7 ms·

Gitlab Architecture Overview

218 points by Lukas1994 4y ago

Lukas1994 4y ago
All these Gitlab pages are really impressive. I found https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/fe_guide/graphql.html https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/fe_guide/graphql.html pretty useful!
- dnsmichi 4y ago
  GitLab team member here. Thanks for sharing! :) FYI, the Rails monolith architecture is currently discussed in this proposal issue [0] for a modular monolith approach. This is following the blueprint work in [1][2][3]. [0] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/365293 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/365293 [1] https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/architecture/blueprints/composable_codebase_using_rails_engines/ https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/architecture/blueprints/composabl... [2] https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5278 https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5278 [3] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/31121 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/31121
muttantt 4y ago
Anyone knows if they use any open source doc project to generate this documentation site?
- john_cogs 4y ago
  GitLab team member here. Nanoc (https://nanoc.app/ https://nanoc.app/) is the static site generator we use for our docs. More info: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/documentation/site_architecture/ https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/documentation/site_ar...
  - KronisLV 4y ago
    Just dropping by to say that you guys have really good docs! Some of the other commenters have expressed that they can get a bit overwhelming which I guess is true, but after years of using GitLab I haven't had an instance where the docs couldn't help me figure out how to do something! (well, there was a case or two in regards to updates in a non-standard config years ago, but community discussions helped there)
mrits 4y ago
Half of me wishes I ever worked at a place that had invested this much in documentation. The other half realizes I'd probably hate it if everything was already this laid out.
- grensley 4y ago
  I see this blog and my mind immediately goes to: What was the $ cost in salary to put this out vs How much should they expect to get back by somehow impressing upon potential customers that they have a sane-ish tech stack (and maybe how much will that help to recruit?)
  - Denvercoder9 4y ago
    vs how much $ cost in salary they save because new employees can look things up in the documentation instead of asking colleagues or figuring it out themselves.
  - nijave 4y ago
    I think part of this also contributes to their brand (open source first/foremost) and to potential contributors so there's more to the equation than just impressing potential customers
  - Lutger 4y ago
    Its part of the remote-only and open source oriented culture. Haven really good written communication - which documentation is, really helps when you are spread all over the globe.
- lutarezj 4y ago
  Well, honestly I prefer that money is spent on documenting potentially deprecated subjects than paying agile coaches and non technical scrum masters
pixel_tracing 4y ago
As much as I appreciate all the components that Gitlab utilizes behind the scenes running an instance of this on a 4GB droplet consumes the entire memory of that unit until things come to a crawl. Does Gitlab actually need to utilize all those components and when I disable certain things like Prometheus and etc. it seems to only marginally make things better. What is consumes so much RAM and why?
- rstat1 4y ago
  I self-hosted a gitlab instance for a while on a local VM with 4GB of RAM and it (being the VM) would crash randomly because the OOM-killer killed too many important processes. I no longer self-host or use GitLab for this precise reason.
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
    I think if you're going to self host a git server on a small server you'd be better off using gitea/gogs
    - rstat1 4y ago
      I agree. I didn't know about those at the time though, and ended up with a custom solution for no reason other than because I could :P
- imran-iq 4y ago
  > What is consumes so much RAM and why? That's just a complex rails application for you, at $DAYJOB we have to provision 11gb for just a single container running a single instance of the app
  - danielheath 4y ago
    I’m running a high traffic rails app with 15 years of source history; our instances have no trouble at 4gb for both unicorn (8 processes) and sidekiq (5 processes). Except for image processing, which uses a ton of ram and readily OOMs.
blondin 4y ago
holy spaghetti! that algolia search palette or similar needs to be in every online documentation.
- dnsmichi 4y ago
  GitLab team member here. [0] provides documentation for the search based on Algolia DocSearch. [0] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/-/blob/main/doc/docsearch.md https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/-/blob/main/doc/do...
yuchi 4y ago
Please fix the title. GitLab is capitalized with both G and L as upper case.
- Lukas1994 4y ago
  Sorry but I can't update it.
jhoelzel 4y ago
I have always been given access too and never setup gitlab myself, but every time I use it, I am pleasently suprised of its featureset. In the beginning I am always looking for features from other platforms only to find them readily implemented. It does not matter if it's Mattermost, a container registry, or direct oidc logins for kubernetes and friends, it's just there. The magnitudes of features, make it an easy choice as a core of your startup. All in all thank you for creating an amazing piece of software. Like a fridge, for me, it just works.

