Zoekt indexer fails with "Error while dialing: dial unix ///var/opt/gitlab/gitaly/gitaly.socket"
Description
- Zoekt indexer fails to start or operate correctly. Logs show the error:
"rpc error: code = Unavailable desc = last connection error: connection error: desc = \"transport: Error while dialing: dial unix ///var/opt/gitlab/gitaly/gitaly.socket: connect: no such file or directory\""- Zoekt is unable to connect to Gitaly, preventing proper indexing of repositories.
Environment
-
GitLab with exact code search running on single node install
-
Zoekt running on a different server
-
Impacted offerings:
- GitLab Self-Managed
Solution
- Configure Gitaly to listen on a network port instead of a Unix socket.
- Update the GitLab Rails configuration to use the network address for Gitaly.
- Apply the changes by running:
gitlab-ctl reconfigure
Here is an example configuration for GitLab 17.7 and earlier:
gitlab_rails['gitaly_token'] = 'abc123secret'
git_data_dirs({
'default' => { 'gitaly_address' => 'tcp://gitlab.example.com:8075' }
})
gitaly['configuration'] = {
listen_addr: '0.0.0.0:8075',
auth: {
token: 'abc123secret',
},
storage: [
{
name: 'default',
path: '/var/opt/gitlab/git-data/repositories',
},
]
}Here is an example configuration for GitLab 17.8 and later:
gitlab_rails['gitaly_token'] = 'abc123secret'
gitlab_rails['repositories_storages'] = {
'default' => { 'gitaly_address' => 'tcp://gitlab.example.com:8075' },
}
gitaly['configuration'] = {
listen_addr: '0.0.0.0:8075',
auth: {
token: 'abc123secret',
},
storage: [
{
name: 'default',
path: '/var/opt/gitlab/git-data/repositories',
},
]
}We can verify that Zoekt indexer is now working if we see the following logs from the Zoekt indexer process when we create a new project on a namespace where Zoekt is configured:
time=2025-02-17T05:24:59.744Z level=DEBUG msg=TaskRequest status=200 body="{\"id\":1,\"truncate\":false,\"tasks\":[{\"name\":\"index\",\"payload\":{\"GitalyConnectionInfo\":{\"Address\":\"tcp://gitlab:8075\",\"Token\":\"abc123secret\",\"Storage\":\"default\",\"Path\":\"@hashed/4a/44/4a44dc15364204a80fe80e9039455cc1608281820fe2b24f1e5233ade6af1dd5.git\"},\"Callback\":{\"name\":\"index\",\"payload\":{\"task_id\":81}},\"RepoId\":10,\"FileSizeLimit\":1048576,\"Timeout\":\"5400s\"}}],\"optimized_performance\":false,\"pull_frequency\":\"10s\"}"Cause
This issue occurs because Zoekt needs to connect directly to Gitaly. In a single-node Omnibus installation, GitLab Rails is configured to use a Unix socket for Gitaly communication. However, when Zoekt is running on a different server, it cannot access this socket, leading to the connection error.