gitlab-backup/restore: Allow restoration on higher GitLab version, if user requests so
Currently GitLab backup restoration works on exactly the same GitLab version, as the one with which the backup was made: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/7383453b/lib/backup/manager.rb#L132 However in many cases restoring backup on a newer GitLab version is desirable - e.g. when moving GitLab instance to upgraded software. GitLab answer - that we should first prepare exactly the same GitLab version on moved instance, restore backup, then upgrade GitLab itself _inplace_, is not satisfactory in e.g. slapos case - as upgrading can take a long time, and in-place software changes can render GitLab instance non-working. What we better prefer to do is to fully prepare new GitLab software version, and then knowing software is ready, restore backup in a quick manner. The following analysis says we should be 99% ok to do so: 1. git-backup cares backward compatibility for format of repositories backup. 2. db dump is backward compatible, because Rails, when seeing old db schema, will run migrations. 3. the rest is relatively minor - e.g. uploads, which is just files in tar, and format for such things changes seldomly. because of 3, strictly speaking, it is not 100% correct to restore backup from older gitlab version to newer one (since gitlab does not provide a promise of backward compatibility on e.g. uploads/ backup format) , but in practice it is 99% correct and is usually handy. /cc @kazuhiko
Showing
Please register or sign in to comment