Basic
Basic Administrator Guide
This guide will cover how to perform common DoltLab administrator configuration and tasks for the latest versions of DoltLab, >= v2.1.0. These versions use the installer binary included in DoltLab's .zip file. For instructions on running DoltLab in Enterprise mode and configuring exclusive Enterprise features, see the Enterprise Guide. If you're using an older version of DoltLab that does not include the installer, please see the pre-installer Admin guide.
File issues and view release notes
DoltLab's source code is currently closed, but you can file DoltLab issues the issues repository. Release notes are available here.
Backup and restore volumes
DoltLab currently persists all data to local disk using Docker volumes. To backup or restore DoltLab's data, we recommend the following steps which follow Docker's official volume backup and restore documentation.
Backing up and restoring remote data, user uploaded data, and Dolt server data with Docker
To backup DoltLab's remote data, the database data for all database on a given DoltLab instance, leave DoltLab's services up and run:
This will create a tar file called remote-data.tar in your working directory.
To backup user uploaded files, run:
This will create a tar file called user-uploaded-data.tar in your working directory.
To backup Dolt server data, run:
Before restoring DoltLab's volumes from a backup, first, stop the running DoltLab services, prune the Docker containers, and remove the old volume(s):
Next, start DoltLab's services using the start.sh script. After the script completes, stop DoltLab once more with ./stop.sh. Doing this will recreate the required containers so that their volumes can be updated with the commands below.
Once the services are stopped, cd into the directory containing the remote-data.tar backup file and run:
To restore user uploaded data, cd into the directory containing user-uploaded-data.tar and run:
To restore Dolt server root data, cd into the directory containing doltlabdb-root.tar and run:
To restore Dolt server config data, cd into the directory containing doltlabdb-configs.tar and run:
To restore Dolt server data, cd into the directory containing doltlabdb-data.tar and run:
To restore Dolt server local backup data, cd into the directory containing doltlabdb-backups.tar and run:
You can now restart DoltLab, and should see all data restored from the tar files.
Backing up and restoring the Dolt Server using the dolt backup command
dolt backup commandThe quickest way to do this is with the ./doltlabdb/shell-db.sh script generated by the installer:
Next, add a local backup using the DOLT_BACKUP() stored procedure. By default, DoltLab uses a Docker volume backed by the host's disk that allows you to create backups of the Dolt server. These backups will be located at /backups from within the Dolt server container. To create persistent backups, simply use /backups as the path prefix to the backup names:
The above snippet will create a new backup stored at /backups/dolthubapi/2023/06/01 within the Dolt server container, and persisted to the host using the Docker volume doltlab_doltlabdb-dolt-backups.
You can sync the backup with the sync command:
The local backup is now synced, and you can now disconnect the shell.
At the time of this writing, Dolt only supports restoring backups using the CLI. To restore the Dolt server from a local backup, stop DoltLab's services using ./stop.sh.
Then, use the ./doltlabdb/dolt_db_cli.sh generated by the installer. This script will open a container shell with access to the Dolt server volumes.
Delete the existing ./dolthubapi directory located at /var/lib/dolt from within this container:
Doing this removes the existing Dolt server database. Now, use dolt backup restore to restore the database from the backup located at /backups/dolthubapi/2023/06/01:
The database has now been successfully restored, and you can now restart DoltLab.
Connect with the DoltLab Team
If you need to connect to a DoltLab team member, the best way to do so is on Discord, in the #doltlab server.
View DoltLab Service Logs
DoltLab is composed of multiple services running in a single Docker network via Docker compose. Docker writes the logs of each DoltLab service to an internal location. Logs for a particular service can be viewed using the docker logs <container name> command. For example, to view to logs of doltlabapi service, run:
You can find the location where Docker writes a service's logs by inspecting the LogPath of the service.
Send Service Logs to DoltLab Team
If you need to send service logs to the DoltLab team, first locate the logs on the host using the docker inspect command, then cp the logs to your working directory:
Next change permissions on the copied file to enable reads by running:
Finally, download the copied log file from your DoltLab host using scp. You can then send this and any other log files to the DoltLab team member you're working with via email.
