How to Backup Gitlab | Manual and Automated Gitlab Backup

Why You Should Understand Gitlab Backup

If you are a web developer or an open-source contributor, knowing how to backup Gitlab is essential for you.

Gitlab offers DevOps, and in today’s agile technology, they are the key. But, there are many files, including source codes, documentation, etc., in it. They are crucial to the project.

Keeping all the Gitlab repo files safe and sound for business-critical projects is vital. So, that is a good enough reason for you to learn how to backup all data from Gitlab.

Learn Gitlab Backup Automatically. It’s a Time-Saver and Makes Your Life Easier.

There is no denying in Gitlab backup importance. So, as a Gitlab user, you need to understand how to backup Gitlab data.

You can perform Gitlab backup manually and automatically. The manual backup is time-consuming and technical as compared to the automatic Gitlab backup.

Also, you can use Gitlab backup later on. For using the created backups, you can look for ways on how to restore Gitlab backup.

Now, you have a choice to backup Gitlab manually or automatically. In the subsequent section, you will see Gitlab backup manually.

Manual Method for Gitlab Backup

Let’s start by seeing a manual way of creating Gitlab backup.

To start with Gitlab data backup through manual commands, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Using Secure Shell (SSH), log in with your Gitlab server

Step 2: Use the command “sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:backup:create” to create a backup of your Gitlab

After logging in with your Gitlab Server, enter Gitlab backup command to initiate the backup creation process

Step 3: Use the command “sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:backup:create SKIP = db, uploads” to skip some directories that you do not wish to include in the backup.

Here, SKIP is an environment variable that lets you do that job. If there are no files to skip, you can create the backup with step 2 as well.

An alternate way to create Gitlab backup. It is using the SKIP environment variable to skip the directories that are not needed to back up.

Step 4: Your Gitlab backup tar file will be created and stored in the “/var/opt/gitlab/backups” directory.

Step 5: View your created backup file by moving the shell to the backup file directory.

Step 6: Once in the directory, type “ls -l” to see the Gitlab backup tar file.

Moving to the directory where Gitlab backup tar file is stored. Then, using the ls command to view the backup tar file of Gitlab.

That is it! You have created your first manual backup of Gitlab. If you wish to use the created backup, see how to restore Gitlab backup data.

However, remembering these commands is not everyone’s cup of tea. You can also use an automated way to backup Gitlab, which is a more straightforward and time-saver.

An Automated Method for Gitlab Backup

An easy-to-use, GUI-based tool that can help you automatically backup Gitlab is called Backrightup.

Using Backrightup, there is no need to remember any commands. Just a few clicks to backup and restore.

Follow the below steps to automatically backup Gitlab using Backrightup.

Step 1: Go to the Backrightup website and register your account.

Entering email and password to confirm user registration on the Backrightup website.

Step 2: Provide your Gitlab organization details and access levels. You have the option to either give read-only access or full read/write access.

Setting your Backrightup account by entering Gitlab organization details and also selecting the access level.

Step 3: After registering and signing in with your Gitlab organization, Backrightup will automatically start the backup of all your Gitlab data.

The first page that appears after signing up for an account with Gitlab organization. Guiding the user to wait until all Gitlab data is automatically backed up.

Step 4: Changing repository settings in the Backrightup

Backrightup will run one backup every day on all your repositories. However, you can change it by going to your account settings > Repository settings.

The user can enter the repository settings by clicking on the profile icon and selecting the settings options.

Select/Unselect repositories that you don’t wish to automatically backup

Step 5: Changing storage settings for your Gitlab backup data

Backrightup provides you with their storage where they store all the backups. But, you can provide your storage for Gitlab backup as well.

Change the default storage location of Gitlab backup data if necessary.

To do that, go to Account settings> Storage Settings.

Step 6: Backup your Gitlab data without waiting for 24 hours

Since the Backrightup automatically backs up your data every 24-hours. There are times when you wish to backup by your choice.

To do that, click on the “Run Backup(s)” option on the interface screen and select the data you want to backup from your Gitlab.

After clicking on Run Backup(s) button, choose from the displayed options about the things you wish to backup from the Gitlab account.

Voila! You have successfully created an automated backup for your Gitlab.

Backup Gitlab Data Easily and Quickly

The Gitlab DevOps popularity is booming.

With DevOps, a lot of information resides in one central repository of Gitlab. The fear of accidentally losing it can revolve around developers.

Therefore, there is so much data at stake in a Gitlab repository. It becomes apparent that you understand how to backup all data from Gitlab to avoid a data loss disastrous.

Although you can backup Gitlab manually through commands, using Backrightup is an intelligent choice.

Final analysis, Backrightup saves tons of your time by automatically backing your Gitlab every 24 hours.

Even when you forget a manual backup, Backrightup will always have your back!