Jobs artifacts administration

• 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 finishes. 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:

1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line:

ruby gitlab_rails['artifacts_enabled'] = false

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

In installations from source:

1. Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

yaml artifacts: enabled: false

1. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Storing job artifacts

GitLab Runner can upload an archive containing the job artifacts to GitLab. By default, this is done when the job succeeds, but can also be done on failure, or always, via the artifacts:when parameter.

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.

1. To change the storage path for example to /mnt/storage/artifacts, edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line:

ruby gitlab_rails['artifacts_path'] = "/mnt/storage/artifacts"

1. 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.

1. 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:

yaml artifacts: enabled: true path: /mnt/storage/artifacts

1. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Using object storage

• Introduced in GitLab Premium 9.4.
• Since version 9.5, artifacts are browsable, when object storage is enabled. 9.4 lacks this feature.
• Since version 10.6, available in GitLab Core
• Since version 11.0, we support direct_upload to S3.

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. Use an object storage option like AWS S3 to store job artifacts.

DANGER: Danger: If you're enabling S3 in GitLab HA, you will need to have an NFS mount set up for CI logs and artifacts or enable incremental logging. If these settings are not set, you will risk job logs disappearing or not being saved.

Object Storage Settings

For source installations the following settings are nested under artifacts: and then object_store:. On Omnibus GitLab installs they are prefixed by artifacts_object_store_.

Setting	Description	Default
enabled	Enable/disable object storage	false
remote_directory	The bucket name where Artifacts will be stored
direct_upload	Set to true to enable direct upload of Artifacts without the need of local shared storage. Option may be removed once we decide to support only single storage for all files.	false
background_upload	Set to false to disable automatic upload. Option may be removed once upload is direct to S3	true
proxy_download	Set to true to enable proxying all files served. Option allows to reduce egress traffic as this allows clients to download directly from remote storage instead of proxying all data	false
connection	Various connection options described below

S3 compatible connection settings

The connection settings match those provided by Fog, and are as follows:

Setting	Description	Default
provider	Always AWS for compatible hosts	AWS
aws_access_key_id	AWS credentials, or compatible
aws_secret_access_key	AWS credentials, or compatible
aws_signature_version	AWS signature version to use. 2 or 4 are valid options. Digital Ocean Spaces and other providers may need 2.	4
enable_signature_v4_streaming	Set to true to enable HTTP chunked transfers with AWS v4 signatures. Oracle Cloud S3 needs this to be false	true
region	AWS region	us-east-1
host	S3 compatible host for when not using AWS, e.g. localhost or storage.example.com	s3.amazonaws.com
endpoint	Can be used when configuring an S3 compatible service such as MinIO, by entering a URL such as http://127.0.0.1:9000	(optional)
path_style	Set to true to use host/bucket_name/object style paths instead of bucket_name.host/object. Leave as false for AWS S3	false
use_iam_profile	Set to true to use IAM profile instead of access keys	false

In Omnibus installations:

The artifacts are stored by default in /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/artifacts.

1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following lines by replacing with the values you want:

ruby 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 access key/value pairs. For example:

ruby gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_connection'] = { 'provider' => 'AWS', 'region' => 'eu-central-1', 'use_iam_profile' => true }

1. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.
2. Migrate any existing local artifacts to the object storage:

bash gitlab-rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate

In installations from source:

The artifacts are stored by default in /home/git/gitlab/shared/artifacts.

1. Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

yaml 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_ACCESS_KEY_ID aws_secret_access_key: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY region: eu-central-1

1. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.
2. Migrate any existing local artifacts to the object storage:

bash sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

Migrating from object storage to local storage

In order to migrate back to local storage:

1. Set both direct_upload and background_upload to false under the artifacts object storage settings. Don't forget to restart GitLab.
2. Run rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate_to_local on your console.
3. Disable object_storage for artifacts in gitlab.rb. Remember to restart GitLab afterwards.

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:

1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and comment out or add the following line

ruby gitlab_rails['expire_build_artifacts_worker_cron'] = "50 * * * *"

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

In installations from source:

1. Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

yaml expire_build_artifacts_worker: cron: "50 * * * *"

1. 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:

1. Enter the Rails console:

sh sudo gitlab-rails console

1. Flip the switch and disable it:

ruby Feature.enable('ci_disable_validates_dependencies')

In installations from source:

1. Enter the Rails console:

sh cd /home/git/gitlab RAILS_ENV=production sudo -u git -H bundle exec rails console

1. Flip the switch and disable it:

ruby 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.

