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2023-07-05: Migrate about.gitlab.com from Fastly to Cloudflare

Production Change

Change Summary

We are currently hosting https://about.gitlab.com on Fastly and we want to cutover to Cloudflare (see issue 18945 for more info).

The site has been thoroughly tested via https://cf.about.gitlab.com, which uses the same routing mechanism that the live site will use.

Issue: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/gl-infra/reliability/-/issues/18945

Change Details

  1. Services Impacted - ServiceAbout
  2. Change Technician - @gsgl
  3. Change Reviewer - @ayeung
  4. Time tracking - 30min
  5. Downtime Component - none expected

Detailed steps for the change

Change Steps - steps to take to execute the change

Estimated Time to Complete (mins) - 30

  • Set label changein-progress /label ~change::in-progress

  • Merge gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com!126200 (merged)

  • Merge https://ops.gitlab.net/gitlab-com/gl-infra/config-mgmt/-/merge_requests/6088

  • Merge gitlab-com/runbooks!5954 (merged)

  • Ensure your local lookup for about.gitlab.com and www.about.gitlab.com point at Cloudflare IPs and not the Fastly ones (151.x.x.x). TTL is low (<= 2min) on both records so you should see the updated values quickly:

    # BEFORE (Fastly)
$ dig about.gitlab.com # similar for www.about.gitlab.com

; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> about.gitlab.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 18739
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;about.gitlab.com.		IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
about.gitlab.com.	100	IN	A	151.101.66.49
about.gitlab.com.	100	IN	A	151.101.194.49
about.gitlab.com.	100	IN	A	151.101.2.49
about.gitlab.com.	100	IN	A	151.101.130.49

;; Query time: 66 msec
;; SERVER: 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1)
;; WHEN: Tue Jun 20 14:35:09 AEST 2023
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 109

# AFTER (Cloudflare) -- something similar to:
$ dig about.gitlab.com

; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> about.gitlab.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 34857
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;about.gitlab.com.		IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
about.gitlab.com.	298	IN	A	104.18.5.176
about.gitlab.com.	298	IN	A	104.18.4.176

;; Query time: 59 msec
;; SERVER: 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1)
;; WHEN: Tue Jun 20 14:36:38 AEST 2023
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 80

  • In the www-gitlab-com repository, run:

    # These values can be obtained from CI/CD variables on the www-gitlab-com repo
export CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN=X
export CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID=X
cd redirects/cloudflare-wrangler
npx wrangler tail about-gitlab-com-production

  • Ensure https://about.gitlab.com is working and hitting the workers. You should see the requests showing up in the output. You can also filter for your own requests:

    npx wrangler tail about-gitlab-com-production --ip self

  • Ensure https://www.about.gitlab.com redirects to https://about.gitlab.com:

    $ curl -I https://www.about.gitlab.com

    Response headers should say server: cloudflare;

  • Set label changecomplete /label ~change::complete

Rollback

Rollback steps - steps to be taken in the event of a need to rollback this change

Estimated Time to Complete (mins) - 15

Monitoring

Key metrics to observe

Change Reviewer checklist

C4 C3 C2 C1:

  • Check if the following applies:
    • The scheduled day and time of execution of the change is appropriate.
    • The change plan is technically accurate.
    • The change plan includes estimated timing values based on previous testing.
    • The change plan includes a viable rollback plan.
    • The specified metrics/monitoring dashboards provide sufficient visibility for the change.

C2 C1:

  • Check if the following applies:
    • The complexity of the plan is appropriate for the corresponding risk of the change. (i.e. the plan contains clear details).
    • The change plan includes success measures for all steps/milestones during the execution.
    • The change adequately minimizes risk within the environment/service.
    • The performance implications of executing the change are well-understood and documented.
    • The specified metrics/monitoring dashboards provide sufficient visibility for the change.
      • If not, is it possible (or necessary) to make changes to observability platforms for added visibility?
    • The change has a primary and secondary SRE with knowledge of the details available during the change window.
    • The change window has been agreed with Release Managers in advance of the change. If the change is planned for APAC hours, this issue has an agreed pre-change approval.
    • The labels blocks deployments and/or blocks feature-flags are applied as necessary.

Change Technician checklist

  • Check if all items below are complete:
    • The change plan is technically accurate.
    • This Change Issue is linked to the appropriate Issue and/or Epic
    • Change has been tested in staging and results noted in a comment on this issue.
    • A dry-run has been conducted and results noted in a comment on this issue.
    • The change execution window respects the Production Change Lock periods.
    • For C1 and C2 change issues, the change event is added to the GitLab Production calendar.
    • For C1 and C2 change issues, the SRE on-call has been informed prior to change being rolled out. (In #production channel, mention @sre-oncall and this issue and await their acknowledgement.)
    • For C1 and C2 change issues, the SRE on-call provided approval with the eoc_approved label on the issue.
    • For C1 and C2 change issues, the Infrastructure Manager provided approval with the manager_approved label on the issue.
    • Release managers have been informed prior to any C1, C2, or blocks deployments change being rolled out. (In #production channel, mention @release-managers and this issue and await their acknowledgment.)
    • There are currently no active incidents that are severity1 or severity2
    • If the change involves doing maintenance on a database host, an appropriate silence targeting the host(s) should be added for the duration of the change.
Edited by Gonzalo Servat