Authenticate a Dolt Client to use a DoltLab account
To authenticate a Dolt client against a DoltLab remote, use the --auth-endpoint, --login-url, and --insecure arguments with the dolt login command.
--auth-endpoint, should point at the DoltLab RemoteAPI Server running on port 50051. --login-url, should point at the DoltLab instance's credentials page. --insecure, a boolean flag, should be used since if DoltLab is not running with TLS.
Running the dolt login command will open your browser window to the --login-url with credentials populated in the "Public Key" field. Simply add a "Description" and click "Create", then return to your terminal to see your Dolt client successfully authenticated.
To authenticate without using the dolt login command, first run the dolt creds new command, which will output a new public key:
Copy the generated public key and run the dolt creds use command:
Next, login to your DoltLab account, click your profile image, then click "Settings" and then "Credentials".
Paste the public key into the "Public Key" field, write a description in the "Description" field, then click "Create".
Your Dolt client is now authenticated for this DoltLab account.
Monitor DoltLab with cAdvisor and Prometheus
Prometheus gRPC service metrics for DoltLab's Remote API Server, doltlabremoteapi, and DoltLab's Main API server, doltlabapi, are published on port 7770.
The metrics for these services are available at endpoints corresponding to each service's container name. For DoltLab's Remote API, thats :7770/doltlabremoteapi, and for DoltLab's Main API that's :7770/doltlabapi.
You can view the doltlabremoteapi service metrics for our DoltLab demo instance here, http://doltlab.dolthub.com:7770/doltlabremoteapi and you can view the doltlabapi service metrics here http://doltlab.dolthub.com:7770/doltlabapi.
To make these endpoints available to Prometheus, open port 7770 on your DoltLab host.
We recommend monitoring DoltLab with cAdvisor, which will expose container resource and performance metrics to Prometheus. Before running cAdvisor, open port 8080 on your DoltLab host as well. cAdvisor will display DoltLab's running containers via a web UI on :8080/docker and will publish Prometheus metrics for DoltLab's container at :8080/metrics by default.
Run cAdvisor as a Docker container in daemon mode with:
To run a Prometheus server on your DoltLab host machine, first open port 9090 on the DoltLab host. Then, write the following prometheus.yml file on the host:
Then, start the Prometheus server as a Docker container running in daemon mode:
--add-host host.docker.internal:host-gateway is only required if you are running the Prometheus server on your DoltLab host. If its running elsewhere, this argument may be omitted, and the host.docker.internal hostname in prometheus.yml can be changed to the hostname of your DoltLab host.
Prevent unauthorized user account creation
DoltLab supports explicit email whitelisting to prevent account creation by unauthorized users.
To only permit whitelisted emails to create accounts on your DoltLab instance, edit ./installer_config.yaml to configure explicit email whitelisting.
Save these changes, then rerun the installer to regenerate DoltLab assets that will require explicit whitelisting of new user accounts.
Alternatively, run the installer with --whitelist-all-users=false, which disables automatically whitelisting all users.
Next, once you've restarted you DoltLab instance with the regenerated installer assets, to whitelist an email for account creation in your instance, you will need to insert their email address into the email_whitelist_elements table.
To do this run the script generated by the installer, called ./doltlabdb/shell-db.sh.
Use this script by supplying the DOLT_PASSWORD you used to start your DoltLab instance. Run:
You will see a mysql> prompt connected to DoltLab' application Dolt database.
Execute the following INSERT to allow the user with example@address.com to create an account on your DoltLab instance:
Use an external database server with DoltLab
In the external Dolt database, prior to connecting your DoltLab instance, run the following SQL statements:
Next, stop your DoltLab instance if it is running. Then, supply the --doltlabdb-host=<external db host> and --doltlabdb-port=<external db port> arguments to the installer.
When you restart your instance it should now be connected to your external Dolt database.
DoltLab Jobs
DoltLab Jobs are stand-alone, long-running Docker containers that perform specific tasks for DoltLab users behind the scenes.
As a result, DoltLab may consume additional memory and disk, depending on the number of running Jobs and their workload.
Disable usage metrics
By default, DoltLab collects first-party metrics for deployed instances. We use DoltLab's metrics to determine how many resources to allocate toward its development and improvement.
