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admin area

GitLab Ultimate Admin Area - Complete Guide

Last Updated: 2026-01-08 GitLab Version: 18.x series Tier: Self-Managed (Free, Premium, Ultimate) Audience: Instance Administrators

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Accessing the Admin Area
  3. Overview Section
  4. Monitoring Section
  5. Analytics Section
  6. Security Section
  7. Administrative Features
  8. Settings Menu

Introduction

The Admin Area provides instance-level administration capabilities for GitLab Self-Managed and GitLab Dedicated installations. It is only accessible to users with administrator privileges and controls instance-wide settings, monitoring, security, and user management.

Key Responsibilities

Instance administrators use the Admin Area to:

  • Manage users, groups, and projects across the instance
  • Configure instance-wide settings and integrations
  • Monitor system health and performance
  • Enforce security policies and compliance
  • Manage licenses and subscriptions
  • Configure authentication and authorization
  • Track usage and analytics

Admin Permissions

Only users with administrator role can access the Admin Area. Administrator status is separate from project/group roles and provides instance-wide privileges.

Note: On GitLab.com (SaaS), many Admin Area features are managed by GitLab Inc. and not available to users.

Accessing the Admin Area

Navigation

  1. Sign in with an administrator account
  2. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin
  3. The Admin Area opens with the Overview Dashboard

Admin Area Structure

Admin Area
 Overview
 Monitoring
 Analytics
 Security
 Push Rules (Premium/Ultimate)
 Geo (Premium/Ultimate)
 Deploy Keys
 Service Templates
 Labels
 Applications
 Abuse Reports
 License (Self-Managed)
 Subscription (Self-Managed)
 Kubernetes
 Terraform States
 Settings

Overview Section

The Overview section provides dashboards and management for key instance resources.

Dashboard

Path: Admin Area > Overview > Dashboard

Purpose: High-level instance statistics and health indicators.

Key Metrics:

Instance Statistics

  • Projects (total, private, internal, public)
  • Users (total, active, blocked, external)
  • Groups (total)
  • Issues (total, open, closed)
  • Merge requests (total, open, merged)
  • Pipelines (total, succeeded, failed)
  • Runners (total, online, offline)

System Information

  • GitLab version
  • GitLab Shell version
  • Database version (PostgreSQL)
  • Git version
  • Ruby version
  • Redis version
  • Gitaly version

Features

  • LDAP enabled
  • OmniAuth enabled
  • Gravatar enabled
  • Reply by email
  • Container registry
  • Package registry
  • Pages

Best Practices:

  • Review dashboard daily
  • Monitor active users trends
  • Track project growth
  • Check system health indicators
  • Verify critical services running

Common Pitfalls:

  • Ignoring warning indicators
  • Not tracking growth trends
  • Missing service failures
  • No capacity planning

Projects

Path: Admin Area > Overview > Projects

Purpose: Manage all projects on the instance.

Key Features:

  • List all projects
  • Filter by visibility, archived status
  • Search projects
  • Sort by various criteria
  • View project details
  • Edit project settings
  • Delete projects
  • Transfer projects

Project Actions:

  • Edit project settings
  • Transfer to another namespace
  • Archive/unarchive project
  • Delete project (with confirmation)
  • View project activity
  • Repository statistics

Best Practices:

  • Regular project audits
  • Archive inactive projects
  • Monitor storage usage
  • Enforce naming conventions
  • Track orphaned projects

Common Pitfalls:

  • Too many abandoned projects
  • No archival policy
  • Storage bloat
  • Missing project ownership

Integration Points:

  • Storage management
  • Usage quotas
  • Backup processes
  • Audit logging

Users

Path: Admin Area > Overview > Users

Purpose: Manage all user accounts on the instance.

Key Features:

  • List all users
  • Filter by status (active, blocked, banned, pending approval)
  • Search users
  • Create new users
  • Edit user profiles
  • Impersonate users
  • Block/unblock users
  • Ban/unban users
  • Approve pending users
  • View user activity

User States:

  • Active: Normal user with full access
  • Blocked: Cannot sign in, temporary suspension
  • Banned: Permanent ban, stricter than block
  • Pending approval: New registration awaiting approval
  • Deactivated: Inactive users automatically deactivated
  • External: Limited permissions, cannot create projects/groups

User Actions:

  • Edit profile
  • Confirm user
  • Block user
  • Ban user (stricter than block)
  • Unblock/unban user
  • Approve pending user
  • Delete user
  • Impersonate user (for troubleshooting)
  • View user activity and groups
  • Reset password
  • Disable two-factor authentication

