances.

On the EC2 dashboard, look for Load Balancer in the left navigation bar:

1. Click the **Create Load Balancer** button.
   1. Choose the **Classic Load Balancer**.
   1. Give it a name (we'll use `gitlab-loadbalancer`) and for the **Create LB Inside** option, select `gitlab-vpc` from the dropdown menu.
   1. In the **Listeners** section, set the following listeners:
        - HTTP port 80 for both load balancer and instance protocol and ports
        - TCP port 22 for both load balancer and instance protocols and ports
        - HTTPS port 443 for load balancer protocol and ports, forwarding to HTTP port 80 on the instance (we will configure GitLab to listen on port 80 [later in the guide](#add-support-for-proxied-ssl))
   1. In the **Select Subnets** section, select both public subnets from the list so that the load balancer can route traffic to both availability zones.
1. We'll add a security group for our load balancer to act as a firewall to control what traffic is allowed through. Click **Assign Security Groups** and select **Create a new security group**, give it a name
   (we'll use `gitlab-loadbalancer-sec-group`) and description, and allow both HTTP and HTTPS traffic
   from anywhere (`0.0.0.0/0, ::/0`). Also allow SSH traffic, select a custom source, and add a single trusted IP address or an IP address range in CIDR notation. This will allow users to perform Git actions over SSH.
1. Click **Configure Security Settings** and set the following:
   1. Select an SSL/TLS certificate from ACM or upload a certificate to IAM.
   1. Under **Select a Cipher**, pick a predefined security policy from the dropdown. You can see a breakdown of [Predefined SSL Security Policies for Classic Load Balancers](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/classic/elb-security-policy-table.html) in the AWS docs. Check the GitLab codebase for a list of [supported SSL ciphers and protocols](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/9ee7ad433269b37251e0dd5b5e00a0f00d8126b4/lib/support/nginx/gitlab-ssl#L97-99).
1. Click **Configure Health Check** and set up a health check for your EC2 instances.
   1. For **Ping Protocol**, select HTTP.
   1. For **Ping Port**, enter 80.
   1. For **Ping Path**, enter `/users/sign_in`. (We use `/users/sign_in` as it's a public endpoint that does
   not require authentication.)
   1. Keep the default **Advanced Details** or adjust them according to your needs.
1. Click **Add EC2 Instances** - don't add anything as we will create an Auto Scaling Group later to manage instances for us.
1. Click **Add Tags** and add any tags you need.
1. Click **Review and Create**, review all your settings, and click **Create** if you're happy.

After the Load Balancer is up and running, you can revisit your Security
Groups to refine the access only through the ELB and any other requirements
you might have.

### Configure DNS for Load Balancer

On the Route 53 dashboard, click **Hosted zones** in the left navigation bar:

1. Select an existing hosted zone or, if you do not already have one for your domain, click **Create Hosted Zone**, enter your domain name, and click **Create**.
1. Click **Create Record Set** and provide the following values:
    1. **Name:** Use the domain name (the default value) or enter a subdomain.
    1. **Type:** Select **A - IPv4 address**.
    1. **Alias:** Defaults to **No**. Select **Yes**.
    1. **Alias Target:** Find the **ELB Classic Load Balancers** section and select the classic load balancer we created earlier.
    1. **Routing Policy:** We'll use **Simple** but you can choose a different policy based on your use case.
    1. **Evaluate Target Health:** We'll set this to **No** but you can choose to have the load balancer route traffic based on target health.
    1. Click **Create**.
1. If you registered your domain through Route 53, you're done. If you used a different domain registrar, you need to update your DNS records with your domain registrar. You'll need to:
   1. Click on **Hosted zones** and select the domain you added above.
   1. You'll see a list of `NS` records. From your domain registrar's admin panel, add each of these as `NS` records to your domain's DNS records. These steps may vary between domain registrars. If you're stuck, Google **"name of your registrar" add dns records** and you should find a help article specific to your domain registrar.

