Uploads represent all user data that may be sent to GitLab as a single file. As an example, avatars and notes' attachments are uploads. Uploads are integral to GitLab functionality, and therefore cannot be disabled.
### Using local storage
>**Notes:**
This is the default configuration
To change the location where the uploads are stored locally, follow the steps
below.
---
**In Omnibus installations:**
>**Notes:**
For historical reasons, uploads are stored into a base directory, which by default is `uploads/-/system`. It is strongly discouraged to change this configuration option on an existing GitLab installation.
_The uploads are stored by default in `/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/public/uploads/-/system`._
1. To change the storage path for example to `/mnt/storage/uploads`, edit
`/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb` and add the following line:
If you don't want to use the local disk where GitLab is installed to store the
uploads, you can use an object storage provider like AWS S3 instead.
This configuration relies on valid AWS credentials to be configured already.
### Object Storage Settings
For source installations the following settings are nested under `uploads:` and then `object_store:`. On omnibus installs they are prefixed by `uploads_object_store_`.
| `direct_upload` | Set to true to enable direct upload of Uploads 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](https://github.com/fog), and are as follows:
| `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](https://www.minio.io), 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 |
1. Save the file and [reconfigure GitLab][] for the changes to take effect.
1. Migrate any existing local uploads to the object storage:
>**Notes:**
These task complies with the `BATCH` environment variable to process uploads in batch (200 by default). All of the processing will be done in a background worker and requires **no downtime**.
1. Edit `/home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml` and add or amend the following
lines:
```yaml
uploads:
object_store:
enabled: true
remote_directory: "uploads" # The bucket name
connection:
provider: AWS # Only AWS supported at the moment
aws_access_key_id: AWS_ACESS_KEY_ID
aws_secret_access_key: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
region: eu-central-1
```
1. Save the file and [restart GitLab][] for the changes to take effect.
1. Migrate any existing local uploads to the object storage:
>**Notes:**
- These task comply with the `BATCH` environment variable to process uploads in batch (200 by default). All of the processing will be done in a background worker and requires **no downtime**.
- To migrate in production use `RAILS_ENV=production` environment variable.
