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Troubleshooting GitLab Pages administration

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This page contains a list of issues you might encounter when administering GitLab Pages.

How to see GitLab Pages logs

You can see Pages daemon logs by running:

sudo gitlab-ctl tail gitlab-pages

You can also find the log file in /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-pages/current.

For more information, see Getting the correlation ID from your logs.

Debug GitLab Pages

The following sequence diagram illustrates how GitLab Pages requests are served. For more information on how a GitLab Pages site is deployed and serves static content from Object Storage, see GitLab Pages Architecture.

%%{init: { "fontFamily": "GitLab Sans" }}%%
sequenceDiagram
    accTitle: GitLab Pages Request Flow
    accDescr: Sequence diagram showing how a user request flows through GitLab Pages components to serve static files.

    actor User
    participant PagesNGINX as Pages NGINX
    participant Pages as GitLab Pages
    participant GitlabNGINX as GitLab NGINX
    participant GitlabAPI as GitLab Rails
    participant ObjectStorage as Object Storage

    User->>PagesNGINX: Request to Pages
    activate PagesNGINX
    PagesNGINX->>Pages: Forwarded to Pages
    activate Pages

    Pages->>GitlabNGINX: Fetch domain info
    activate GitlabNGINX
    GitlabNGINX->>GitlabAPI: Forwarded to GitLab API
    activate GitlabAPI
    GitlabAPI->>GitlabNGINX: 200 OK (domain info)
    deactivate GitlabAPI
    GitlabNGINX->>Pages: 200 OK (domain info)
    deactivate GitlabNGINX

    Note right of Pages: Domain information cached in Pages

    Pages->>ObjectStorage: Fetch static files
    activate ObjectStorage
    ObjectStorage->>Pages: 200 OK (files)
    deactivate ObjectStorage

    Pages->>User: 200 OK (static files served)
    deactivate Pages
    deactivate PagesNGINX

Identify error logs

You should check logs in the order shown in the previous sequence diagram. Filtering based on your domain can also help identify relevant logs.

To start tailing the logs:

  1. For GitLab Pages NGINX logs, run:

    # View GitLab Pages NGINX error logs
sudo gitlab-ctl tail nginx/gitlab_pages_error.log

# View GitLab Pages NGINX access logs
sudo gitlab-ctl tail nginx/gitlab_pages_access.log

  2. For GitLab Pages logs, run: Start by identifying the correlation ID from your logs.

    sudo gitlab-ctl tail gitlab-pages

  3. For GitLab NGINX logs, run:

    # View GitLab NGINX error logs
sudo gitlab-ctl tail nginx/gitlab_error.log

# View GitLab NGINX access logs
sudo gitlab-ctl tail nginx/gitlab_access.log

  4. For GitLab Rails logs, run: You can filter these logs based on the correlation_id identified in GitLab Pages logs.

    sudo gitlab-ctl tail gitlab-rails

Authorization code flow

The following sequence chart illustrates the OAuth authentication flow between the user, GitLab Pages, and GitLab Rails for accessing protected Pages sites.

For more information, see GitLab OAuth authorization code flow.

%%{init: { "fontFamily": "GitLab Sans" }}%%
sequenceDiagram
   accTitle: GitLab Pages OAuth Flow
   accDescr: Sequence diagram showing the OAuth authentication flow between User, GitLab Pages, and GitLab Rails for accessing protected pages sites.

   actor User
   participant PagesService as GitLab Pages
   participant GitlabApp as GitLab Rails

   User->>PagesService: GET Request for site
   activate PagesService
   PagesService-->>User: 302 Redirect to project subdomain https://projects.gitlab.io/auth?state=state1
   deactivate PagesService
   Note left of User: Cookie state1

   User->>PagesService: GET https://projects.gitlab.io/auth?state=state1
   activate PagesService
   PagesService-->>User: 302 Redirect to gitlab.com/oauth/authorize?state=state1
   deactivate PagesService

   User->>GitlabApp: GET oauth/authorize?state=state1
   activate GitlabApp
   GitlabApp-->>User: 200 OK (authorization form)
   deactivate GitlabApp

   User->>GitlabApp: POST authorization form
   activate GitlabApp
   GitlabApp-->>User: 302 Redirect to oauth/redirect
   deactivate GitlabApp

   User->>GitlabApp: GET oauth/redirect?state=state1
   activate GitlabApp
   GitlabApp-->>User: 200 OK (with auth code)
   deactivate GitlabApp

   User->>PagesService: GET https://projects.gitlab.io/auth?code=code1&state=state1
   activate PagesService
   PagesService->>GitlabApp: POST oauth/token with code=code1
   activate GitlabApp
   GitlabApp-->>PagesService: 200 OK (access token)
   deactivate GitlabApp
   PagesService-->>User: 302 Redirect to https://[namespace].gitlab.io/auth?code=code2&state=state1
   deactivate PagesService

