Impact of server renaming and its projects

How to Use GitLab System Administration
1

I plan to change my gitlab server’s (v 15.7.8) hostname and IP address.
I wonder if there’s any project which has embedded server information, including hostname, IP address, and etc. If that’s the case, would the project owner just need to modify his/her project to reflect the new hostname and IP address ?

2

Hey,

I might be doing this myself, so I’m wondering - have you migrated already? :smiley:

I would assume (and hope!) that all the URLs and paths are dynamically generated depending on the Omnibus settings like external_url, registry_external_url, etc. Therefore, after moving GitLab to another host with different IP, it should be as easy as changing the git origin url. But again, just my assumption.

Perhaps it would be smart to ask official Support.

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3

Hi,

Yes, generally all URL’s are based on the external_url for git actions such as clone, push etc. The same for accesing gitlab via the web browser. Container registry also, depending on whether you decide to use single domain with different port, or different hostname/fqdn. I tend to use gitlab.mydomain.com and gitlab-registry.mydomain.com with both accessible on port 443.

So, when you change the options in gitlab.rb and reconfigure, the new domain and urls will be used. People will just then have to update their git remotes to use the new url, since the old one will no longer work.

I have done backups/restores, moving my gitlab install from different servers as well as different operating systems with IP changes and same domain name, or IP change and different domain name without issues. Obviously, not including the fact you need to update your remote to be able to push/pull again afterwards.

There might be issues if people have decided to put links in WIKI article, instead of using relative urls. If they put the full domain name, then they’ll have to edit those WIKI articles and change it since that is content written by them that a reconfigure of gitlab will not edit/change. The same for links in README.md in projects could also be an issue unless relative url’s.

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