Troubleshooting

Job artifacts using too much disk space

Job artifacts can fill up your disk space quicker than expected. Some possible reasons are:

• Users have configured job artifacts expiration to be longer than necessary.
• The number of jobs run, and hence artifacts generated, is higher than expected.
• Job logs are larger than expected, and have accumulated over time.

In these and other cases, you'll need to identify the projects most responsible for disk space usage, figure out what types of artifacts are using the most space, and in some cases, manually delete job artifacts to reclaim disk space.

List projects by total size of job artifacts stored

List the top 20 projects, sorted by the total size of job artifacts stored, by running the following code in the Rails console (sudo gitlab-rails console):

include ActionView::Helpers::NumberHelper
ProjectStatistics.order(build_artifacts_size: :desc).limit(20).each do |s|
  puts "#{number_to_human_size(s.build_artifacts_size)} \t #{s.project.full_path}"
end

You can change the number of projects listed by modifying .limit(20) to the number you want.

List largest artifacts in a single project

List the 50 largest job artifacts in a single project by running the following code in the Rails console (sudo gitlab-rails console):

include ActionView::Helpers::NumberHelper
project = Project.find_by_full_path('path/to/project')
Ci::JobArtifact.where(project: project).order(size: :desc).limit(50).map { |a| puts "ID: #{a.id} - #{a.file_type}: #{number_to_human_size(a.size)}" }

You can change the number of job artifacts listed by modifying .limit(50) to the number you want.

Delete job artifacts from jobs completed before a specific date

CAUTION: CAUTION: These commands remove data permanently from the database and from disk. We highly recommend running them only under the guidance of a Support Engineer, or running them in a test environment with a backup of the instance ready to be restored, just in case.

If you need to manually remove job artifacts associated with multiple jobs while retaining their job logs, this can be done from the Rails console (sudo gitlab-rails console):

1. Select jobs to be deleted:

To select all jobs with artifacts for a single project:

ruby project = Project.find_by_full_path('path/to/project') builds_with_artifacts = project.builds.with_artifacts_archive

To select all jobs with artifacts across the entire GitLab instance:

ruby builds_with_artifacts = Ci::Build.with_artifacts_archive

1. Delete job artifacts older than a specific date:

NOTE: NOTE: This step will also erase artifacts that users have chosen to "keep".

ruby builds_to_clear = builds_with_artifacts.where("finished_at < ?", 1.week.ago) builds_to_clear.find_each do |build| build.artifacts_expire_at = Time.now build.erase_erasable_artifacts! end

1.week.ago is a Rails ActiveSupport::Duration method which calculates a new date or time in the past. Other valid examples are:

• 7.days.ago
• 3.months.ago
• 1.year.ago

Delete job artifacts and logs from jobs completed before a specific date

CAUTION: CAUTION: These commands remove data permanently from the database and from disk. We highly recommend running them only under the guidance of a Support Engineer, or running them in a test environment with a backup of the instance ready to be restored, just in case.

If you need to manually remove ALL job artifacts associated with multiple jobs, including job logs, this can be done from the Rails console (sudo gitlab-rails console):

1. Select jobs to be deleted:

To select jobs with artifacts for a single project:

ruby project = Project.find_by_full_path('path/to/project') builds_with_artifacts = project.builds.with_existing_job_artifacts

To select jobs with artifacts across the entire GitLab instance:

ruby builds_with_artifacts = Ci::Build.with_existing_job_artifacts

1. Select the user which will be mentioned in the web UI as erasing the job:

ruby admin_user = User.find_by(username: 'username')

1. Erase job artifacts and logs older than a specific date:

```ruby builds_to_clear = builds_with_artifacts.where("finished_at < ?", 1.week.ago) builds_to_clear.find_each do |build| print "Ci::Build ID #{build.id}... "

 if build.erasable?
   build.erase(erased_by: admin_user)
   puts "Erased"
 else
   puts "Skipped (Nothing to erase or not erasable)"
 end

end ```

1.week.ago is a Rails ActiveSupport::Duration method which calculates a new date or time in the past. Other valid examples are:

• 7.days.ago
• 3.months.ago
• 1.year.ago