The steps for doing this vary depending on which registrar you use and is beyond the scope of this guide.

## PostgreSQL with RDS

For our database server we will use Amazon RDS which offers Multi AZ
for redundancy. First we'll create a security group and subnet group, then we'll
create the actual RDS instance.

### RDS Security Group

We need a security group for our database that will allow inbound traffic from the instances we'll deploy in our `gitlab-loadbalancer-sec-group` later on:

1. From the EC2 dashboard, select **Security Groups** from the left menu bar.
1. Click **Create security group**.
1. Give it a name (we'll use `gitlab-rds-sec-group`), a description, and select the `gitlab-vpc` from the **VPC** dropdown.
1. In the **Inbound rules** section, click **Add rule** and set the following:
   1. **Type:** search for and select the **PostgreSQL** rule.
   1. **Source type:** set as "Custom".
   1. **Source:** select the `gitlab-loadbalancer-sec-group` we created earlier.
1. When done, click **Create security group**.

### RDS Subnet Group

1. Navigate to the RDS dashboard and select **Subnet Groups** from the left menu.
1. Click on **Create DB Subnet Group**.
1. Under **Subnet group details**, enter a name (we'll use `gitlab-rds-group`), a description, and choose the `gitlab-vpc` from the VPC dropdown.
1. From the **Availability Zones** dropdown, select the Availability Zones that include the subnets you've configured. In our case, we'll add `eu-west-2a` and `eu-west-2b`.
1. From the **Subnets** dropdown, select the two private subnets (`10.0.1.0/24` and `10.0.3.0/24`) as we defined them in the [subnets section](#subnets).
1. Click **Create** when ready.

### Create the database

DANGER: **Warning:**
Avoid using burstable instances (t class instances) for the database as this could lead to performance issues due to CPU credits running out during sustained periods of high load.

Now, it's time to create the database:

1. Navigate to the RDS dashboard, select **Databases** from the left menu, and click **Create database**.
1. Select **Standard Create** for the database creation method.
1. Select **PostgreSQL** as the database engine and select the minimum PostgreSQL version as defined for your GitLab version in our [database requirements](../../install/requirements.md#postgresql-requirements).
1. Since this is a production server, let's choose **Production** from the **Templates** section.
1. Under **Settings**, set a DB instance identifier, a master username, and a master password. We'll use `gitlab-db-ha`, `gitlab`, and a very secure password respectively. Make a note of these as we'll need them later.
1. For the DB instance size, select **Standard classes** and select an instance size that meets your requirements from the dropdown menu. We'll use a `db.m4.large` instance.
1. Under **Storage**, configure the following:
   1. Select **Provisioned IOPS (SSD)** from the storage type dropdown menu. Provisioned IOPS (SSD) storage is best suited for this use (though you can choose General Purpose (SSD) to reduce the costs). Read more about it at [Storage for Amazon RDS](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/CHAP_Storage.html).
   1. Allocate storage and set provisioned IOPS. We'll use the minimum values, `100` and `1000`, respectively.
   1. Enable storage autoscaling (optional) and set a maximum storage threshold.
1. Under **Availability & durability**, select **Create a standby instance** to have a standby RDS instance provisioned in a different [Availability Zone](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/Concepts.MultiAZ.html).
1. Under **Connectivity**, configure the following:
   1. Select the VPC we created earlier (`gitlab-vpc`) from the **Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)** dropdown menu.
   1. Expand the **Additional connectivity configuration** section and select the subnet group (`gitlab-rds-group`) we created earlier.
   1. Set public accessibility to **No**.
   1. Under **VPC security group**, select **Choose existing** and select the `gitlab-rds-sec-group` we create above from the dropdown.
   1. Leave the database port as the default `5432`.
1. For **Database authentication**, select **Password authentication**.
1. Expand the **Additional configuration** section and complete the following:
   1. The initial database name. We'll use `gitlabhq_production`.
   1. Configure your preferred backup settings.
   1. The only other change we'll make here is to disable auto minor version updates under **Maintenance**.
   1. Leave all the other settings as is or tweak according to your needs.
   1. Once you're happy, click **Create database**.

