VCS Server Management

The VCS Server handles RhodeCode Enterprise backend functionality. You need to configure a VCS Server to run with a RhodeCode Enterprise instance. If you do not, you will be missing the connection between RhodeCode Enterprise and its repositories. This will cause error messages on the web interface. You can run your setup in the following configurations, currently the best performance is one of following:

  • One VCS Server per RhodeCode Enterprise instance.
  • One VCS Server handling multiple instances.

Important

If your server locale settings are not correctly configured, RhodeCode Enterprise and the VCS Server can run into issues. See this Ask Ubuntu post which explains the problem and gives a solution.

For more information, see the following sections:

VCS Server Installation

To install a VCS Server, see Installing a VCS server.

Hooking RhodeCode Enterprise to its VCS Server

To configure a RhodeCode Enterprise instance to use a VCS server, see Configuring the VCS Server connection.

RhodeCode Enterprise VCS Server Options

The following list shows the available options on the RhodeCode Enterprise side of the connection to the VCS Server. The settings are configured per instance in the /home/user/.rccontrol/instance-id/rhodecode.ini file.

vcs.backends <available-vcs-systems>
Set a comma-separated list of the repository options available from the web interface. The default is hg, git, svn, which is all repository types available. The order of backends is also the order backend will try to detect requests type.
vcs.connection_timeout <seconds>
Set the length of time in seconds that the VCS Server waits for requests to process. After the timeout expires, the request is closed. The default is 3600. Set to a higher number if you experience network latency, or timeout issues with very large push/pull requests.
vcs.server.enable <boolean>
Enable or disable the VCS Server. The available options are true or false. The default is true.
vcs.server <host:port>
Set the host, either hostname or IP Address, and port of the VCS server you wish to run with your RhodeCode Enterprise instance.
##################
### VCS CONFIG ###
##################
# set this line to match your VCS Server
vcs.server = 127.0.0.1:10004
# Set to False to disable the VCS Server
vcs.server.enable = True
vcs.backends = hg, git, svn
vcs.connection_timeout = 3600

VCS Server Versions

An updated version of the VCS Server is released with each RhodeCode Enterprise version. Use the VCS Server number that matches with the RhodeCode Enterprise version to pair the appropriate ones together. For RhodeCode Enterprise versions pre 3.3.0, VCS Server 1.X.Y works with RhodeCode Enterprise 3.X.Y, for example:

  • VCS Server 1.0.0 works with RhodeCode Enterprise 3.0.0
  • VCS Server 1.2.2 works with RhodeCode Enterprise 3.2.2

For RhodeCode Enterprise versions post 3.3.0, the VCS Server and RhodeCode Enterprise version numbers match, for example:

  • VCS Server 4.27.1 works with RhodeCode Enterprise 4.27.1

VCS Server Cache Optimization

To optimize the VCS server to manage the cache and memory usage efficiently, it’s recommended to configure the Redis backend for VCSServer caches. Once configured, restart the VCS Server.

Make sure Redis is installed and running. Open /home/user/.rccontrol/vcsserver-id/vcsserver.ini file and ensure the below settings for repo_object type cache are set:

; ensure the default file based cache is *commented out*
##rc_cache.repo_object.backend = dogpile.cache.rc.file_namespace
##rc_cache.repo_object.expiration_time = 2592000

; `repo_object` cache settings for vcs methods for repositories
rc_cache.repo_object.backend = dogpile.cache.rc.redis_msgpack

; cache auto-expires after N seconds
; Examples: 86400 (1Day), 604800 (7Days), 1209600 (14Days), 2592000 (30days), 7776000 (90Days)
rc_cache.repo_object.expiration_time = 2592000

; redis_expiration_time needs to be greater then expiration_time
rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.redis_expiration_time = 3592000

rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.host = localhost
rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.port = 6379
rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.db = 5
rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.socket_timeout = 30
; more Redis options: https://dogpilecache.sqlalchemy.org/en/latest/api.html#redis-backends
rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.distributed_lock = true

To clear the cache completely, you can restart the VCS Server.

Important

While the VCS Server handles a restart gracefully on the web interface, it will drop connections during push/pull requests. So it is recommended you only perform this when there is very little traffic on the instance.

Use the following example to restart your VCS Server, for full details see the RhodeCode Control CLI.

$ rccontrol status

- NAME: vcsserver-1
- STATUS: RUNNING
  logs:/home/ubuntu/.rccontrol/vcsserver-1/vcsserver.log
- VERSION: 4.7.2 VCSServer
- URL: http://127.0.0.1:10008
- CONFIG: /home/ubuntu/.rccontrol/vcsserver-1/vcsserver.ini

$ rccontrol restart vcsserver-1
Instance "vcsserver-1" successfully stopped.
Instance "vcsserver-1" successfully started.

VCS Server Configuration

You can configure settings for multiple VCS Servers on your system using their individual configuration files. Use the following properties inside the configuration file to set up your system. The default location is home/user/.rccontrol/vcsserver-id/vcsserver.ini. For a more detailed explanation of the logger levers, see Enabling Debug Mode.

host <ip-address>
Set the host on which the VCS Server will run. VCSServer is not protected by any authentication, so we highly recommend running it under localhost ip that is 127.0.0.1
port <int>
Set the port number on which the VCS Server will be available.

