Cloudflare and DNS updates for docs.gitlab.com relaunch

General Information:

• Point of contact for this request: @sarahgerman
• Related issue for context (if applicable): gitlab-org/technical-writing/docs-gitlab-com#44 (closed)
• Foundations owned service this relates to: ServiceDNS

Details

The Technical Writing team is launching the new version of docs.gitlab.com next month. Exact date is TBD, but we are aiming for Feb 16-17 (Sunday night US/Monday morning APAC time).

To complete the rollout, we will need assistance from infrastructure to modify DNS and Cloudflare configuration. We will need to coordinate synchronously during the rollout to make sure we time the changes correctly.

The infra tasks are:

1. Before launch (any time): Enable Cloudflare CDN for docs.gitlab.com, pointing at the current GitLab Pages site (in gitlab-docs).
2. At launch time: Move the docs.gitlab.com domain name from the original GitLab Pages project to the new one, going through the steps to re-verify the domain with a TXT record.

• Original/current site: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-docs/pages
• New site: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/technical-writing/docs-gitlab-com/pages

1. As soon as the domain name is pointing at the new site: Copy the redirects we have set at Cloudflare on the new.docs.gitlab.com domain over to docs.gitlab.com.
2. Post-launch: redirect new.docs.gitlab.com to docs.gitlab.com.

I am also wondering if we can configure Cloudflare to serve stale content during the launch. Otherwise we'd have some downtime while the LetsEncrypt cert provisions on the new project. Maybe we'd have to terminate TLS at CF instead of the origin, would that be OK?

Priority

Please check one:

• Very urgent, blocking significant other work: ~"Priority::1"
• A blocker, but we have workarounds: ~"Priority::2"
• Not currently a blocker but will be soon: ~"Priority::3"
• Not likely to be a blocker, this is a nice-to-have improvement or suggestion: ~"Priority::4"
• Unsure