Metrics can be disabled by setting the metrics_disabled field of the ./installer_config.yaml:
Save these changes, then rerun the installer to regenerate DoltLab assets that disable usage metrics.
Alternatively, to disable first-party metrics using command line arguments, run the installer with --disable-usage-metrics=true.
Use a domain name with DoltLab
It's common practice to provision a domain name to use for a DoltLab instance. To do so, secure a domain name and map it to the stable, public IP address of the DoltLab host. Then, supply the domain name as the value to the --host argument used with the installer.
Let's say we've have set up and run an EC2 instance with the latest version of DoltLab and have successfully configured its Security Group to allow ingress traffic on 80, 100, 4321, and 50051. By default, this host will have a public IP address assigned to it, but this IP is unstable and will change whenever the host is restarted.
First, we should attach a stable IP to this host. To do this in AWS, we can provision an Elastic IP Address (EIP).
Next, we should associate the EIP with our DoltLab host by following these steps. Once this is done, the DoltLab host should be reachable by the EIP.
Finally, we can provision a domain name for the DoltLab host through AWS Route 53. After registering the new domain name, we need to create an A record that's attached to the EIP of the DoltLab host. To do so, follow the steps for creating records outlined here.
Your DoltLab host should now be accessible via your new domain name. You can now stop your DoltLab server and update the host field in your ./installer_config.yaml.
Save these changes, the rerun the installer to regenerate DoltLab assets the use your new domain name.
Alternatively, if you want to use command line flags instead, rerun the installer with --host=yourdomain.com.
Restart your DoltLab instance with ./start.sh.
In the event you are configuring your domain name with an Elastic Load Balancer, ensure that it specifies Target Groups for each of the ports required to operate DoltLab, 80, 100, 4321, and 50051.
Run DoltLab on Hosted Dolt
DoltLab can be configured to use a Hosted Dolt instance as its application database. This allows DoltLab administrators to use the feature-rich SQL workbench Hosted Dolt provides to interact with their DoltLab database.
To configure a DoltLab to use a Hosted Dolt, follow the steps below as we create a sample DoltLab Hosted Dolt instance called my-doltlab-db-1.
Create a Hosted Dolt deployment
To begin, you'll need to create a Hosted Dolt deployment that your DoltLab instance will connect to. We've created a video tutorial for how to create your first Hosted Dolt deployment, but briefly, you'll need to create an account on hosted.doltdb.com and then click the "Create Deployment" button.
You will then see a form where you can specify details about the host you need for your DoltLab instance:
In the image above you can see that we defined our Hosted Dolt deployment name as my-doltlab-db-1, selected an AWS EC2 host with 2 CPU and 8 GB of RAM in region us-west-2. We've also requested 200 GB of disk. For DoltLab, these settings should be more than sufficient.
We have also requested a replica instance by checking the "Enable Replication" box, and specifying 1 replica, although replication is not required for DoltLab.
If you want the ability to clone this Hosted Dolt instance, check the box "Enable Dolt Credentials". And finally, if you want to use the SQL workbench feature for this hosted instance (which we recommend) you should also check the box "Create database users for the SQL Workbench".
You will see the hourly cost of running the Hosted Dolt instance displayed above the "Create Deployment" button. Click it, and wait for the deployment to reach the "Started" state.
Once the deployment has come up, the deployment page will display the connection information for both the primary host and the replica, and each will be ready to use. Before connecting a DoltLab instance to the primary host, though, there are a few remaining steps to take to ensure the host has the proper state before connecting DoltLab.
First, click the "Configuration" tab and uncheck the box "behavior_disable_multistatements". DoltLab will need to execute multiple statements against this database when it starts up. You can also, optionally, change the log_level to "debug". This log level setting will make sure executed queries appear in the database logs, which is helpful for debugging.
Click "Save Changes".
Next, navigate to the "Workbench" tab and check the box "Enable Writes". This will allow you to execute writes against this instance from the SQL workbench. Click "Update".
Then, with writes enabled, on this same page, click "Create database" to create the database that DoltLab expects, called dolthubapi.