Now that the database is created, let's move on to setting up Redis with ElastiCache.

## Redis with ElastiCache

ElastiCache is an in-memory hosted caching solution. Redis maintains its own
persistence and is used to store session data, temporary cache information, and background job queues for the GitLab application.

DANGER: **Warning:**
GitLab recommends you use ElastiCache Redis version 5.0.x, because version 6.x contains
a bug that [prevents Sidekiq from processing jobs](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/281683).

### Create a Redis Security Group

1. Navigate to the EC2 dashboard.
1. Select **Security Groups** from the left menu.
1. Click **Create security group** and fill in the details. Give it a name (we'll use `gitlab-redis-sec-group`),
   add a description, and choose the VPC we created previously
1. In the **Inbound rules** section, click **Add rule** and add a **Custom TCP** rule, set port `6379`, and set the "Custom" source as the `gitlab-loadbalancer-sec-group` we created earlier.
1. When done, click **Create security group**.

### Redis Subnet Group

1. Navigate to the ElastiCache dashboard from your AWS console.
1. Go to **Subnet Groups** in the left menu, and create a new subnet group (we'll name ours `gitlab-redis-group`).
   Make sure to select our VPC and its [private subnets](#subnets). Click
   **Create** when ready.

   ![ElastiCache subnet](img/ec_subnet.png)

### Create the Redis Cluster

1. Navigate back to the ElastiCache dashboard.
1. Select **Redis** on the left menu and click **Create** to create a new
   Redis cluster. Do not enable **Cluster Mode** as it is [not supported](../../administration/redis/replication_and_failover_external.md#requirements). Even without cluster mode on, you still get the
   chance to deploy Redis in multiple availability zones.
1. In the settings section:
   1. Give the cluster a name (`gitlab-redis`) and a description.
   1. For the version, select the latest of `5.0` series (e.g., `5.0.6`).
   1. Leave the port as `6379` since this is what we used in our Redis security group above.
   1. Select the node type (at least `cache.t3.medium`, but adjust to your needs) and the number of replicas.
1. In the advanced settings section:
   1. Select the multi-AZ auto-failover option.
   1. Select the subnet group we created previously.
   1. Manually select the preferred availability zones, and under "Replica 2"
      choose a different zone than the other two.

      ![Redis availability zones](img/ec_az.png)

1. In the security settings, edit the security groups and choose the
   `gitlab-redis-sec-group` we had previously created.
1. Leave the rest of the settings to their default values or edit to your liking.
1. When done, click **Create**.

## Setting up Bastion Hosts

Since our GitLab instances will be in private subnets, we need a way to connect to these instances via SSH to make configuration changes, perform upgrades, etc. One way of doing this is via a [bastion host](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastion_host), sometimes also referred to as a jump box.

TIP: **Tip:**
If you do not want to maintain bastion hosts, you can set up [AWS Systems Manager Session Manager](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/session-manager.html) for access to instances. This is beyond the scope of this document.

### Create Bastion Host A

1. Navigate to the EC2 Dashboard and click on **Launch instance**.
1. Select the **Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS (HVM)** AMI.
1. Choose an instance type. We'll use a `t2.micro` as we'll only use the bastion host to SSH into our other instances.
1. Click **Configure Instance Details**.
   1. Under **Network**, select the `gitlab-vpc` from the dropdown menu.
   1. Under **Subnet**, select the public subnet we created earlier (`gitlab-public-10.0.0.0`).
   1. Double check that under **Auto-assign Public IP** you have **Use subnet setting (Enable)** selected.
   1. Leave everything else as default and click **Add Storage**.
1. For storage, we'll leave everything as default and only add an 8GB root volume. We won't store anything on this instance.
1. Click **Add Tags** and on the next screen click **Add Tag**.
   1. We’ll only set `Key: Name` and `Value: Bastion Host A`.
1. Click **Configure Security Group**.
   1. Select **Create a new security group**, enter a **Security group name** (we'll use `bastion-sec-group`), and add a description.
   1. We'll enable SSH access from anywhere (`0.0.0.0/0`). If you want stricter security, specify a single IP address or an IP address range in CIDR notation.
   1. Click **Review and Launch**
1. Review all your settings and, if you're happy, click **Launch**.
1. Acknowledge that you have access to an existing key pair or create a new one. Click **Launch Instance**.

