Restore GitLab 6.9.1 backup to new GitLab 7.14 instance

Question

I'm in the process of building a new server to upgrade from GitLab 6.9.1 to the latest version of GitLab (7.14.1) on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS .

I've created a backup of the GitLab instance using the following command: sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:backup:create

I've copied the backup to the new server and placed it /var/opt/gitlab/backups/ .

When I run the command to restore the backup on the new server with the new GitLab instance

sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:backup:restore BACKUP=1442406091

I get the following error:

Unpacking backup ... done
GitLab version mismatch:
  Your current GitLab version (7.14.3) differs from the GitLab version in the backup!
  Please switch to the following version and try again:
  version: 6.9.1

Hint: git checkout v6.9.1

I've read in the GitLab documentation that a restore is only possible from the same version of GitLab but is there a way to restore the backup from 6.9.1 to a new fresh instance of 7.14.

Answer 1

Having just done something very similar, the only way I found that worked is to just install the same version as your old install (6.9.1) as a deb from https://about.gitlab.com/downloads/archives/ , restore from your backup in to it, then upgrade gitlab-ce using apt-get upgrade gitlab-ce . Hope that helps.