Finally, create the required users and grants that DoltLab requires by connecting to this deployment and running the following statements:
You can do this by running these statements from the Hosted workbench SQL console, or by connecting to the database using the mysql client connection command on the "Connectivity" tab, and executing these statements from the SQL shell.
This instance is now ready for a DoltLab connection.
Rerun DoltLab's Installer
To connect DoltLab to my-doltlab-db-1, ensure that your DoltLab instance is stopped.
Next, edit the services.doltlabdb.host, services.doltlabdb.port, and services.doltlabdb.tls_skip_verify fields of the installer_config.yaml.
Save these changes and rerun the installer to regenerate DoltLab assets that will use your hosted instance as DoltLab's application database.
Alternatively, rerun the installer with --doltlabdb-host referring to the host name of the Hosted Dolt instance, --doltlabdb-port referring to the port, and --doltlabdb-tls-skip-verify=true if you'd prefer to use command line arguments.
Start DoltLab using the ./start.sh script generated by the installer. Once DoltLab is running successfully against my-doltlab-db-1, you can create a database on DoltLab, for example called test-db, and you will see live changes to the database reflected in the Hosted Dolt workbench:
Improve DoltLab performance
It is possible to limit the number of concurrent Jobs running on a DoltLab host, which might be starving the host for resources and affecting DoltLab's performance.
When users upload files on a DoltLab instance, or merge a pull request, DoltLab creates a Job corresponding to this work. These Jobs spawn new Docker containers that performs the required work.
By default, DoltLab imposes no limit to the number of concurrent Jobs that can be spawned. As a result, a DoltLab host might experience resources exhaustion as the Docker engine uses all available host resources for managing it's containers.
To limit concurrent Jobs, edit ./installer_config.yaml to contain the following:
Save these changes and rerun the installer to regenerate DoltLab assets that will limit the Job concurrency of your instance.
Alternatively, you can use the following command line arguments with the installer to prevent job resource exhaustion:
Serve DoltLab behind an AWS Network Load Balancer
The following section describes how to setup an AWS Network Load Balancer (NLB) for a DoltLab instance.
First, setup DoltLab on an AWS EC2 host in the same Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) where your NLB will run.
If this instance should only be accessible by the NLB, ensure that the DoltLab host is created in a private subnet and does not have public IP address.
After setting up your DoltLab host, edit the host's inbound security group rules to allow all traffic on ports: 80, 100, 4321, 50051, and 2001.
Because the host is in a private subnet with no public IP though, only the NLB will be able to connect to the host on these ports.
Next, in AWS, create target groups for each DoltLab port that the NLB will forward requests to. These ports are: 80, 100, 4321, and 50051.
When creating the target groups, select Instances as the target type. Then, select TCP as the port protocol, followed by the port to use for the target group. In this example we will map all target group ports to their corresponding DoltLab port, ie 80:80, 100:100, 4321:4321 and 50051:50051. Select the same VPC used by your DoltLab host as well.
During target group creation, in the Health Checks section, click Advanced health check settings and select Override to specify the port to perform health checks on. Here, enter 2001, the health check port for DoltLab's Envoy proxy, doltlabenvoy. We will use this same port for all target group health checks.
After clicking Next, you will register targets for your new target group. Here you should see your DoltLab host. Select it and specify the port the target group will forward to.
Click Include as pending below, then click Create target group.
Once you've created your target groups you can create the NLB.
Be sure to select the Network Load balancer as the other types of load balancers may require different configurations.
Then, create an NLB in the same VPC and subnet as your DoltLab host that uses Scheme: Internet-facing and Ip address type: IPV4.
Additionally, select the the same availability zone that your DoltLab host uses. You can use the default security group for your NLB, however the ingress rules for this group will need to be updated before inbound traffic will be able to reach your NLB.
In the Listeners section, add listeners for each target group you created, specifying the NLB port to use for each one. But again, in this example we will forward on the same port. Click Create load balancer.
It make take a few minutes for the NLB to become ready. After it does, check each target group you created and ensure they are all healthy.
Next, edit the inbound rules for the security group attached to the NLB you created so that it allows connections on the listening ports.
On the NLB page you should now see the DNS name of your NLB which can be used to connect to your DoltLab instance.