Confirm that you can SSH into the instance:

1. On the EC2 Dashboard, click on **Instances** in the left menu.
1. Select **Bastion Host A** from your list of instances.
1. Click **Connect** and follow the connection instructions.
1. If you are able to connect successfully, let's move on to setting up our second bastion host for redundancy.

### Create Bastion Host B

1. Create an EC2 instance following the same steps as above with the following changes:
   1. For the **Subnet**, select the second public subnet we created earlier (`gitlab-public-10.0.2.0`).
   1. Under the **Add Tags** section, we’ll set `Key: Name` and `Value: Bastion Host B` so that we can easily identify our two instances.
   1. For the security group, select the existing `bastion-sec-group` we created above.

### Use SSH Agent Forwarding

EC2 instances running Linux use private key files for SSH authentication. You'll connect to your bastion host using an SSH client and the private key file stored on your client. Since the private key file is not present on the bastion host, you will not be able to connect to your instances in private subnets.

Storing private key files on your bastion host is a bad idea. To get around this, use SSH agent forwarding on your client. See [Securely Connect to Linux Instances Running in a Private Amazon VPC](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/securely-connect-to-linux-instances-running-in-a-private-amazon-vpc/) for a step-by-step guide on how to use SSH agent forwarding.

## Install GitLab and create custom AMI

We will need a preconfigured, custom GitLab AMI to use in our launch configuration later. As a starting point, we will use the official GitLab AMI to create a GitLab instance. Then, we'll add our custom configuration for PostgreSQL, Redis, and Gitaly. If you prefer, instead of using the official GitLab AMI, you can also spin up an EC2 instance of your choosing and [manually install GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/install/).

### Install GitLab

From the EC2 dashboard:

1. Click **Launch Instance** and select **Community AMIs** from the left menu.
1. In the search bar, search for `GitLab EE <version>` where `<version>` is the latest version as seen on the [releases page](https://about.gitlab.com/releases/). Select the latest patch release, for example `GitLab EE 12.9.2`.
1. Select an instance type based on your workload. Consult the [hardware requirements](../../install/requirements.md#hardware-requirements) to choose one that fits your needs (at least `c5.xlarge`, which is sufficient to accommodate 100 users).
1. Click **Configure Instance Details**:
   1. In the **Network** dropdown, select `gitlab-vpc`, the VPC we created earlier.
   1. In the **Subnet** dropdown, select `gitlab-private-10.0.1.0` from the list of subnets we created earlier.
   1. Double check that **Auto-assign Public IP** is set to `Use subnet setting (Disable)`.
   1. Click **Add Storage**.
   1. The root volume is 8GiB by default and should be enough given that we won’t store any data there.
1. Click **Add Tags** and add any tags you may need. In our case, we'll only set `Key: Name` and `Value: GitLab`.
1. Click **Configure Security Group**. Check **Select an existing security group** and select the `gitlab-loadbalancer-sec-group` we created earlier.
1. Click **Review and launch** followed by **Launch** if you’re happy with your settings.
1. Finally, acknowledge that you have access to the selected private key file or create a new one. Click **Launch Instances**.

