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Jobs artifacts administration

  • Introduced in GitLab 8.2 and GitLab Runner 0.7.0.
  • Starting with GitLab 8.4 and GitLab Runner 1.0, the artifacts archive format changed to ZIP.
  • Starting with GitLab 8.17, builds are renamed to jobs.
  • This is the administration documentation. For the user guide see pipelines/job_artifacts.

Artifacts is a list of files and directories which are attached to a job after it finishes. This feature is enabled by default in all GitLab installations. Keep reading if you want to know how to disable it.

Disabling job artifacts

To disable artifacts site-wide, follow the steps below.

In Omnibus installations:

  1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line:

    gitlab_rails['artifacts_enabled'] = false

  2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

In installations from source:

  1. Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

    artifacts:
  enabled: false

  2. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Storing job artifacts

GitLab Runner can upload an archive containing the job artifacts to GitLab. By default, this is done when the job succeeds, but can also be done on failure, or always, via the artifacts:when parameter.

Using local storage

To change the location where the artifacts are stored locally, follow the steps below.

In Omnibus installations:

The artifacts are stored by default in /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/artifacts.

  1. To change the storage path for example to /mnt/storage/artifacts, edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line:

    gitlab_rails['artifacts_path'] = "/mnt/storage/artifacts"

  2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

In installations from source:

The artifacts are stored by default in /home/git/gitlab/shared/artifacts.

  1. To change the storage path for example to /mnt/storage/artifacts, edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

    artifacts:
  enabled: true
  path: /mnt/storage/artifacts

  2. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Using object storage

  • Introduced in GitLab Premium 9.4.
  • Since version 9.5, artifacts are browsable, when object storage is enabled. 9.4 lacks this feature.
  • Since version 10.6, available in GitLab Core
  • Since version 11.0, we support direct_upload to S3.

If you don't want to use the local disk where GitLab is installed to store the artifacts, you can use an object storage like AWS S3 instead. This configuration relies on valid AWS credentials to be configured already. Use an object storage option like AWS S3 to store job artifacts.

DANGER: Danger: If you're enabling S3 in GitLab HA, you will need to have an NFS mount set up for CI traces and artifacts or enable live tracing. If these settings are not set, you will risk job traces disappearing or not being saved.

Object Storage Settings

For source installations the following settings are nested under artifacts: and then object_store:. On omnibus installs they are prefixed by artifacts_object_store_.

Setting Description Default
enabled Enable/disable object storage false
remote_directory The bucket name where Artifacts will be stored
direct_upload Set to true to enable direct upload of Artifacts without the need of local shared storage. Option may be removed once we decide to support only single storage for all files. false
background_upload Set to false to disable automatic upload. Option may be removed once upload is direct to S3 true
proxy_download Set to true to enable proxying all files served. Option allows to reduce egress traffic as this allows clients to download directly from remote storage instead of proxying all data false
connection Various connection options described below

S3 compatible connection settings

The connection settings match those provided by Fog, and are as follows:

Setting Description Default
provider Always AWS for compatible hosts AWS
aws_access_key_id AWS credentials, or compatible
aws_secret_access_key AWS credentials, or compatible
aws_signature_version AWS signature version to use. 2 or 4 are valid options. Digital Ocean Spaces and other providers may need 2. 4
enable_signature_v4_streaming Set to true to enable HTTP chunked transfers with AWS v4 signatures (https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/API/sigv4-streaming.html). Oracle Cloud S3 needs this to be false true
region AWS region us-east-1
host S3 compatible host for when not using AWS, e.g. localhost or storage.example.com s3.amazonaws.com
endpoint Can be used when configuring an S3 compatible service such as Minio, by entering a URL such as http://127.0.0.1:9000 (optional)
path_style Set to true to use host/bucket_name/object style paths instead of bucket_name.host/object. Leave as false for AWS S3 false
use_iam_profile Set to true to use IAM profile instead of access keys false

In Omnibus installations:

The artifacts are stored by default in /var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/artifacts.

  1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following lines by replacing with the values you want:

    gitlab_rails['artifacts_enabled'] = true
gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_enabled'] = true
gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_remote_directory'] = "artifacts"
gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_connection'] = {
  'provider' => 'AWS',
  'region' => 'eu-central-1',
  'aws_access_key_id' => 'AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID',
  'aws_secret_access_key' => 'AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'
}

    NOTE: For GitLab 9.4+, if you are using AWS IAM profiles, be sure to omit the AWS access key and secret access key/value pairs. For example:

    gitlab_rails['artifacts_object_store_connection'] = {
  'provider' => 'AWS',
  'region' => 'eu-central-1',
  'use_iam_profile' => true
}

  2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

  3. Migrate any existing local artifacts to the object storage:

    gitlab-rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate

In installations from source:

The artifacts are stored by default in /home/git/gitlab/shared/artifacts.

  1. Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

    artifacts:
  enabled: true
  object_store:
    enabled: true
    remote_directory: "artifacts" # The bucket name
    connection:
      provider: AWS # Only AWS supported at the moment
      aws_access_key_id: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
      aws_secret_access_key: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
      region: eu-central-1

  2. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

  3. Migrate any existing local artifacts to the object storage:

    sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:artifacts:migrate RAILS_ENV=production

Expiring artifacts

If an expiry date is used for the artifacts, they are marked for deletion right after that date passes. Artifacts are cleaned up by the expire_build_artifacts_worker cron job which is run by Sidekiq every hour at 50 minutes (50 * * * *).

To change the default schedule on which the artifacts are expired, follow the steps below.

In Omnibus installations:

  1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and comment out or add the following line

    gitlab_rails['expire_build_artifacts_worker_cron'] = "50 * * * *"

  2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab for the changes to take effect.

In installations from source:

  1. Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

    expire_build_artifacts_worker:
  cron: "50 * * * *"

  2. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Validation for dependencies

Introduced in GitLab 10.3.

To disable the dependencies validation, you can flip the feature flag from a Rails console.

In Omnibus installations:

  1. Enter the Rails console:

    sudo gitlab-rails console

  2. Flip the switch and disable it:

    Feature.enable('ci_disable_validates_dependencies')

In installations from source:

  1. Enter the Rails console:

    cd /home/git/gitlab
RAILS_ENV=production sudo -u git -H bundle exec rails console

  2. Flip the switch and disable it:

    Feature.enable('ci_disable_validates_dependencies')

Set the maximum file size of the artifacts

Provided the artifacts are enabled, you can change the maximum file size of the artifacts through the Admin area settings.

Storage statistics

You can see the total storage used for job artifacts on groups and projects in the administration area, as well as through the groups and projects APIs.

Implementation details

When GitLab receives an artifacts archive, an archive metadata file is also generated by GitLab Workhorse. This metadata file describes all the entries that are located in the artifacts archive itself. The metadata file is in a binary format, with additional GZIP compression.

GitLab does not extract the artifacts archive in order to save space, memory and disk I/O. It instead inspects the metadata file which contains all the relevant information. This is especially important when there is a lot of artifacts, or an archive is a very large file.

When clicking on a specific file, GitLab Workhorse extracts it from the archive and the download begins. This implementation saves space, memory and disk I/O.