GitLab Admin Area (FREE SELF)

The Admin Area provides a web UI to manage and configure some features of GitLab self-managed instances. If you are an administrator, you can access the Admin Area by visiting /admin on your self-managed instance. You can also access it through the UI:

• GitLab versions 14.0 and later: on the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
• GitLab versions 13.12 and earlier: on the top bar, select the Admin Area icon ({admin}).

NOTE: Only administrators can access the Admin Area.

Admin Area sections

The Admin Area is made up of the following sections:

Section	Description
{overview} Overview	View your GitLab Dashboard, and administer projects, users, groups, topics, jobs, runners, and Gitaly servers.
{monitor} Monitoring	View GitLab system information, and information on background jobs, logs, health checks, and audit events.
{messages} Messages	Send and manage broadcast messages for your users.
{hook} System Hooks	Configure system hooks for many events.
{applications} Applications	Create system OAuth applications for integrations with other services.
{slight-frown} Abuse Reports	Manage abuse reports submitted by your users.
{license} License	Add, display, and remove licenses.
{cloud-gear} Kubernetes	Create and manage instance-level Kubernetes clusters.
{push-rules} Push rules	Configure pre-defined Git push rules for projects. Also, configure merge requests approvers rules.
{location-dot} Geo	Configure and maintain Geo sites.
{key} Deploy keys	Create instance-wide SSH deploy keys.
{lock} Credentials	View credentials that can be used to access your instance.
{template} Integrations	Manage instance-level default settings for a project integration.
{labels} Labels	Create and maintain labels for your GitLab instance.
{appearance} Appearance	Customize GitLab appearance.
{settings} Settings	Modify the settings for your GitLab instance.

Admin Area dashboard

The Dashboard provides statistics and system information about the GitLab instance.

To access the Dashboard, either:

• On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
• Visit /admin on your self-managed instance.

The Dashboard is the default view of the Admin Area, and is made up of the following sections:

Section	Description
Projects	The total number of projects, up to 10 of the latest projects, and the option of creating a new project.
Users	The total number of users, up to 10 of the latest users, the option of creating a new user, and a link to Users statistics.
Groups	The total number of groups, up to 10 of the latest groups, and the option of creating a new group.
Statistics	Totals of all elements of the GitLab instance.
Features	All features available on the GitLab instance. Enabled features are marked with a green circle icon, and disabled features are marked with a power icon.
Components	The major components of GitLab and the version number of each. A link to the Gitaly Servers is also included.

Overview section

The following topics document the Overview section of the Admin Area.

Administering Projects

You can administer all projects in the GitLab instance from the Admin Area's Projects page.

To access the Projects page:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Projects.
3. Select the All, Private, Internal, or Public tab to list only projects of that criteria.

By default, all projects are listed, in reverse order of when they were last updated. For each project, the following information is listed:

• Name
• Namespace
• Description
• Size, updated every 15 minutes at most

Projects can be edited or deleted.

The list of projects can be sorted by:

• Updated date
• Last created
• Name
• Most stars
• Oldest created
• Oldest updated
• Largest repository

A user can choose to hide or show archived projects in the list.

In the Filter by name field, type the project name you want to find, and GitLab filters them as you type.

To filter only projects in that namespace, select from the Namespace dropdown list.

You can combine the filter options. For example, to list only public projects with score in their name:

1. Select the Public tab.
2. Enter score in the Filter by name... input box.

Administering Users

You can administer all users in the GitLab instance from the Admin Area's Users page:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Users.

To list users matching a specific criteria, select one of the following tabs on the Users page:

• Active
• Admins
• 2FA Enabled
• 2FA Disabled
• External
• Blocked
• Deactivated
• Without projects

For each user, the following are listed:

1. Username
2. Email address
3. Project membership count
4. Group membership count (introduced in GitLab 13.12)
5. Date of account creation
6. Date of last activity

To edit a user, select the Edit button in that user's row. To delete the user, or delete the user and their contributions, select the cog dropdown in that user's row, and select the desired option.

To change the sort order:

1. Select the sort dropdown.
2. Select the desired order.

By default the sort dropdown shows Name.

To search for users, enter your criteria in the search field. The user search is case insensitive, and applies partial matching to name and username. To search for an email address, you must provide the complete email address.

