Gitlab-ctl reconfigure not picking up settings in gitlab.rb?

Infrastructure as Code & Cloud Native
1

I have a brand new install of gitlab-ce 13.9.1 on a brand new instance of RHEL 8.3.
Following the instructions here:
Set up standalone PostgreSQL database | GitLab,
I set up a separate database server.
Now I’m configuring the application server, disabling the local postgres, pointing it to the separate instance and setting up LDAP authentication to the corporate Active Directory server.
When I run gitlab-ctl reconfigure, it fails to disable the postgres instance and refuses to enable LDAP. I’m tearing my hair out because it simply seems to ignore what’s in /opt/gitlab/etc/gitlab.rb, but not delivering any kind of error or troubleshooting message I can find. Certainly no errors on the screen or in the logs. gitlab-ctl check-config returns without comment.

Is there some other place to configure gitlab-ce? Is there some other command I need to run first or instead?
Changes I have made to the gitlab.rb.template:
ROLES:
roles [‘consul_role’, ‘application_role’, ‘redis_sentinel_role’, ‘redis_master_role’]

LDAP:
gitlab_rails[‘ldap_enabled’] = true
gitlab_rails[‘prevent_ldap_sign_in’] = false
gitlab_rails[‘ldap_servers’] = YAML.load <<-‘EOS’
peacehealth:
label: ‘@PeaceHealth.org’
active_directory: true
host: ‘phdc1.peacehealth.org’
port: 389
uid: ‘sAMAccountName’
bind_dn: “CN=REDACTED_USER,CN=User,DN=peacehealth,DC=org”
password: ‘REDACTED’
encryption: ‘plain’ # “start_tls” or “simple_tls” or “plain”
verify_certificates: false
smartcard_auth: false
allow_username_or_email_login: true
lowercase_usernames: false
block_auto_created_users: false
base: ‘DC=peacehealth,DC=org’
user_filter: ‘’
group_base : ‘ou=groups,dc=peacehealth,dc=org’
attributes:
email: [‘mail’, ‘email’, ‘userPrincipalName’]
name: ‘cn’
first_name: ‘givenName’
admin_group: ‘gitlab_admin’
last_name: ‘sn’
EOS

POSTGRES
gitlab_rails[‘db_adapter’] = “postgresql”
gitlab_rails[‘db_encoding’] = “unicode”
gitlab_rails[‘db_collation’] = nil
gitlab_rails[‘db_database’] = “gitlabhq_production”
gitlab_rails[‘db_username’] = “REDACTED”
gitlab_rails[‘db_password’] = REDACTED
gitlab_rails[‘db_host’] = phgitdb.peacehealth.org
gitlab_rails[‘db_port’] = 5432

postgresql[‘enable’] = false

2

Hi, if using gitlab-ce from rpm packages, then it should be /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb so I’m thinking, that you are editing the wrong file. At least this is the location I have used when making an install for RHEL/CentOS, and for Debian/Ubuntu as well. So I expect it to be this place as well on your system.

3

Thanks.
I’m a complete noob at gitlab. I appreciate the answer.
I did install from the RPM downloaded from gitlab. Do other versions configure in a different way? I did see that the ee version has a different documentation page.

4

As far as I am aware the CE and EE docs are the same in terms of configuring, etc. The only major differences would be between omnibus editions, and those built from source. Then it is different in terms of file locations, commands, etc.

1 Like
5

It helps if I read what your wrote without interposing my own interpretation.
I need to move the /opt/gitlab/etc/gitlab.rb to /etc. D’OH!
Thanks. That may help a bit.

6

If installed from rpm/deb it should already exist in /etc/gitlab.