   User->>PagesService: GET https://[namespace].gitlab.io/auth?code=code2&state=state1
   activate PagesService
   PagesService-->>User: 302 Redirect to site
   deactivate PagesService

   User->>PagesService: GET Request for site
   activate PagesService
   PagesService-->>User: 200 OK (site content)
   deactivate PagesService

unsupported protocol scheme \"\""

If you see the following error:

{"error":"failed to connect to internal Pages API: Get \"/api/v4/internal/pages/status\": unsupported protocol scheme \"\"","level":"warning","msg":"attempted to connect to the API","time":"2021-06-23T20:03:30Z"}

It means you didn't set the HTTP(S) protocol scheme in the Pages server settings. To fix it:

  1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

    gitlab_pages['gitlab_server'] = "https://<your_gitlab_server_public_host_and_port>"
gitlab_pages['internal_gitlab_server'] = "https://<your_gitlab_server_private_host_and_port>" # optional, gitlab_pages['gitlab_server'] is used as default

  2. Reconfigure GitLab:

    sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

502 error when connecting to GitLab Pages proxy when server does not listen over IPv6

In some cases, NGINX might default to using IPv6 to connect to the GitLab Pages service even when the server does not listen over IPv6. You can identify when this is happening if you see something similar to the log entry below in the gitlab_pages_error.log:

2020/02/24 16:32:05 [error] 112654#0: *4982804 connect() failed (111: Connection refused) while connecting to upstream, client: 123.123.123.123, server: ~^(?<group>.*)\.pages\.example\.com$, request: "GET /-/group/project/-/jobs/1234/artifacts/artifact.txt HTTP/1.1", upstream: "http://[::1]:8090//-/group/project/-/jobs/1234/artifacts/artifact.txt", host: "group.example.com"

To resolve this, set an explicit IP and port for the GitLab Pages listen_proxy setting to define the explicit address that the GitLab Pages daemon should listen on:

gitlab_pages['listen_proxy'] = '127.0.0.1:8090'

Intermittent 502 errors or after a few days

If you run Pages on a system that uses systemd and tmpfiles.d, you may encounter intermittent 502 errors trying to serve Pages with an error similar to:

dial tcp: lookup gitlab.example.com on [::1]:53: dial udp [::1]:53: connect: no route to host"

GitLab Pages creates a bind mount inside /tmp/gitlab-pages-* that includes files like /etc/hosts. However, systemd may clean the /tmp/ directory on a regular basis so the DNS configuration may be lost.

To stop systemd from cleaning the Pages related content:

  1. Tell tmpfiles.d to not remove the Pages /tmp directory:

    echo 'x /tmp/gitlab-pages-*' >> /etc/tmpfiles.d/gitlab-pages-jail.conf

  2. Restart GitLab Pages:

    sudo gitlab-ctl restart gitlab-pages

Unable to access GitLab Pages

If you can't access your GitLab Pages (such as receiving 502 Bad Gateway errors, or a login loop) and in your Pages log shows this error:

"error":"retrieval context done: context deadline exceeded","host":"root.docs-cit.otenet.gr","level":"error","msg":"could not fetch domain information from a source"

  1. Add the following to /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

    gitlab_pages['internal_gitlab_server'] = 'http://localhost:8080'

  2. Restart GitLab Pages:

    sudo gitlab-ctl restart gitlab-pages

Failed to connect to the internal GitLab API

If you see the following error:

ERRO[0010] Failed to connect to the internal GitLab API after 0.50s  error="failed to connect to internal Pages API: HTTP status: 401"

If you are Running GitLab Pages on a separate server you must copy the /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json file from the GitLab server to the Pages server.

Other reasons may include network connectivity issues between your GitLab server and your Pages server such as firewall configurations or closed ports. For example, if there is a connection timeout:

error="failed to connect to internal Pages API: Get \"https://gitlab.example.com:3000/api/v4/internal/pages/status\": net/http: request canceled while waiting for connection (Client.Timeout exceeded while awaiting headers)"

Pages cannot communicate with an instance of the GitLab API

If you use the default value for domain_config_source=auto and run multiple instances of GitLab Pages, you may see intermittent 502 error responses while serving Pages content. You may also see the following warning in the Pages logs:

WARN[0010] Pages cannot communicate with an instance of the GitLab API. Please sync your gitlab-secrets.json file https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-pages/-/issues/535#workaround. error="pages endpoint unauthorized"

This can happen if your gitlab-secrets.json file is out of date between GitLab Rails and GitLab Pages. Follow steps 8-10 of Running GitLab Pages on a separate server, in all of your GitLab Pages instances.

Intermittent 502 errors when using an AWS Network Load Balancer and GitLab Pages

Connections will time out when using a Network Load Balancer with client IP preservation enabled and the request is looped back to the source server. This can happen to GitLab instances with multiple servers running both the core GitLab application and GitLab Pages. This can also happen when a single container is running both the core GitLab application and GitLab Pages.

AWS recommends using an IP target type to resolve this issue.