### Add custom configuration

Connect to your GitLab instance via **Bastion Host A** using [SSH Agent Forwarding](#use-ssh-agent-forwarding). Once connected, add the following custom configuration:

#### Disable Let's Encrypt

Since we're adding our SSL certificate at the load balancer, we do not need GitLab's built-in support for Let's Encrypt. Let's Encrypt [is enabled by default](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/ssl.html#lets-encrypt-integration) when using an `https` domain in GitLab 10.7 and later, so we need to explicitly disable it:

1. Open `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` and disable it:

   ```ruby
   letsencrypt['enable'] = false
   ```

1. Save the file and reconfigure for the changes to take effect:

   ```shell
   sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure
   ```

#### Install the required extensions for PostgreSQL

From your GitLab instance, connect to the RDS instance to verify access and to install the required `pg_trgm` and `btree_gist` extensions.

To find the host or endpoint, navigate to **Amazon RDS > Databases** and click on the database you created earlier. Look for the endpoint under the **Connectivity & security** tab.

Do not to include the colon and port number:

```shell
sudo /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/psql -U gitlab -h <rds-endpoint> -d gitlabhq_production
```

At the `psql` prompt create the extension and then quit the session:

```shell
psql (10.9)
Type "help" for help.

gitlab=# CREATE EXTENSION pg_trgm;
gitlab=# CREATE EXTENSION btree_gist;
gitlab=# \q
```

#### Configure GitLab to connect to PostgreSQL and Redis

1. Edit `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb`, find the `external_url 'http://<domain>'` option
   and change it to the `https` domain you will be using.

1. Look for the GitLab database settings and uncomment as necessary. In
   our current case we'll specify the database adapter, encoding, host, name,
   username, and password:

   ```ruby
   # Disable the built-in Postgres
    postgresql['enable'] = false

   # Fill in the connection details
   gitlab_rails['db_adapter'] = "postgresql"
   gitlab_rails['db_encoding'] = "unicode"
   gitlab_rails['db_database'] = "gitlabhq_production"
   gitlab_rails['db_username'] = "gitlab"
   gitlab_rails['db_password'] = "mypassword"
   gitlab_rails['db_host'] = "<rds-endpoint>"
   ```

1. Next, we need to configure the Redis section by adding the host and
   uncommenting the port:

   ```ruby
   # Disable the built-in Redis
   redis['enable'] = false

   # Fill in the connection details
   gitlab_rails['redis_host'] = "<redis-endpoint>"
   gitlab_rails['redis_port'] = 6379
   ```

1. Finally, reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect:

   ```shell
   sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure
   ```

1. You might also find it useful to run a check and a service status to make sure
   everything has been setup correctly:

   ```shell
   sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:check
   sudo gitlab-ctl status
   ```

#### Set up Gitaly

CAUTION: **Caution:**
In this architecture, having a single Gitaly server creates a single point of failure. Use
[Gitaly Cluster](../../administration/gitaly/praefect.md) to remove this limitation.

Gitaly is a service that provides high-level RPC access to Git repositories.
It should be enabled and configured on a separate EC2 instance in one of the
[private subnets](#subnets) we configured previously.

Let's create an EC2 instance where we'll install Gitaly:

1. From the EC2 dashboard, click **Launch instance**.
1. Choose an AMI. In this example, we'll select the **Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS (HVM), SSD Volume Type**.
1. Choose an instance type. We'll pick a **c5.xlarge**.
1. Click **Configure Instance Details**.
   1. In the **Network** dropdown, select `gitlab-vpc`, the VPC we created earlier.
   1. In the **Subnet** dropdown, select `gitlab-private-10.0.1.0` from the list of subnets we created earlier.
   1. Double check that **Auto-assign Public IP** is set to `Use subnet setting (Disable)`.
   1. Click **Add Storage**.
1. Increase the Root volume size to `20 GiB` and change the **Volume Type** to `Provisoned IOPS SSD (io1)`. (This is an arbitrary size. Create a volume big enough for your repository storage requirements.)
   1. For **IOPS** set `1000` (20 GiB x 50 IOPS). You can provision up to 50 IOPS per GiB. If you select a larger volume, increase the IOPS accordingly. Workloads where many small files are written in a serialized manner, like `git`, requires performant storage, hence the choice of `Provisoned IOPS SSD (io1)`.
1. Click on **Add Tags** and add your tags. In our case, we'll only set `Key: Name` and `Value: Gitaly`.
1. Click on **Configure Security Group** and let's **Create a new security group**.
   1. Give your security group a name and description. We'll use `gitlab-gitaly-sec-group` for both.
   1. Create a **Custom TCP** rule and add port `8075` to the **Port Range**. For the **Source**, select the `gitlab-loadbalancer-sec-group`.
   1. Also add an inbound rule for SSH from the `bastion-sec-group` so that we can connect using [SSH Agent Forwarding](#use-ssh-agent-forwarding) from the Bastion hosts.
1. Click **Review and launch** followed by **Launch** if you're happy with your settings.
1. Finally, acknowledge that you have access to the selected private key file or create a new one. Click **Launch Instances**.