Restart your DoltLab instance supplying this DNS name as the --host to the installer, and your DoltLab instance will now be ready to run exclusively through the NLB.
Update application database passwords
If DoltLab has never been started before on the host using the start.sh script, the passwords for its application database doltlabdb can be updated simply by editing their value in the installer_config.yaml, and then running the installer.
If DoltLab has been started before, then its application database has been initialized already, and has existing passwords for the SQL users dolthubadmin and dolthubapi. Changing the passwords in this instance requires DoltLab to be running, so that you can connect to the appliciation database doltlabdb with a SQL shell.
Ensure that DoltLab is running by executing the ./start.sh script. Then, run ./doltlabdb/shell-db.sh to open a SQL shell against doltlabdb. You will see a prompt like:
Next, update the passwords for the users dolthubadmin and dolthubapi to the values of your choosing:
Close the SQL shell, and stop DoltLab with ./stop.sh.
Next, update installer_config.yaml to contain the new passwords you changed in the live database:
Finally, rerun the installer to regenerate DoltLab's assets with the new password values.
Completing these steps ensures that the passwords are consistent on disk and in the assets generated by the installer. You can now restart DoltLab.
Run DoltLab with no egress access
Starting with DoltLab >= v2.3.3, DoltLab's service images are available to download and do not need to be pulled from their AWS ECR repositories. This is useful for when egress traffic is restricted on the DoltLab host.
To configure DoltLab to use these images without egress access, first, download the zip file containing the service images and upload them onto your DoltLab host.
Next, upload the corresponding DoltLab zip file to your DoltLab host as well. Both should be present on the host before continuing.
First, unzip the DoltLab zip folder to a directory called doltlab, and cd into the directory.
Next, edit installer_config.yaml with your desired configuration, or reuse a previous installer_config.yaml. If you are reusing an older config file, just update the version field at the top of the file to match the DoltLab version you're installing. Also, ensure any older DoltLab running on the host is shutdown by running the ./stop.sh script.
Once your config file is updated, run the installer binary to generate DoltLab's static assets.
After you've generated the static assets, it's time to load the service images. cd into the directory with the service images zip file. Unzip this file to a directory called service-images.
You will see tar files for each service DoltLab depends on. Load each of these tar files into Docker by using the docker load command.
This will load the required service images into Docker and they are immediately ready for DoltLab to use. Be sure to load ALL images contained within service-images, as failing to do so will cause DoltLab to not work correctly.
You can now return to the doltlab directory and start your DoltLab instance.
Reset password attempts for a user
In the event a user has exceeded the maximumum number of password attempts, 3, the DoltLab admin can reset the user's password attempts by using the doltlabdb/shell-db.sh script.
Once connected to the database, run the following SQL statements to reset the user's password attempts:
This will reset the user's password attempts to 0 and allow them to attempt to login again.
Troubleshoot common issues
DoltLab UI displaying an error after starting the instance
If you started your DoltLab instance, but the UI is displaying an error, it is often the case that doltlabapi has crashed during startup. To verify that this, check the logs for doltlabapi by running:.
If you see an error similar to could not open database connection, this means that doltlabapi was unable to connect to the application database doltlabdb.
To troubleshoot this issue, check that the doltlabdb container is running by running:
If you do not see the doltlabdb container running, then it too has crashed on startup. Investigate the logs for the doltlabdb container by running:
If the doltlabdb container is running, it is likely that case that the current database connection credentials used by doltlabapi are not the same as those used by the doltlabdb container.
It is important to remember that the first time a DoltLab instance is started, the doltlabdb container is initialized with admin_password and dolthubapi_password values from the installer_config.yaml file. These values are persisted to disk, and will be expected for all successful database connections.
If you have changed the database passwords in installer_config.yaml after the initial startup, you will need either:
Connect to the
doltlabdbcontainer and update the credentials manually.Delete the persistent Docker volume storing the
doltlabdbcontainer's data. To do this, make sure your DoltLab instance is stopped, then run:
After deleting the volume, start your DoltLab instance again. DoltLab will recreate the volume and it will be initialized with the new credentials you provided in installer_config.yaml.
For all other issues not covered in this section, please reach out to our support team on Discord.
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