Best Practices:

  • Enable user approval for registrations
  • Regular user audits
  • Deactivate unused accounts
  • Monitor for suspicious activity
  • Document blocking/banning decisions
  • Use external users for contractors

Common Pitfalls:

  • No approval process for new users
  • Inactive accounts not deactivated
  • Overuse of administrator privileges
  • Not tracking user growth
  • Missing offboarding process

Integration Points:

  • Authentication systems (LDAP, SAML, OAuth)
  • License seat management
  • Audit logging
  • Activity tracking

Groups

Path: Admin Area > Overview > Groups

Purpose: Manage all groups on the instance.

Key Features:

  • List all groups
  • Search groups
  • Create groups
  • Edit group settings
  • Delete groups
  • View group activity
  • Transfer groups

Group Information:

  • Group path and name
  • Visibility level
  • Number of projects
  • Number of members
  • Storage usage
  • Creation date

Best Practices:

  • Establish group hierarchy standards
  • Monitor group storage
  • Regular group audits
  • Enforce naming conventions
  • Track orphaned groups

Common Pitfalls:

  • Inconsistent group structure
  • No group management policy
  • Storage bloat in groups
  • Duplicate group purposes

Topics

Path: Admin Area > Overview > Topics

Purpose: Manage project topics for discovery and organization.

Key Features:

  • List all topics
  • Merge duplicate topics
  • Remove topics
  • View projects per topic

Best Practices:

  • Consolidate similar topics
  • Remove unused topics
  • Establish topic naming conventions

Gitaly Servers

Path: Admin Area > Overview > Gitaly servers

Purpose: Monitor Gitaly server status and configuration.

Key Features:

  • View all Gitaly servers
  • Server status (up/down)
  • Storage information
  • Version information
  • Filesystem type

Gitaly Information:

  • Server address
  • Storage name
  • Available capacity
  • Used capacity
  • Server version
  • Filesystem type (NFS, local)

Best Practices:

  • Monitor Gitaly health regularly
  • Balance storage across Gitaly servers
  • Plan capacity expansion
  • Monitor disk usage alerts

Common Pitfalls:

  • Single Gitaly server (no redundancy)
  • Unbalanced storage allocation
  • Ignoring capacity warnings
  • NFS performance issues

Runners

Path: Admin Area > Overview > Runners

Purpose: Manage instance-wide (shared) runners.

Key Features:

  • List all runners (instance, group, project)
  • View runner details
  • Pause/resume runners
  • Remove runners
  • Runner statistics
  • Job execution history

Runner Types:

  • Instance runners: Available to all projects
  • Group runners: Available to group projects
  • Project runners: Specific to one project

Runner Information:

  • Runner ID and description
  • Runner tags
  • Status (online, offline, paused)
  • IP address
  • GitLab Runner version
  • Platform
  • Architecture
  • Jobs run
  • Last contact time

Runner Management:

  • Pause runner (temporarily disable)
  • Remove runner (permanently delete)
  • View jobs executed by runner
  • Edit runner settings
  • Assign runner to projects

Best Practices:

  • Monitor runner capacity
  • Keep runners updated
  • Use tags for job routing
  • Secure runner registration tokens
  • Regular runner maintenance
  • Monitor runner utilization

Common Pitfalls:

  • Insufficient runner capacity
  • Outdated runner versions
  • No runner tags
  • Exposed registration tokens
  • Unmonitored runner health

Integration Points:

  • CI/CD job execution
  • Autoscaling configurations
  • Cost tracking
  • Performance monitoring

Monitoring Section

The Monitoring section provides system health and performance insights.

System Info

Path: Admin Area > Monitoring > System info

Purpose: Detailed system information and dependencies.

Information Displayed:

  • CPU information
  • Memory statistics
  • Disk information
  • GitLab version details
  • Database information
  • Redis information
  • Gitaly information
  • Ruby version
  • Node.js version
  • All component versions

Best Practices:

  • Review before upgrades
  • Track component versions
  • Monitor system resources
  • Document system configuration

Background Jobs

Path: Admin Area > Monitoring > Background jobs

Purpose: Monitor Sidekiq background job queues.