NOTE: **Note:**
Instead of storing configuration _and_ repository data on the root volume, you can also choose to add an additional EBS volume for repository storage. Follow the same guidance as above. See the [Amazon EBS pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/ebs/pricing/). We do not recommend using EFS as it may negatively impact GitLab’s performance. You can review the [relevant documentation](../../administration/nfs.md#avoid-using-awss-elastic-file-system-efs) for more details.

Now that we have our EC2 instance ready, follow the [documentation to install GitLab and set up Gitaly on its own server](../../administration/gitaly/index.md#run-gitaly-on-its-own-server). Perform the client setup steps from that document on the [GitLab instance we created](#install-gitlab) above.

#### Add Support for Proxied SSL

As we are terminating SSL at our [load balancer](#load-balancer), follow the steps at [Supporting proxied SSL](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/nginx.html#supporting-proxied-ssl) to configure this in `/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb`.

Remember to run `sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure` after saving the changes to the `gitlab.rb` file.

#### Fast lookup of authorized SSH keys

The public SSH keys for users allowed to access GitLab are stored in `/var/opt/gitlab/.ssh/authorized_keys`. Typically we'd use shared storage so that all the instances are able to access this file when a user performs a Git action over SSH. Since we do not have shared storage in our setup, we'll update our configuration to authorize SSH users via indexed lookup in the GitLab database.

Follow the instructions at [Setting up fast lookup via GitLab Shell](../../administration/operations/fast_ssh_key_lookup.md#setting-up-fast-lookup-via-gitlab-shell) to switch from using the `authorized_keys` file to the database.

If you do not configure fast lookup, Git actions over SSH will result in the following error:

```shell
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.
```

#### Configure host keys

Ordinarily we would manually copy the contents (primary and public keys) of `/etc/ssh/` on the primary application server to `/etc/ssh` on all secondary servers. This prevents false man-in-the-middle-attack alerts when accessing servers in your cluster behind a load balancer.

We'll automate this by creating static host keys as part of our custom AMI. As these host keys are also rotated every time an EC2 instance boots up, "hard coding" them into our custom AMI serves as a handy workaround.

On your GitLab instance run the following:

```shell
sudo mkdir /etc/ssh_static
sudo cp -R /etc/ssh/* /etc/ssh_static
```

In `/etc/ssh/sshd_config` update the following:

```shell
# HostKeys for protocol version 2
HostKey /etc/ssh_static/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh_static/ssh_host_dsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh_static/ssh_host_ecdsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh_static/ssh_host_ed25519_key
```

#### Amazon S3 object storage

Since we're not using NFS for shared storage, we will use [Amazon S3](https://aws.amazon.com/s3/) buckets to store backups, artifacts, LFS objects, uploads, merge request diffs, container registry images, and more. Our documentation includes [instructions on how to configure object storage](../../administration/object_storage.md) for each of these data types, and other information about using object storage with GitLab.

