Prevent Log-Spamming When Used with AWS Load Balancer

How to Use GitLab
1

Problem to solve

I’ve deployed gitlab-ee into AWS. I’ve configured it to behind an ALB. Unfortunately, the /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_access.log gets spammed by the ALB’s health-checker function (like so):

10.200.3.132 - - [11/Mar/2025:13:37:01 +0000] "GET /help HTTP/1.1" 200 9302 "" "ELB-HealthChecker/2.0" 3.19
10.200.3.53 - - [11/Mar/2025:13:37:04 +0000] "GET /help HTTP/1.1" 200 9301 "" "ELB-HealthChecker/2.0" 3.19

It looks like, if I were running a standalone NGINX, I’d be able to specify somthing like:

map $http_user_agent $loggable {
    ~ELB-HealthChecker  0;
    default             1;
}

And those log-entries would be suppressed/prevented. Is there a method for inserting the above via a suitable /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb directive?

Steps to reproduce

  1. Deploy GitLab into an AWS VPC
  2. Place GitLab behind an AWS load-balancer
  3. Watch the /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_access.log file for "ELB-HealthChecker/2.0" entries

Configuration

GitLab service deployed onto an AWS EC2 with client-connections routed through an AWS loadbalancer

Versions

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  • Self-managed
  • GitLab.com SaaS
  • Dedicated

Versions

  • GitLab (Web: /help or self-managed system information sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:env:info):

All gitlab-ee-17.x.y