User impersonation

An administrator can "impersonate" any other user, including other administrators. This allows the administrator to "see what the user sees," and take actions on behalf of the user. You can impersonate a user in the following ways:

• Through the UI:
  1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Users.
  3. From the list of users, select a user.
  4. Select Impersonate.
• With the API, using impersonation tokens.

All impersonation activities are captured with audit events.

By default, impersonation is enabled. GitLab can be configured to disable impersonation.

User identities

The ability to see a user's SCIM identity was introduced in GitLab 15.3.

When using authentication providers, administrators can see the identities for a user:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Users.
3. From the list of users, select a user.
4. Select Identities.

This list shows the user's identities, including SCIM identities. Administrators can use this information to troubleshoot SCIM-related issues and confirm the identities being used for an account.

User Permission Export (PREMIUM SELF)

• Introduced in GitLab 13.8.
• Feature flag removed in GitLab 13.9.

An administrator can export user permissions for all users in the GitLab instance from the Admin Area's Users page. The export lists direct membership the users have in groups and projects.

The following data is included in the export:

• Username
• Email
• Type
• Path
• Access level (Project and Group)
• Date of last activity (introduced in GitLab 14.6). For a list of activities that populate this column, see the Users API documentation.

Only the first 100,000 user accounts are exported.

Users statistics

The Users statistics page provides an overview of user accounts by role. These statistics are calculated daily, so user changes made since the last update are not reflected.

The following totals are also included:

• Billable users
• Blocked users
• Total users

GitLab billing is based on the number of Billable users.

Add email to user

You must be an administrator to manually add emails to users:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Users (/admin/users).
3. Locate the user and select them.
4. Select Edit.
5. In Email, enter the new email address. This adds the new email address to the user and sets the previous email address to be a secondary.
6. Select Save changes.

User cohorts

The Cohorts tab displays the monthly cohorts of new users and their activities over time.

Prevent a user from creating groups

By default, users can create groups. To prevent a user from creating a top level group:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Users (/admin/users).
3. Locate the user and select them.
4. Select Edit.
5. Clear the Can create group checkbox.
6. Select Save changes.

It is also possible to limit which roles can create a subgroup within a group.

Administering Groups

You can administer all groups in the GitLab instance from the Admin Area's Groups page.

To access the Groups page:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Groups.

For each group, the page displays their name, description, size, number of projects in the group, number of members, and whether the group is private, internal, or public. To edit a group, select the Edit button in that group's row. To delete the group, select the Delete button in that group's row.

To change the sort order, select the sort dropdown and select the desired order. The default sort order is by Last created.

To search for groups by name, enter your criteria in the search field. The group search is case insensitive, and applies partial matching.

To Create a new group select New group.

Administering Topics

Introduced in GitLab 14.4.

You can administer all topics in the GitLab instance from the Admin Area's Topics page.

To access the Topics page:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Topics.

For each topic, the page displays its name and the number of projects labeled with the topic.

To create a new topic, select New topic.

To edit a topic, select Edit in that topic's row.

To remove a topic, select Remove in that topic's row.

To remove a topic and move all assigned projects to another topic, select Merge topics.

To search for topics by name, enter your criteria in the search box. The topic search is case insensitive and applies partial matching.

NOTE: The assigned topics are visible only to everyone with access to the project, but everyone can see which topics exist at all on the GitLab instance. Do not include sensitive information in the name of a topic.

Administering Jobs

You can administer all jobs in the GitLab instance from the Admin Area's Jobs page.

To access the Jobs page:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Jobs. All jobs are listed, in descending order of job ID.
3. Select the All tab to list all jobs. Select the Pending, Running, or Finished tab to list only jobs of that status.

For each job, the following details are listed:

Field	Description
Status	Job status, either passed, skipped, or failed.
Job	Includes links to the job, branch, and the commit that started the job.
Pipeline	Includes a link to the specific pipeline.
Project	Name of the project, and organization, to which the job belongs.
Runner	Name of the CI runner assigned to execute the job.
Stage	Stage that the job is declared in a .gitlab-ci.yml file.
Name	Name of the job specified in a .gitlab-ci.yml file.
Timing	Duration of the job, and how long ago the job completed.
Coverage	Percentage of tests coverage.