NOTE: **Note:**
Since we are using the [AWS IAM profile](#create-an-iam-role) we created earlier, be sure to omit the AWS access key and secret access key/value pairs when configuring object storage. Instead, use `'use_iam_profile' => true` in your configuration as shown in the object storage documentation linked above.

Remember to run `sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure` after saving the changes to the `gitlab.rb` file.

NOTE: **Note:**
One current feature of GitLab that still requires a shared directory (NFS) is
[GitLab Pages](../../user/project/pages/index.md).
There is [work in progress](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-pages/-/issues/196)
to eliminate the need for NFS to support GitLab Pages.

---

That concludes the configuration changes for our GitLab instance. Next, we'll create a custom AMI based on this instance to use for our launch configuration and auto scaling group.

### Log in for the first time

Using the domain name you used when setting up [DNS for the load balancer](#configure-dns-for-load-balancer), you should now be able to visit GitLab in your browser. You will be asked to set up a password
for the `root` user which has admin privileges on the GitLab instance. This password will be stored in the database.

When our [auto scaling group](#create-an-auto-scaling-group) spins up new instances, we'll be able to log in with username `root` and the newly created password.

### Create custom AMI

On the EC2 dashboard:

1. Select the `GitLab` instance we [created earlier](#install-gitlab).
1. Click on **Actions**, scroll down to **Image** and click **Create Image**.
1. Give your image a name and description (we'll use `GitLab-Source` for both).
1. Leave everything else as default and click **Create Image**

Now we have a custom AMI that we'll use to create our launch configuration the next step.

## Deploy GitLab inside an auto scaling group

### Create a launch configuration

From the EC2 dashboard:

1. Select **Launch Configurations** from the left menu and click **Create launch configuration**.
1. Select **My AMIs** from the left menu and select the `GitLab` custom AMI we created above.
1. Select an instance type best suited for your needs (at least a `c5.xlarge`) and click **Configure details**.
1. Enter a name for your launch configuration (we'll use `gitlab-ha-launch-config`).
1. **Do not** check **Request Spot Instance**.
1. From the **IAM Role** dropdown, pick the `GitLabAdmin` instance role we [created earlier](#create-an-iam-ec2-instance-role-and-profile).
1. Leave the rest as defaults and click **Add Storage**.
1. The root volume is 8GiB by default and should be enough given that we won’t store any data there. Click **Configure Security Group**.
1. Check **Select and existing security group** and select the `gitlab-loadbalancer-sec-group` we created earlier.
1. Click **Review**, review your changes, and click **Create launch configuration**.
1. Acknowledge that you have access to the private key or create a new one. Click **Create launch configuration**.

### Create an auto scaling group

1. As soon as the launch configuration is created, you'll see an option to **Create an Auto Scaling group using this launch configuration**. Click that to start creating the auto scaling group.
1. Enter a **Group name** (we'll use `gitlab-auto-scaling-group`).
1. For **Group size**, enter the number of instances you want to start with (we'll enter `2`).
1. Select the `gitlab-vpc` from the **Network** dropdown.
1. Add both the private [subnets we created earlier](#subnets).
1. Expand the **Advanced Details** section and check the **Receive traffic from one or more load balancers** option.
1. From the **Classic Load Balancers** dropdown, select the load balancer we created earlier.
1. For **Health Check Type**, select **ELB**.
1. We'll leave our **Health Check Grace Period** as the default `300` seconds. Click **Configure scaling policies**.
1. Check **Use scaling policies to adjust the capacity of this group**.
1. For this group we'll scale between 2 and 4 instances where one instance will be added if CPU
utilization is greater than 60% and one instance is removed if it falls
to less than 45%.

![Auto scaling group policies](img/policies.png)

1. Finally, configure notifications and tags as you see fit, review your changes, and create the
auto scaling group.

As the auto scaling group is created, you'll see your new instances spinning up in your EC2 dashboard. You'll also see the new instances added to your load balancer. Once the instances pass the heath check, they are ready to start receiving traffic from the load balancer.

