Gitlab CE 15.2 upgrade

How to Use GitLab Upgrade
1

Hello Experts,

We have single node Gitlab CE server of version 15.2 release.

root@gitlab:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 9.12 (stretch)
Release: 9.12
Codename: stretch
root@gitlab:~#

We are in a process of upgrading this server to a latest one, but we wanted to follow the version by version upgrade process.
We will be searching for the package of 15.3 version, but unfortunately unable to found it.
Can someone please help me here.

2

Stretch is oldoldstable, and bookworm (Debian 12) is frozen (i.e. close to release, which will make Stretch even more historical), it was released in 2017 and succeeded (by Buster = Debian 10) in 2019.

I’m surprised you’ve even managed to get GitLab 15.2 on such an old installlation, but it’s quite likely that noone has bothered packaging a newer version for such an old distribution. In that case the only way forward is to upgrade the OS first, I think you’ll need to go all the way to Bullseye (Debian 11).

3

Hello @sdbhabal,

The issue you’re facing is due to GitLab discontinuing the building of packages for debian/stretch about 8 months ago, when the operating system reached its end of Long Term Support (LTS) in June 2022. Therefore, you’ll find that the latest GitLab package available for Debian 9 stretch is 15.2.5. You can verify this information on the GitLab package server.

Upgrading Debian OS from stretch to bullseye can take time/effort and involve downtime, so I suggest you:

  1. Set Up a New Server: Spin up a new server with Debian 11 (bullseye).
  2. Install GitLab: On the new server, install the same version of GitLab (15.2.x) you’re currently running on the old server. You can find this version on the GitLab package server for Debian 11 (bullseye).
  3. Backup Old Server Data: On the Debian Stretch server, perform a backup of the GitLab data using GitLab’s built-in backup tool.
  4. Migrate Data: Copy the backup from the old server to the new one and then restore the GitLab data on the new server.
  5. Validate: Check that everything works as expected on the new server.

After successfully migrating your GitLab data to the new server, you can upgrade to the latest GitLab version. Here’s the recommended upgrade path from GitLab.

I hope this helps! Please don’t hesitate to ask if you have further questions.