Redirect to gitlab.com after upgrade

Hello, I had to update an old GitLab server running on AWS yesterday and broke something in the process. The old version was GitLab CE 10 running on Ubuntu 14. I first upgraded Ubuntu to 16.04 then to 18.04, then proceeded to update GitLab CE to v 14 incrementally (first minor to last minor, next major, etc) as suggested in the upgrade docs.

Everything appeared to upgrade successfully, I did not encounter any errors. However, when I type in the server’s URL in a browser, I keep getting redirected to gitlab.com. Same thing happens if I use the IP address directly. I looked at the GitLab logs with gitlab-ctl tail but I’m not seeing any error messages. This is not my area of expertise so I’m not sure what to look for next. Any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Hi @prisonerjohn, and welcome to the GitLab Community Forum! :tada:

when I type in the server’s URL in a browser, I keep getting redirected to gitlab.com.

Can you please check that:

If you have example.gitlab.com set for external_url, or external_url is commented out (# ), set external_url to the domain name you have pointing to GitLab, or the IP address of the server.

If you have any question about DNS being set up correctly, I suggest using dig to troubleshoot (see docs here: DNS settings | GitLab)

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Hi @gitlab-greg,
Thank you for the tips.
DNS was set up correctly. I ended up fixing it by installing a new gitlab.rb config file, and updating my settings in there. I guess there was some broken setting in my old GitLab 10 config file that was not compatible with the latest version.

Hi @prisonerjohn,

Glad to hear you got it working!

I think you’re right, it sounds like a broken setting in gitlab.rb was the root cause of this issue.

If you still have the old gitlab.rb, you can investigate the difference between new and old with diff gitlab.rb gitlab.rb.bak.

Welcome again to the GitLab Community Forum, you’re in good company. :slight_smile: Please don’t hesitate to create a Forum thread for any further questions or issues you may have in the future.

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