Note

After making changes, you need to restart your VCS Server to pick them up.

; #################################
; RHODECODE VCSSERVER CONFIGURATION
; #################################

[server:main]
; COMMON HOST/IP CONFIG
host = 127.0.0.1
port = 10002

; ###########################
; GUNICORN APPLICATION SERVER
; ###########################

; run with gunicorn --log-config rhodecode.ini --paste rhodecode.ini

; Module to use, this setting shouldn't be changed
use = egg:gunicorn#main

; Sets the number of process workers. More workers means more concurrent connections
; RhodeCode can handle at the same time. Each additional worker also it increases
; memory usage as each has it's own set of caches.
; Recommended value is (2 * NUMBER_OF_CPUS + 1), eg 2CPU = 5 workers, but no more
; than 8-10 unless for really big deployments .e.g 700-1000 users.
; `instance_id = *` must be set in the [app:main] section below (which is the default)
; when using more than 1 worker.
workers = 6

; Gunicorn access log level
loglevel = info

; Process name visible in process list
proc_name = rhodecode_vcsserver

; Type of worker class, one of sync, gevent
; currently `sync` is the only option allowed.
worker_class = sync

; The maximum number of simultaneous clients. Valid only for gevent
worker_connections = 10

; Max number of requests that worker will handle before being gracefully restarted.
; Prevents memory leaks, jitter adds variability so not all workers are restarted at once.
max_requests = 1000
max_requests_jitter = 30

; Amount of time a worker can spend with handling a request before it
; gets killed and restarted. By default set to 21600 (6hrs)
; Examples: 1800 (30min), 3600 (1hr), 7200 (2hr), 43200 (12h)
timeout = 21600

; The maximum size of HTTP request line in bytes.
; 0 for unlimited
limit_request_line = 0

; Limit the number of HTTP headers fields in a request.
; By default this value is 100 and can't be larger than 32768.
limit_request_fields = 32768

; Limit the allowed size of an HTTP request header field.
; Value is a positive number or 0.
; Setting it to 0 will allow unlimited header field sizes.
limit_request_field_size = 0

; Timeout for graceful workers restart.
; After receiving a restart signal, workers have this much time to finish
; serving requests. Workers still alive after the timeout (starting from the
; receipt of the restart signal) are force killed.
; Examples: 1800 (30min), 3600 (1hr), 7200 (2hr), 43200 (12h)
graceful_timeout = 3600

# The number of seconds to wait for requests on a Keep-Alive connection.
# Generally set in the 1-5 seconds range.
keepalive = 2

; Maximum memory usage that each worker can use before it will receive a
; graceful restart signal 0 = memory monitoring is disabled
; Examples: 268435456 (256MB), 536870912 (512MB)
; 1073741824 (1GB), 2147483648 (2GB), 4294967296 (4GB)
memory_max_usage = 1073741824

; How often in seconds to check for memory usage for each gunicorn worker
memory_usage_check_interval = 60

; Threshold value for which we don't recycle worker if GarbageCollection
; frees up enough resources. Before each restart we try to run GC on worker
; in case we get enough free memory after that, restart will not happen.
memory_usage_recovery_threshold = 0.8


[app:main]
use = egg:rhodecode-vcsserver

pyramid.default_locale_name = en
pyramid.includes =

; default locale used by VCS systems
locale = en_US.UTF-8

; #############
; DOGPILE CACHE
; #############

; Default cache dir for caches. Putting this into a ramdisk can boost performance.
; eg. /tmpfs/data_ramdisk, however this directory might require large amount of space
cache_dir = %(here)s/data

; **********************************************************
; `repo_object` cache with redis backend
; recommended for larger instance, or for better performance
; **********************************************************

; `repo_object` cache settings for vcs methods for repositories
rc_cache.repo_object.backend = dogpile.cache.rc.redis_msgpack

; cache auto-expires after N seconds
; Examples: 86400 (1Day), 604800 (7Days), 1209600 (14Days), 2592000 (30days), 7776000 (90Days)
rc_cache.repo_object.expiration_time = 2592000

; redis_expiration_time needs to be greater then expiration_time
rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.redis_expiration_time = 3592000

rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.host = localhost
rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.port = 6379
rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.db = 5
rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.socket_timeout = 30
; more Redis options: https://dogpilecache.sqlalchemy.org/en/latest/api.html#redis-backends
rc_cache.repo_object.arguments.distributed_lock = true

; #####################
; LOGGING CONFIGURATION
; #####################
[loggers]
keys = root, vcsserver

[handlers]
keys = console

[formatters]
keys = generic

; #######
; LOGGERS
; #######
[logger_root]
level = NOTSET
handlers = console

[logger_vcsserver]
level = DEBUG
handlers =
qualname = vcsserver
propagate = 1


; ########
; HANDLERS
; ########

[handler_console]
class = StreamHandler
args = (sys.stderr, )
level = INFO
formatter = generic

; ##########
; FORMATTERS
; ##########

[formatter_generic]
format = %(asctime)s.%(msecs)03d [%(process)d] %(levelname)-5.5s [%(name)s] %(message)s
datefmt = %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S