How to calculate Request Per Second (RPS) from GitLab logs

Description

This article explains how to calculate Request Per Second (RPS) metrics from GitLab logs. This is useful for performance monitoring, capacity planning, and troubleshooting high load situations on your GitLab instance. The results of the command on this article can be compared directly to GitLab's reference architectures

Environment

GitLab Self-Managed

Prerequisites

  • Access to GitLab server logs
  • Basic knowledge of Linux command line
  • Ruby installed (for script method)
  • datamash utility installed (for command line method)

Solution

Method 1: Using the get-rps.rb script

  1. Clone or download the script from the GitLab Support Toolbox repository:

    git clone https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/support/toolbox/dotfiles.git

  2. Navigate to the scripts directory:

    cd dotfiles/scripts

  3. Run the get-rps.rb script against your GitLab access logs:

    ruby get-rps.rb /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_access.log /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-shell/gitlab-shell

  4. Compare output with GitLab referece architecture:

Method 2: Using Linux commands on Omnibus logs

We can manually collect logs or use gitlabSOS

  1. Count of web Git push requests:

    \grep "git-receive-pack" /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_access.log | \grep "200" | awk '{print $4}' | sort | uniq -c | tr -d "[" | datamash -s -i -W mean 1

  2. Count of SSH Git push requests:

    \grep "git-receive-pack" /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-shell/gitlab-shell.log | jq '.| .time' | sort | uniq -c | tr -d "[" | datamash -s -i -W mean 1

  3. Count of Web Git pull requests:

    \grep "git-upload-pack" /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_access.log | \grep "200" | awk '{print $4}' | sort | uniq -c | tr -d "[" | datamash -s -i -W mean 1

  4. Count of SSH Git pull requests:

    \grep "git-upload-pack" /var/log/gitlab/gitlab-shell/gitlab-shell.log | jq '.| .time'  | sort | uniq -c | tr -d "[" | datamash -s -i -W mean 1

  5. Count API requests:

    \grep api /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_access.log | \grep -v "jobs/request" | awk '{print $4}' | sort | uniq -c | tr -d "[" | datamash -s -i -W mean 1

  6. Count Web requests:

    \grep -v git-upload-pack /var/log/gitlab/nginx/gitlab_access.log | \grep -v "api" |  grep -v git-receive-pack | awk '{print $4}' | sort | uniq -c | tr -d "[" | datamash -s -i -W mean 1

Method 3: Using Linux commands on Kubernetes logs

For Kubernetes we have to use the webservice_gitlab-workhorse.log in KubeSOS. This might affect the accuarcy of the data.

  1. Count of web Git push requests:

    \grep "git-receive-pack" webservice_gitlab-workhorse.log | \grep "200" | cut -d. -f 1 |awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq -c | datamash -s -i -W mean 1

  2. Count of Web Git pull requests:

    \grep "git-upload-pack" webservice_gitlab-workhorse.log | \grep "200" | cut -d. -f 1 |awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq -c | datamash -s -i -W mean 1

  3. Count API requests:

    \grep api /webservice_gitlab-workhorse.log| \grep -v "jobs/request" | cut -d. -f 1 |awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq -c | datamash -s -i -W mean 1

  4. Count Web requests:

    \grep -v git-upload-pack webservice_gitlab-workhorse.log | \grep -v "api" | \grep -v git-receive-pack | cut -d. -f 1 |awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq -c | datamash -s -i -W mean 1

Verification

After running either method, you should see output showing:

  • For the script: A summary of RPS statistics
  • For the command line: Either the mean RPS value or a list of timestamps with request counts

The results should help you understand your GitLab instance's request load patterns.

Additional Information

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