Environment variables

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GitLab exposes certain environment variables which can be used to override their defaults values.

People usually configure GitLab with:

/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb for Linux package installations.
gitlab.yml for self-compiled installations.

You can use the following environment variables to override certain values:

Supported environment variables

Variable	Type	Description
`DATABASE_URL`	string	The database URL; is of the form: `postgresql://localhost/blog_development`.
`ENABLE_BOOTSNAP`	string	Toggles Bootsnap for speeding up initial Rails boot. Enabled by default for non-production environments. Set to `0` to disable.
`EXTERNAL_URL`	string	Specify the external URL at the time of installation.
`EXTERNAL_VALIDATION_SERVICE_TIMEOUT`	integer	Timeout, in seconds, for an external CI/CD pipeline validation service. Default is `5`.
`EXTERNAL_VALIDATION_SERVICE_URL`	string	URL to an external CI/CD pipeline validation service.
`EXTERNAL_VALIDATION_SERVICE_TOKEN`	string	The `X-Gitlab-Token` for authentication with an external CI/CD pipeline validation service.
`GITLAB_CDN_HOST`	string	Sets the base URL for a CDN to serve static assets (for example, `https://mycdnsubdomain.fictional-cdn.com`).
`GITLAB_EMAIL_DISPLAY_NAME`	string	The name used in the From field in emails sent by GitLab.
`GITLAB_EMAIL_FROM`	string	The email address used in the From field in emails sent by GitLab.
`GITLAB_EMAIL_REPLY_TO`	string	The email address used in the Reply-To field in emails sent by GitLab.
`GITLAB_EMAIL_SUBJECT_SUFFIX`	string	The email subject suffix used in emails sent by GitLab.
`GITLAB_HOST`	string	The full URL of the GitLab server (including `http://` or `https://`).
`GITLAB_MARKUP_TIMEOUT`	string	Timeout, in seconds, for `rest2html` and `pod2html` commands executed by the `gitlab-markup` gem. Default is `10`.
`GITLAB_ROOT_PASSWORD`	string	Sets the password for the `root` user on installation.
`GITLAB_SHARED_RUNNERS_REGISTRATION_TOKEN`	string	Sets the initial registration token used for runners. Deprecated in GitLab 16.11.
`RAILS_ENV`	string	The Rails environment; can be one of `production`, `development`, `staging`, or `test`.
`GITLAB_RAILS_CACHE_DEFAULT_TTL_SECONDS`	integer	The default TTL used for entries stored in the Rails-cache. Default is `28800`. Introduced in 15.3.
`GITLAB_CI_CONFIG_FETCH_TIMEOUT_SECONDS`	integer	Timeout for resolving remote includes in CI config in seconds. Must be between `0` and `60`. Default is `30`. Introduced in 15.11.
`GITLAB_LFS_MAX_OID_TO_FETCH`	integer	Sets the maximum number of LFS objects to link. Default is `100,000`.
`SIDEKIQ_SEMI_RELIABLE_FETCH_TIMEOUT`	integer	Sets the timeout for Sidekiq semi-reliable fetch. Default is `5`. Before GitLab 16.7, default was `3`. If you experience high Redis CPU consumption on GitLab 16.6 and earlier, or if you have customized this variable, you should update this variable to `5`.

Adding more variables

We welcome merge requests to make more settings configurable by using variables. Make changes to the config/initializers/1_settings.rb file, and use the naming scheme GITLAB_#{name in 1_settings.rb in upper case}.

Linux package installation configuration

To set environment variables, follow these instructions.

It's possible to preconfigure the GitLab Docker image by adding the environment variable GITLAB_OMNIBUS_CONFIG to the docker run command. For more information, see Pre-configure Docker container.