Since our instances are created by the auto scaling group, go back to your instances and terminate the [instance we created manually above](#install-gitlab). We only needed this instance to create our custom AMI.

## Health check and monitoring with Prometheus

Apart from Amazon's Cloudwatch which you can enable on various services,
GitLab provides its own integrated monitoring solution based on Prometheus.
For more information on how to set it up, visit the
[GitLab Prometheus documentation](../../administration/monitoring/prometheus/index.md)

GitLab also has various [health check endpoints](../../user/admin_area/monitoring/health_check.md)
that you can ping and get reports.

## GitLab Runner

If you want to take advantage of [GitLab CI/CD](../../ci/README.md), you have to
set up at least one [runner](https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/).

Read more on configuring an
[autoscaling GitLab Runner on AWS](https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/configuration/runner_autoscale_aws/).

## Backup and restore

GitLab provides [a tool to back up](../../raketasks/backup_restore.md#back-up-gitlab)
and restore its Git data, database, attachments, LFS objects, and so on.

Some important things to know:

- The backup/restore tool **does not** store some configuration files, like secrets; you'll
  need to [configure this yourself](../../raketasks/backup_restore.md#storing-configuration-files).
- By default, the backup files are stored locally, but you can
  [backup GitLab using S3](../../raketasks/backup_restore.md#using-amazon-s3).
- You can [exclude specific directories form the backup](../../raketasks/backup_restore.md#excluding-specific-directories-from-the-backup).

### Backing up GitLab

To back up GitLab:

1. SSH into your instance.
1. Take a backup:

   ```shell
   sudo gitlab-backup create
   ```

NOTE: **Note:**
For GitLab 12.1 and earlier, use `gitlab-rake gitlab:backup:create`.

### Restoring GitLab from a backup

To restore GitLab, first review the [restore documentation](../../raketasks/backup_restore.md#restore-gitlab),
and primarily the restore prerequisites. Then, follow the steps under the
[Omnibus installations section](../../raketasks/backup_restore.md#restore-for-omnibus-gitlab-installations).

## Updating GitLab

GitLab releases a new version every month on the 22nd. Whenever a new version is
released, you can update your GitLab instance:

1. SSH into your instance
1. Take a backup:

   ```shell
   sudo gitlab-backup create
   ```

NOTE: **Note:**
For GitLab 12.1 and earlier, use `gitlab-rake gitlab:backup:create`.

1. Update the repositories and install GitLab:

   ```shell
   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install gitlab-ee
   ```

After a few minutes, the new version should be up and running.

## Conclusion

In this guide, we went mostly through scaling and some redundancy options,
your mileage may vary.

Keep in mind that all solutions come with a trade-off between
cost/complexity and uptime. The more uptime you want, the more complex the solution.
And the more complex the solution, the more work is involved in setting up and
maintaining it.

Have a read through these other resources and feel free to
[open an issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/new)
to request additional material:

- [Scaling GitLab](../../administration/reference_architectures/index.md):
  GitLab supports several different types of clustering.
- [Geo replication](../../administration/geo/index.md):
  Geo is the solution for widely distributed development teams.
- [Omnibus GitLab](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/) - Everything you need to know
  about administering your GitLab instance.
- [Upload a license](../../user/admin_area/license.md):
  Activate all GitLab Enterprise Edition functionality with a license.
- [Pricing](https://about.gitlab.com/pricing/): Pricing for the different tiers.

## Troubleshooting

### Instances are failing health checks

If your instances are failing the load balancer's health checks, verify that they are returning a status `200` from the health check endpoint we configured earlier. Any other status, including redirects (e.g. status `302`) will cause the health check to fail.

You may have to set a password on the `root` user to prevent automatic redirects on the sign-in endpoint before health checks will pass.

### "The change you requested was rejected (422)"

If you see this page when trying to set a password via the web interface, make sure `external_url` in `gitlab.rb` matches the domain you are making a request from, and run `sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure` after making any changes to it.