218 points by Lukas1994 4y ago

Lukas1994 4y ago

All these Gitlab pages are really impressive. I found https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/fe_guide/graphql.html https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/fe_guide/graphql.html pretty useful!

dnsmichi 4y ago
GitLab team member here. Thanks for sharing! :) FYI, the Rails monolith architecture is currently discussed in this proposal issue [0] for a modular monolith approach. This is following the blueprint work in [1][2][3]. [0] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/365293 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/365293 [1] https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/architecture/blueprints/composable_codebase_using_rails_engines/ https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/architecture/blueprints/composabl... [2] https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5278 https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/5278 [3] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/31121 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/31121

muttantt 4y ago

Anyone knows if they use any open source doc project to generate this documentation site?

john_cogs 4y ago
GitLab team member here. Nanoc (https://nanoc.app/ https://nanoc.app/) is the static site generator we use for our docs. More info: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/documentation/site_architecture/ https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/documentation/site_ar...
- KronisLV 4y ago
  Just dropping by to say that you guys have really good docs! Some of the other commenters have expressed that they can get a bit overwhelming which I guess is true, but after years of using GitLab I haven't had an instance where the docs couldn't help me figure out how to do something! (well, there was a case or two in regards to updates in a non-standard config years ago, but community discussions helped there)

mrits 4y ago

Half of me wishes I ever worked at a place that had invested this much in documentation. The other half realizes I'd probably hate it if everything was already this laid out.

grensley 4y ago
I see this blog and my mind immediately goes to: What was the $ cost in salary to put this out vs How much should they expect to get back by somehow impressing upon potential customers that they have a sane-ish tech stack (and maybe how much will that help to recruit?)
- Denvercoder9 4y ago
  vs how much $ cost in salary they save because new employees can look things up in the documentation instead of asking colleagues or figuring it out themselves.
- nijave 4y ago
  I think part of this also contributes to their brand (open source first/foremost) and to potential contributors so there's more to the equation than just impressing potential customers
- Lutger 4y ago
  Its part of the remote-only and open source oriented culture. Haven really good written communication - which documentation is, really helps when you are spread all over the globe.
lutarezj 4y ago
Well, honestly I prefer that money is spent on documenting potentially deprecated subjects than paying agile coaches and non technical scrum masters

pixel_tracing 4y ago

As much as I appreciate all the components that Gitlab utilizes behind the scenes running an instance of this on a 4GB droplet consumes the entire memory of that unit until things come to a crawl. Does Gitlab actually need to utilize all those components and when I disable certain things like Prometheus and etc. it seems to only marginally make things better. What is consumes so much RAM and why?

rstat1 4y ago
I self-hosted a gitlab instance for a while on a local VM with 4GB of RAM and it (being the VM) would crash randomly because the OOM-killer killed too many important processes. I no longer self-host or use GitLab for this precise reason.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  I think if you're going to self host a git server on a small server you'd be better off using gitea/gogs
  - rstat1 4y ago
    I agree. I didn't know about those at the time though, and ended up with a custom solution for no reason other than because I could :P
imran-iq 4y ago
> What is consumes so much RAM and why? That's just a complex rails application for you, at $DAYJOB we have to provision 11gb for just a single container running a single instance of the app
- danielheath 4y ago
  I’m running a high traffic rails app with 15 years of source history; our instances have no trouble at 4gb for both unicorn (8 processes) and sidekiq (5 processes). Except for image processing, which uses a ton of ram and readily OOMs.

blondin 4y ago

holy spaghetti! that algolia search palette or similar needs to be in every online documentation.

dnsmichi 4y ago
GitLab team member here. [0] provides documentation for the search based on Algolia DocSearch. [0] https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/-/blob/main/doc/docsearch.md https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/-/blob/main/doc/do...

yuchi 4y ago

Please fix the title. GitLab is capitalized with both G and L as upper case.

Lukas1994 4y ago
Sorry but I can't update it.

jhoelzel 4y ago

I have always been given access too and never setup gitlab myself, but every time I use it, I am pleasently suprised of its featureset. In the beginning I am always looking for features from other platforms only to find them readily implemented. It does not matter if it's Mattermost, a container registry, or direct oidc logins for kubernetes and friends, it's just there. The magnitudes of features, make it an easy choice as a core of your startup. All in all thank you for creating an amazing piece of software. Like a fridge, for me, it just works.