Key Features:

  • View queue statistics
  • Job counts per queue
  • Processing rates
  • Failed jobs
  • Retry counts
  • Dead jobs (permanently failed)

Job Queues:

  • Default queue
  • Mailers
  • Pipeline processing
  • Repository imports
  • CI/CD jobs
  • 50+ specialized queues

Best Practices:

  • Monitor failed jobs
  • Investigate stuck jobs
  • Track queue backlog
  • Alert on queue growth
  • Regular failed job cleanup

Common Pitfalls:

  • Growing job backlogs
  • Ignored failed jobs
  • Insufficient worker capacity
  • No alerting on queue issues

Background Migrations

Path: Admin Area > Monitoring > Background migrations

Purpose: Track long-running database migrations.

Key Features:

  • View migration status
  • Progress tracking
  • Estimated completion time
  • Pause/resume migrations
  • Failed migration details

Best Practices:

  • Monitor after upgrades
  • Track completion progress
  • Investigate failures
  • Avoid pausing unnecessarily

Logs

Path: Admin Area > Monitoring > Logs

Purpose: Access GitLab log files.

Available Logs:

  • Production log
  • API log
  • Git log
  • Application log
  • Integrations log
  • Kubernetes log
  • Sidekiq log

Best Practices:

  • Regular log review
  • Set up external log aggregation
  • Monitor for errors
  • Investigate unusual patterns
  • Configure log retention

Common Pitfalls:

  • Not reviewing logs regularly
  • No external log storage
  • Missing error notifications
  • Logs filling disk space

Health Check

Path: Admin Area > Monitoring > Health check

Purpose: Quick system health verification.

Health Checks:

  • Database connectivity
  • Redis connectivity
  • Gitaly connectivity
  • Filesystem access
  • Shared runners status

Best Practices:

  • Use for monitoring integration
  • Set up external health monitoring
  • Alert on health check failures

Requests Profiles

Path: Admin Area > Monitoring > Requests profiles

Purpose: Performance profiling for slow requests.

Key Features:

  • Profile slow requests
  • View request performance data
  • Identify performance bottlenecks
  • Request timing breakdown

Best Practices:

  • Enable for performance troubleshooting
  • Analyze slow requests
  • Optimize identified bottlenecks

Performance Bar

Path: Admin Area > Monitoring > Performance bar

Purpose: Enable performance bar for admins.

Key Features:

  • Request timing
  • Database queries
  • Gitaly calls
  • Redis calls
  • View queries

Best Practices:

  • Enable for troubleshooting
  • Use to identify slow pages
  • Optimize based on findings

Analytics Section

The Analytics section provides instance-wide usage analytics.

DevOps Reports

Path: Admin Area > Analytics > DevOps reports

Purpose: Instance-wide DevOps metrics and scores.

Key Features:

  • DevOps score calculation
  • Metrics per category
  • Adoption trends
  • Feature usage statistics

DevOps Categories:

  • Manage
  • Plan
  • Create
  • Verify
  • Package
  • Secure
  • Release
  • Configure
  • Monitor
  • Protect

Best Practices:

  • Track adoption trends
  • Share with leadership
  • Set improvement goals
  • Celebrate milestones

Usage Trends

Path: Admin Area > Analytics > Usage trends

Purpose: Track instance usage over time.

Key Metrics:

  • Active users over time
  • Projects created over time
  • Issues created over time
  • Merge requests created over time
  • Pipelines run over time
  • Groups created over time

Best Practices:

  • Monitor growth trends
  • Capacity planning
  • License planning
  • Resource allocation

Instance Statistics

Path: Admin Area > Analytics > Instance statistics

Purpose: Detailed instance-wide statistics.

Statistics:

  • User counts by type
  • Project counts by visibility
  • Group statistics
  • Issue and MR statistics
  • CI/CD statistics
  • Storage statistics

Best Practices:

  • Regular reporting
  • Track key metrics
  • Compare period over period
  • Resource planning

User Cohorts

Path: Admin Area > Analytics > User cohorts (Ultimate)

Purpose: User retention and engagement analysis.

Key Features:

  • User cohort analysis
  • Retention rates
  • Engagement metrics
  • Activity patterns

Best Practices:

  • Track user retention
  • Identify engagement patterns
  • Improve onboarding
  • Reduce churn

Security Section

The Security section provides instance-wide security features (Ultimate).

Credentials Inventory

Path: Admin Area > Security > Credentials inventory (Ultimate)

Purpose: Instance-wide credential tracking.

Key Features:

  • All SSH keys across instance
  • All personal access tokens
  • All project access tokens
  • All deploy keys
  • Filter by user, expiration
  • Identify stale credentials

Best Practices:

  • Regular credential audits
  • Enforce expiration policies
  • Revoke stale credentials
  • Monitor for anomalies

Compliance Center

Path: Admin Area > Security > Compliance center (Ultimate)

Purpose: Instance-wide compliance management.

