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Pausing and resuming replication

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WARNING: Pausing and resuming of replication is only supported for Geo installations using a Linux package-managed database. External databases are not supported.

In some circumstances, like during upgrades or a planned failover, it is desirable to pause replication between the primary and secondary.

If you plan to allow user activity on your secondary sites during the upgrade, do not pause replication for a zero-downtime upgrade. While paused, the secondary site gets more and more out-of-date. One known effect is that more and more Git fetches get redirected or proxied to the primary site. There may be additional unknown effects.

Pausing and resuming replication is done through a command-line tool from a specific node in the secondary site. Depending on your database architecture, this will target either the postgresql or patroniservice:

  • If you are using a single node for all services on your secondary site, you must run the commands on this single node.
  • If you have a standalone PostgreSQL node on your secondary site, you must run the commands on this standalone PostgreSQL node.
  • If your secondary site is using a Patroni cluster, you must run these commands on the secondary Patroni standby leader node.

If you aren't using a single node for all services on your secondary site, ensure that the /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb on your PostgreSQL or Patroni nodes contains the configuration line gitlab_rails['geo_node_name'] = 'node_name', where node_name is the same as the geo_node_name on the application node.

To Pause: (from secondary site)

Also, be aware that if PostgreSQL is restarted after pausing replication (either by restarting the VM or restarting the service with gitlab-ctl restart postgresql), PostgreSQL automatically resumes replication, which is something you wouldn't want during an upgrade or in a planned failover scenario.

gitlab-ctl geo-replication-pause

To Resume: (from secondary site)

gitlab-ctl geo-replication-resume