Turning off client IP preservation may resolve this issue when the core GitLab application and GitLab Pages run on the same host or container.

500 error with securecookie: failed to generate random iv and Failed to save the session

This problem most likely results from an out-dated operating system. The Pages daemon uses the securecookie library to get random strings via crypto/rand in Go. This requires the getrandom system call or /dev/urandom to be available on the host OS. Upgrading to an officially supported operating system is recommended.

The requested scope is invalid, malformed, or unknown

This problem comes from the permissions of the GitLab Pages OAuth application. To fix it:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin.
  2. Select Applications > GitLab Pages.
  3. Edit the application.
  4. Under Scopes, ensure that the api scope is selected.
  5. Save your changes.

When running a separate Pages server, this setting needs to be configured on the main GitLab server.

Workaround in case no wildcard DNS entry can be set

If the wildcard DNS prerequisite can't be met, you can still use GitLab Pages in a limited fashion:

  1. Move all projects you need to use Pages with into a single group namespace, for example pages.
  2. Configure a DNS entry without the *.-wildcard, for example pages.example.io.
  3. Configure pages_external_url http://example.io/ in your gitlab.rb file. Omit the group namespace here, because it automatically is prepended by GitLab.

Pages daemon fails with permission denied errors

If /tmp is mounted with noexec, the Pages daemon fails to start with an error like:

{"error":"fork/exec /gitlab-pages: permission denied","level":"fatal","msg":"could not create pages daemon","time":"2021-02-02T21:54:34Z"}

In this case, change TMPDIR to a location that is not mounted with noexec. Add the following to /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

gitlab_pages['env'] = {'TMPDIR' => '<new_tmp_path>'}

Once added, reconfigure with sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure and restart GitLab with sudo gitlab-ctl restart.

The redirect URI included is not valid. when using Pages Access Control

You may see this error if pages_external_url was updated at some point of time. Verify the following:

  1. Check the System OAuth application:

    1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin.
    2. Select Applications and then Add new application.
    3. Ensure the Callback URL/Redirect URI is using the protocol (HTTP or HTTPS) that pages_external_url is configured to use.

  2. The domain and path components of Redirect URI are valid: they should look like projects.<pages_external_url>/auth.

500 error cannot serve from disk

If you get a 500 response from Pages and encounter an error similar to:

ERRO[0145] cannot serve from disk                        error="gitlab: disk access is disabled via enable-disk=false" project_id=27 source_path="file:///shared/pages/@hashed/67/06/670671cd97404156226e507973f2ab8330d3022ca96e0c93bdbdb320c41adcaf/pages_deployments/14/artifacts.zip" source_type=zip

It means that GitLab Rails is telling GitLab Pages to serve content from a location on disk, however, GitLab Pages was configured to disable disk access.

To enable disk access:

  1. Enable disk access for GitLab Pages in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb:

    gitlab_pages['enable_disk'] = true

  2. Reconfigure GitLab.

httprange: new resource 403

If you see an error similar to:

{"error":"httprange: new resource 403: \"403 Forbidden\"","host":"root.pages.example.com","level":"error","msg":"vfs.Root","path":"/pages1/","time":"2021-06-10T08:45:19Z"}

And you run pages on the separate server syncing files via NFS, it may mean that the shared pages directory is mounted on a different path on the main GitLab server and the GitLab Pages server.

In that case, it's highly recommended you to configure object storage and migrate any existing pages data to it.

Alternatively, you can mount the GitLab Pages shared directory to the same path on both servers.

GitLab Pages deploy job fails with error "is not a recognized provider"

If the pages job succeeds but the deploy job gives the error "is not a recognized provider":

A GitLab Pages pipeline shows success for the pages job but an error for the deploy job.

The error message is not a recognized provider could be coming from the fog gem that GitLab uses to connect to cloud providers for object storage.

To fix that:

  1. Check your gitlab.rb file. If you have gitlab_rails['pages_object_store_enabled'] enabled, but no bucket details have been configured, either:

    • Configure object storage for your Pages deployments, following the S3-compatible connection settings guide.
    • Store your deployments locally, by commenting out that line.

  2. Save the changes you made to your gitlab.rb file, then reconfigure GitLab.

404 error The page you're looking for could not be found

If you get a 404 Page Not Found response from GitLab Pages:

  1. Check .gitlab-ci.yml contains the job pages:.
  2. Check the current project's pipeline to confirm the job pages:deploy is being run.

Without the pages:deploy job, the updates to your GitLab Pages site are never published.

503 error Client authentication failed due to unknown client

If Pages is a registered OAuth application and access control is enabled, this error indicates that the authentication token stored in /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json has become invalid:

Client authentication failed due to unknown client, no client authentication included,
or unsupported authentication method.

To resolve:

  1. Back up your secrets file:

    sudo cp /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json.$(date +\%Y\%m\%d)

  2. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json and remove the gitlab_pages section.

  3. Reconfigure GitLab and regenerate the OAuth token:

    sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure