GitLab Prometheus metrics

Note: Available since Omnibus GitLab 9.3. For installations from source you'll have to configure it yourself.

To enable the GitLab Prometheus metrics:

  1. Log into GitLab as an administrator, and go to the Admin area.
  2. Click on the gear, then click on Settings.
  3. Find the Metrics - Prometheus section, and click Enable Prometheus Metrics
  4. Restart GitLab for the changes to take effect

Collecting the metrics

GitLab monitors its own internal service metrics, and makes them available at the /-/metrics endpoint. Unlike other Prometheus exporters, in order to access it, the client IP needs to be included in a whitelist.

For Omnibus and Chart installations, these metrics are automatically enabled and collected as of GitLab 9.4. For source installations or earlier versions, these metrics will need to be enabled manually and collected by a Prometheus server.

Unicorn Metrics available

The following metrics are available:

Metric Type Since Description
db_ping_timeout Gauge 9.4 Whether or not the last database ping timed out
db_ping_success Gauge 9.4 Whether or not the last database ping succeeded
db_ping_latency_seconds Gauge 9.4 Round trip time of the database ping
filesystem_access_latency_seconds Gauge 9.4 Latency in accessing a specific filesystem
filesystem_accessible Gauge 9.4 Whether or not a specific filesystem is accessible
filesystem_write_latency_seconds Gauge 9.4 Write latency of a specific filesystem
filesystem_writable Gauge 9.4 Whether or not the filesystem is writable
filesystem_read_latency_seconds Gauge 9.4 Read latency of a specific filesystem
filesystem_readable Gauge 9.4 Whether or not the filesystem is readable
http_requests_total Counter 9.4 Rack request count
http_request_duration_seconds Histogram 9.4 HTTP response time from rack middleware
pipelines_created_total Counter 9.4 Counter of pipelines created
rack_uncaught_errors_total Counter 9.4 Rack connections handling uncaught errors count
redis_ping_timeout Gauge 9.4 Whether or not the last redis ping timed out
redis_ping_success Gauge 9.4 Whether or not the last redis ping succeeded
redis_ping_latency_seconds Gauge 9.4 Round trip time of the redis ping
user_session_logins_total Counter 9.4 Counter of how many users have logged in
upload_file_does_not_exist Counter 10.7 in EE, 11.5 in CE Number of times an upload record could not find its file
failed_login_captcha_total Gauge 11.0 Counter of failed CAPTCHA attempts during login
successful_login_captcha_total Gauge 11.0 Counter of successful CAPTCHA attempts during login
unicorn_active_connections Gauge 11.0 The number of active Unicorn connections (workers)
unicorn_queued_connections Gauge 11.0 The number of queued Unicorn connections

Ruby metrics

Some basic Ruby runtime metrics are available:

Metric Type Since Description
ruby_gc_duration_seconds_total Counter 11.1 Time spent by Ruby in GC
ruby_gc_stat_... Gauge 11.1 Various metrics from GC.stat
ruby_file_descriptors Gauge 11.1 File descriptors per process
ruby_memory_bytes Gauge 11.1 Memory usage by process
ruby_sampler_duration_seconds_total Counter 11.1 Time spent collecting stats

Metrics shared directory

GitLab's Prometheus client requires a directory to store metrics data shared between multi-process services. Those files are shared among all instances running under Unicorn server. The directory needs to be accessible to all running Unicorn's processes otherwise metrics will not function correctly.

For best performance its advisable that this directory will be located in tmpfs.

Its location is configured using environment variable prometheus_multiproc_dir.

If GitLab is installed using Omnibus and tmpfs is available then metrics directory will be automatically configured.

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