GitLab Git LFS Administration

Documentation on how to use Git LFS are under Managing large binary files with Git LFS doc.

Requirements

Git LFS is supported in GitLab starting with version 8.2.
Support for object storage, such as AWS S3, was introduced in 10.0.
Users need to install Git LFS client version 1.0.1 and up.

Configuration

Git LFS objects can be large in size. By default, they are stored on the server GitLab is installed on.

There are various configuration options to help GitLab server administrators:

Enabling/disabling Git LFS support
Changing the location of LFS object storage
Setting up AWS S3 compatible object storage

Configuration for Omnibus installations

In /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

# Change to true to enable lfs
gitlab_rails['lfs_enabled'] = false

# Optionally, change the storage path location. Defaults to
# `#{gitlab_rails['shared_path']}/lfs-objects`. Which evaluates to
# `/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/lfs-objects` by default.
gitlab_rails['lfs_storage_path'] = "/mnt/storage/lfs-objects"

Configuration for installations from source

In config/gitlab.yml:

# Change to true to enable lfs
  lfs:
    enabled: false
    storage_path: /mnt/storage/lfs-objects

Storing the LFS objects in an S3-compatible object storage

Introduced in GitLab Premium 10.0. Brought to GitLab Core in 10.7.

It is possible to store LFS objects on a remote object storage which allows you to offload storage to an external AWS S3 compatible service, freeing up disk space locally. You can also host your own S3 compatible storage decoupled from GitLab, with with a service such as Minio.

Object storage currently transfers files first to GitLab, and then on the object storage in a second stage. This can be done either by using a rake task to transfer existing objects, or in a background job after each file is received.

The following general settings are supported.

Setting	Description	Default
`enabled`	Enable/disable object storage	`false`
`remote_directory`	The bucket name where LFS objects will be stored
`direct_upload`	Set to true to enable direct upload of LFS 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

The connection settings match those provided by Fog.

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
`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

S3 for Omnibus installations

On Omnibus installations, the settings are prefixed by lfs_object_store_:

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

gitlab_rails['lfs_object_store_enabled'] = true
gitlab_rails['lfs_object_store_remote_directory'] = "lfs-objects"
gitlab_rails['lfs_object_store_connection'] = {
  'provider' => 'AWS',
  'region' => 'eu-central-1',
  'aws_access_key_id' => '1ABCD2EFGHI34JKLM567N',
  'aws_secret_access_key' => 'abcdefhijklmnopQRSTUVwxyz0123456789ABCDE',
  # The below options configure an S3 compatible host instead of AWS
  'host' => 'localhost',
  'endpoint' => 'http://127.0.0.1:9000',
  'path_style' => true
}

Save the file and reconfigure GitLabs for the changes to take effect.
Migrate any existing local LFS objects to the object storage:
```
gitlab-rake gitlab:lfs:migrate
```
This will migrate existing LFS objects to object storage. New LFS objects will be forwarded to object storage unless gitlab_rails['lfs_object_store_background_upload'] is set to false.

S3 for installations from source

For source installations the settings are nested under lfs: and then object_store::

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

lfs:
enabled: true
object_store:
  enabled: false
  remote_directory: lfs-objects # Bucket name
  connection:
    provider: AWS
    aws_access_key_id: 1ABCD2EFGHI34JKLM567N
    aws_secret_access_key: abcdefhijklmnopQRSTUVwxyz0123456789ABCDE
    region: eu-central-1
    # Use the following options to configure an AWS compatible host such as Minio
    host: 'localhost'
    endpoint: 'http://127.0.0.1:9000'
    path_style: true

Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.
Migrate any existing local LFS objects to the object storage:
```
sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:lfs:migrate RAILS_ENV=production
```
This will migrate existing LFS objects to object storage. New LFS objects will be forwarded to object storage unless background_upload is set to false.

Storage statistics

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

Known limitations

Support for removing unreferenced LFS objects was added in 8.14 onwards.
LFS authentications via SSH was added with GitLab 8.12
Only compatible with the GitLFS client versions 1.1.0 and up, or 1.0.2.
The storage statistics currently count each LFS object multiple times for every project linking to it

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