Export a repository from a Gitlab server to another Gitlab server

Solution 1:

For GitLab versions >= 8.9 (released in June 2016) you can use the built-in export and import project feature.

Please not that for the existing installations of GitLab, this option has to be enabled in the application settings (URL: /admin/application_settings) under 'Import sources'. You have to be a GitLab admin user to enable and use the import functionality.

Here is the feature complete documentation: https://gitlab.com/help/user/project/settings/import_export.md

Solution 2:

I have actually done this recently, we were upgrading our instance of gitlab and needed to save and import repositories to the new installation.

First, create a bundle of the checked-out repository. For example, say you checked out a repository we will call myrepository

To check out the repository use git clone (let's assume your repository is under the root account and the ipaddress is 192.168.1.1)

git clone http://192.168.1.1/root/myrepository.git (or match your environment)

Now this step is somewhat important; you need to change into the working directory that has the .git folder of your checked out repository.

cd myrepository

Next, you create a bundle file:

git bundle create myrepository.bundle --all

Import the bundle file into the new instance of gitlab.

Create a new 'myrepository' on the gitlab gui interface

clone the empty repository; let's say this new gitlab has the ipaddress 192.168.1.2:

git clone http:\\192.168.1.2\root\myrepository.git (or match your environment)

You will get warnings that you cloned an empty repository. This is normal.

Change into the working directory of your checked out repository and do a git pull:

cd myrepository

git pull file/path/to/myrepository.bundle

this will pull the repository into your clone. Next you can do a git add, git commit and git push

This should work assuming you have the gitlab server settings set up correctly; you may have issues such as needing to add a client_max_body_size parameter in your nginx.conf file and also a 'git config --global http.postBuffer' to push large files.

Another way to do this is to make patch files of each commit and then deploy them:

This involves doing a 'git format-patch -C 0badil..68elid -o patch_directory_path' and reference the range of all your commits and have them pushed to an output directory; this should give you one patch file per commit. Next would involve git cloning the new empty repository, changing into the working directory of the clone and applying the patches to the new repository using 'git am patch_directory_path'

Solution 3:

For GitLab versions < 8.9, without built-in export/import feature, I recommend a great tool from Marcus Chmelar, gitlab-migrator. I used it successfully many times with older GitLab versions so you should too. Just be aware of its limitations.

Solution 4:

For the repos themselves, you can use git bundle: that will generate one file, that it is easy to copy around.
(as I described in "Backup a Local Git Repository")

But another way is simply to git clone --mirror your repos from the first server on a local workstation, and git push --mirror to the new server.
This is what GitHub details in its help page "Duplicating a repository".

In both cases, you need first to declare those repos on the new GitLab server, in order for them to be initialized, and ready to receive commits.

But for the rest... not easily. There is a feature request pending:
(Update August 2016, 2 years later: GitLab 8.9 has that feature implemented)
(for GitLab version older than 8.9, see and upvote Greg Dubicki's answer)

I agree that issues are the main thing to make exportable first.
They are stored in the database. Storing them in git is not an option. Maybe export them as a formatted file (SQL, YAML or something else).

This blog post illustrates the export of a mysql database.

Use mysqldump to create dump of old database, then create a new database on the new server and import this.

• On old:

    mysqldump gitlab | gzip > gitlab.sql.gz

• On new:

    gunzip < gitlab.sql.gz | mysql gitlab

Run the db migrate command to make sure the schema is updated to the latest version.

sudo -u gitlab -H bundle exec rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production