Key Features:

  • Compliance framework overview
  • Violation tracking
  • Compliance projects
  • Audit reports

Best Practices:

  • Set compliance policies
  • Regular compliance reviews
  • Track violations
  • Generate audit reports

Administrative Features

Push Rules

Path: Admin Area > Push Rules (Premium/Ultimate)

Purpose: Enforce commit and push standards instance-wide.

Key Features:

  • Commit message format
  • Branch name patterns
  • File size limits
  • Author email requirements
  • Reject unsigned commits
  • Deny secret files
  • Member check

Push Rule Examples:

# Commit message format
^(feat|fix|docs|style|refactor|test|chore):\s.+

# Branch name pattern
^(feature|bugfix|hotfix)\/[a-z0-9-]+$

# Author email pattern
@company\.com$

Best Practices:

  • Enforce commit message standards
  • Prevent secrets in commits
  • Require signed commits
  • File size limits
  • Consistent branch naming

Common Pitfalls:

  • Overly restrictive rules
  • No documentation
  • Rules not tested
  • Breaking existing workflows

Geo

Path: Admin Area > Geo (Premium/Ultimate)

Purpose: Configure GitLab Geo for geographic replication.

Key Features:

  • Primary site configuration
  • Secondary sites management
  • Replication status
  • Synchronization monitoring
  • Geo nodes health

Geo Capabilities:

  • Read-only secondary sites
  • Reduced latency for distributed teams
  • Disaster recovery
  • Repository replication
  • Database replication
  • File replication

Best Practices:

  • Secondary sites in key regions
  • Monitor replication lag
  • Test failover procedures
  • Document Geo topology
  • Regular health checks

Common Pitfalls:

  • Replication lag not monitored
  • Untested failover
  • Insufficient bandwidth
  • No disaster recovery plan

Deploy Keys

Path: Admin Area > Deploy Keys

Purpose: Manage public deploy keys across instance.

Key Features:

  • List all deploy keys
  • View projects using each key
  • Delete deploy keys
  • Key fingerprints

Best Practices:

  • Regular key audits
  • Remove unused keys
  • Rotate keys periodically
  • Document key purpose

Service Templates

Path: Admin Area > Service Templates

Purpose: Configure default integrations for new projects.

Key Features:

  • Set default integration configurations
  • Applied to all new projects
  • Supports major integrations
  • Override available per project

Available Templates:

  • Jira
  • Slack
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Jenkins
  • Prometheus
  • Asana
  • 50+ integrations

Best Practices:

  • Configure common integrations
  • Document template settings
  • Test templates
  • Regular template review

Labels

Path: Admin Area > Labels

Purpose: Manage instance-wide labels.

Key Features:

  • Create instance labels
  • Available to all projects
  • Promote project labels to instance
  • Label descriptions

Best Practices:

  • Establish labeling conventions
  • Document label meanings
  • Promote common labels
  • Regular label audits

Applications

Path: Admin Area > Applications

Purpose: Manage instance-wide OAuth applications.

Key Features:

  • Register OAuth applications
  • Application credentials
  • Authorized applications
  • User authorizations

Best Practices:

  • Minimum required scopes
  • Regular application audits
  • Revoke unused applications
  • Document application purpose

Abuse Reports

Path: Admin Area > Abuse Reports

Purpose: Review user-reported abuse.

Key Features:

  • List abuse reports
  • Report details
  • User information
  • Reporter information
  • Actions (block user, close report)

Best Practices:

  • Review reports promptly
  • Fair investigation process
  • Document decisions
  • Communicate with parties

License

Path: Admin Area > License (Self-Managed)

Purpose: Manage GitLab license.

Key Features:

  • View current license
  • Upload new license
  • License details (tier, seats, expiration)
  • Usage statistics

License Information:

  • Plan (Free, Premium, Ultimate)
  • Seats licensed vs used
  • Expiration date
  • Historical users

Best Practices:

  • Monitor license expiration
  • Track seat usage
  • Plan license renewal
  • Remove inactive users

Common Pitfalls:

  • License expiration
  • Over-allocated seats
  • Not tracking usage
  • Missing renewal dates

Subscription

Path: Admin Area > Subscription (Self-Managed)

Purpose: Manage GitLab subscription (Cloud Licensing).