Administering runners

You can administer all runners in the GitLab instance from the Admin Area's Runners page. See GitLab Runner for more information.

To access the Runners page:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Runners.

Search and filter runners

To search runners' descriptions:

1. In the Search or filter results... field, type the description of the runner you want to find.
2. Press Enter.

You can also filter runners by status, type, and tag. To filter:

1. Select a tab or the Search or filter results... field.
2. Select any Type, or filter by Status or Tags.
3. Select or enter your search criteria.

Bulk delete runners

Introduced in GitLab 15.4 with a flag named admin_runners_bulk_delete. Disabled by default.

FLAG: On self-managed GitLab, by default this feature is not available. To make it available, ask an administrator to enable the feature flag named admin_runners_bulk_delete. On GitLab.com, this feature is not available but can be enabled by GitLab.com administrators.

You can delete multiple runners at the same time.

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Runners.
3. To the left of the runners you want to delete, select the checkbox. To select all of the runners on the page, select the checkbox above the list.
4. Select Delete selected.

Runner attributes

For each runner, the following attributes are listed:

Attribute	Description
Status	The status of the runner. In GitLab 15.1 and later, for the Ultimate tier, the upgrade status is available.
Runner details	Information about the runner, including partial token and details about the computer the runner was registered from.
Version	GitLab Runner version.
Jobs	Total number of jobs run by the runner.
Tags	Tags associated with the runner.
Last contact	Timestamp indicating when the runner last contacted the GitLab instance.

You can also edit, pause, or remove each runner.

Administering Gitaly servers

You can list all Gitaly servers in the GitLab instance from the Admin Area's Gitaly Servers page. For more details, see Gitaly.

To access the Gitaly Servers page:

1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Admin.
2. On the left sidebar, select Overview > Gitaly Servers.

For each Gitaly server, the following details are listed:

Field	Description
Storage	Repository storage
Address	Network address on which the Gitaly server is listening
Server version	Gitaly version
Git version	Version of Git installed on the Gitaly server
Up to date	Indicates if the Gitaly server version is the latest version available. A green dot indicates the server is up to date.

Monitoring section

The following topics document the Monitoring section of the Admin Area.

System Information

Introduced in GitLab 15.2, support for relative time. "Uptime" statistic was renamed to "System started".

The System Info page provides the following statistics:

Field	Description
CPU	Number of CPU cores available
Memory Usage	Memory in use, and total memory available
Disk Usage	Disk space in use, and total disk space available
System started	When the system hosting GitLab was started. In GitLab 15.1 and earlier, this was an uptime statistic.

These statistics are updated only when you navigate to the System Info page, or you refresh the page in your browser.

Background Jobs

The Background Jobs page displays the Sidekiq dashboard. Sidekiq is used by GitLab to perform processing in the background.

The Sidekiq dashboard consists of the following elements:

• A tab per jobs' status.
• A breakdown of background job statistics.
• A live graph of Processed and Failed jobs, with a selectable polling interval.
• An historical graph of Processed and Failed jobs, with a selectable time span.
• Redis statistics, including:
  • Version number
  • Uptime, measured in days
  • Number of connections
  • Current memory usage, measured in MB
  • Peak memory usage, measured in MB

Logs

Since GitLab 13.0, Log view has been removed from the Admin Area dashboard since the logging does not work in multi-node setups and could cause confusion for administrators by displaying partial information.

For multi-node systems we recommend ingesting the logs into services like Elasticsearch and Splunk.

Log file	Contents
application.log	GitLab user activity
git_json.log	Failed GitLab interaction with Git repositories
production.log	Requests received from Puma, and the actions taken to serve those requests
sidekiq.log	Background jobs
repocheck.log	Repository activity
integrations_json.log	Activity between GitLab and integrated systems
kubernetes.log	Kubernetes activity

The contents of these log files can be useful when troubleshooting a problem.

For details of these log files and their contents, see Log system.

The content of each log file is listed in chronological order. To minimize performance issues, a maximum 2000 lines of each log file are shown.

Audit Events (PREMIUM SELF)

The Audit Events page lists changes made within the GitLab server. With this information you can control, analyze, and track every change.