Key Features:

  • Sync subscription
  • Activation status
  • Subscription details
  • Usage tracking

Best Practices:

  • Keep subscription synced
  • Monitor activation status
  • Track usage against limits
  • Plan renewals

Kubernetes

Path: Admin Area > Kubernetes

Purpose: View instance-wide Kubernetes integrations.

Key Features:

  • List all Kubernetes agents
  • Agent status
  • Connected clusters
  • Agent versions

Best Practices:

  • Monitor agent health
  • Keep agents updated
  • Track cluster connections

Terraform States

Path: Admin Area > Terraform states

Purpose: View all Terraform states across instance.

Key Features:

  • List all Terraform states
  • State locations (groups/projects)
  • State metadata
  • Storage usage

Best Practices:

  • Monitor state storage
  • Track state usage
  • Security audits

Settings Menu

The Settings menu configures instance-wide behavior.

General

Path: Admin Area > Settings > General

Purpose: Core instance settings.

Sections:

Visibility and access controls

  • Default project visibility
  • Restricted visibility levels
  • Import sources
  • Project export enabled
  • User profile fields
  • Custom Git clone protocol URLs

Account and limit

  • Default projects limit
  • Max attachment size
  • Repository size limit
  • Maximum import size
  • Session duration
  • User email lookup limit
  • Receive maximum push size

Sign-up restrictions

  • Sign-up enabled
  • Require admin approval
  • Email confirmation
  • Domain allowlist/denylist
  • Email restrictions
  • Minimum password length

Sign-in restrictions

  • Two-factor authentication
  • Home page URL
  • After sign-out path
  • Sign-in text

Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

  • Require terms of service acceptance
  • Terms of service file
  • Privacy policy URL

Best Practices:

  • Disable sign-up or require approval
  • Enforce 2FA for security
  • Set reasonable size limits
  • Document access controls
  • Regular settings review

Common Pitfalls:

  • Open sign-up without approval
  • No 2FA enforcement
  • Unlimited sizes
  • Outdated terms of service

Integrations

Path: Admin Area > Settings > Integrations

Purpose: Instance-wide integration settings.

Key Features:

  • Enable/disable integrations
  • Configure default integration settings
  • Manage integration templates

Best Practices:

  • Configure common integrations
  • Test integrations
  • Document settings

Repository

Path: Admin Area > Settings > Repository

Purpose: Instance-wide repository settings.

Sections:

Default initial branch name

  • Set default branch name for new repos

Repository storage

  • Storage paths
  • Hashed storage
  • Repository checks

Repository maintenance

  • Housekeeping settings
  • Git pack settings

Repository static objects external storage

  • CDN configuration

Best Practices:

  • Use hashed storage
  • Regular repository housekeeping
  • Monitor storage health
  • Optimize pack settings

CI/CD

Path: Admin Area > Settings > CI/CD

Purpose: Instance-wide CI/CD configuration.

Sections:

Continuous Integration and Deployment

  • Auto DevOps enabled
  • Default to Auto DevOps
  • Instance-wide variables
  • Maximum artifacts size
  • Default artifacts expiration
  • Keep latest artifact
  • Protected paths for rate limiting
  • Runner registration
  • Shared runners enabled

Required pipeline configuration

  • Compliance pipeline configuration (Ultimate)

Best Practices:

  • Set reasonable artifact expiration
  • Configure protected paths
  • Secure runner registration
  • Enable compliance pipelines (Ultimate)

Reporting

Path: Admin Area > Settings > Reporting

Purpose: Configure spam and abuse controls.

Key Features:

  • Akismet spam checking
  • reCAPTCHA
  • IP rate limits
  • User rate limits
  • Import/export rate limits

Best Practices:

  • Enable spam protection
  • Configure rate limits
  • Monitor abuse patterns

Metrics and Profiling

Path: Admin Area > Settings > Metrics and profiling

Purpose: Configure instance metrics and monitoring.

Sections:

Prometheus

  • Enable Prometheus metrics
  • Metrics endpoint
  • Metrics scraping

Performance bar

  • Enable performance bar
  • Allowed IPs

Usage statistics

  • Enable usage ping
  • Version check enabled

Best Practices:

  • Enable Prometheus metrics
  • Configure external monitoring
  • Enable usage statistics for product improvements

Network

Path: Admin Area > Settings > Network

Purpose: Network and connectivity settings.

Sections:

Performance optimization

  • Repository connection limits
  • Git pushover HTTP
  • Authorized keys file

User and IP rate limits

  • Unauthenticated requests
  • Authenticated requests
  • IP rate limits

Outbound requests

  • Allow requests to local network
  • Webhook and service URL allowlist/denylist

Protected paths

  • Rate limit paths
  • Protected path limits

Best Practices:

  • Configure rate limits
  • Protect sensitive paths
  • Restrict outbound requests
  • Monitor for abuse

Geo

Path: Admin Area > Settings > Geo (Premium/Ultimate)

Purpose: Configure Geo replication settings.

Best Practices:

  • Configure connection timeouts
  • Set replication slots
  • Monitor replication health

Preferences

Path: Admin Area > Settings > Preferences

Purpose: Instance-wide UI preferences.

Sections:

Email

  • Email author in notification
  • Custom email footer
  • Email notification

Help page

  • Help page text
  • Help page URL
  • Hide marketing related entries

Pages

  • Maximum size of pages

Real-time features

  • Real-time refresh settings

Best Practices:

  • Customize help page
  • Set email footer
  • Configure real-time features

Appearance

Path: Admin Area > Settings > Appearance

Purpose: Customize instance appearance.

Key Features:

  • Navigation bar logo
  • Favicon
  • Sign-in/sign-up page background
  • Header message (banner)
  • Footer message
  • Email header and footer
  • New project page text
  • Custom CSS

Best Practices:

  • Brand with company logo
  • Clear sign-in instructions
  • Consistent colors/styling
  • Test appearance changes

Advanced

Path: Admin Area > Settings > Advanced

Purpose: Advanced instance configuration.

Sections:

Repository maintenance

  • Maintenance mode
  • Git housekeeping
  • Repository checks

Repository storage

  • Storage circuit breaker

Maintenance mode

  • Enable maintenance mode
  • Maintenance message

Import and export

  • Max import size
  • Max export size

Cleanup

  • Delete inactive projects

Best Practices:

  • Plan maintenance windows
  • Document maintenance procedures
  • Regular housekeeping
  • Monitor storage health

Best Practices Summary

Security

  1. Enforce 2FA for all users
  2. Enable sign-up approval
  3. Configure push rules (Premium/Ultimate)
  4. Regular credential audits
  5. Monitor audit logs
  6. Enable IP restrictions (Ultimate)

Performance

  1. Monitor system resources
  2. Track background job queues
  3. Regular repository housekeeping
  4. Optimize Gitaly configuration
  5. Configure rate limits
  6. Enable external monitoring

Capacity Planning

  1. Track usage trends
  2. Monitor license seats
  3. Plan storage expansion
  4. Scale runners as needed
  5. Review growth metrics

Maintenance

  1. Keep GitLab updated
  2. Regular security patches
  3. Backup verification
  4. Test disaster recovery
  5. Document procedures

Compliance

  1. Configure compliance frameworks (Ultimate)
  2. Regular audit reviews
  3. Track compliance violations
  4. Document policies
  5. Generate compliance reports

Common Administrative Tasks

User Management

  1. Approve new user registrations
  2. Deactivate inactive accounts
  3. Block/ban abusive users
  4. Reset user passwords
  5. Disable 2FA for locked-out users

Project Management

  1. Archive inactive projects
  2. Transfer orphaned projects
  3. Clean up storage
  4. Enforce naming conventions
  5. Monitor project growth

System Maintenance

  1. Review system health daily
  2. Monitor background jobs
  3. Check runner capacity
  4. Review logs for errors
  5. Plan upgrades

Security Operations

  1. Audit credentials regularly
  2. Review abuse reports
  3. Monitor compliance status
  4. Track security vulnerabilities
  5. Generate audit reports

Performance Optimization

  1. Monitor slow requests
  2. Optimize database queries
  3. Configure caching
  4. Balance Gitaly storage
  5. Scale runners

Troubleshooting Guide

Common Issues

Users Cannot Sign In

  • Check authentication configuration (LDAP, SAML)
  • Verify user is not blocked/banned
  • Check 2FA status
  • Review sign-in restrictions

Runners Not Picking Up Jobs

  • Verify runner is online
  • Check runner tags match jobs
  • Review runner capacity
  • Inspect runner logs

Slow Performance

  • Review Performance Bar data
  • Check database connection pool
  • Monitor Gitaly performance
  • Review background job queues

Storage Issues

  • Check disk space on Gitaly servers
  • Review artifact expiration settings
  • Audit large repositories
  • Enable repository housekeeping

Geo Replication Lag

  • Check network connectivity
  • Monitor replication queues
  • Review Geo node health
  • Inspect PostgreSQL replication

Sources

This documentation is based on official GitLab resources: