Improve documentation about restore/backup process when using GitLab inside Docker (docker-compose)

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Hello,

I open this issue because I think an improvement of the documentation is needed in case of restore process when we use GitLab inside Docker.

I have multiple instance of GitLab: One GitLab-CE and one GitLab-EE

My question is :

1. What is the correct process to restore an instance of GitLab-(ce/ee) when we use it inside docker ?

My instances are backup with this in crontab :

docker exec -t $(docker ps --filter name=gitlab --format '{{.Names}}') gitlab-rake gitlab:backup:create STRATEGY=copy CRON=1 SKIP=registry
docker exec -t $(docker ps --filter name=gitlab --format '{{.Names}}') /bin/sh -c 'umask 0077; tar cfz /secret/gitlab/backups/$(date "+\%Y_\%m_\%d_etc-gitlab-\%s.tgz") -C / etc/gitlab'

So in this documentation https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/raketasks/backup_restore.html#restore-prerequisites I found prerequisites that mention :

If you are restoring into directories that are mountpoints you will need to make sure these directories are empty before attempting a restore. Otherwise GitLab will attempt to move these directories before restoring the new data and this would cause an error

My second question is :

2. which directories must be empty before the restoration process ? if it's the same answer as in my previous issue gitlab-ce#47035 what is the best command to clean these directories ? Why it's not describe in the official documentation ? because the prerequisites mention that:

we need to have a working GitLab installation before you can perform a restore

In my docker-compose file I have persisted all the data like this (I am using nfs via mount point) :

volumes:
      - '/srv/git_nfs/gitlab/config:/etc/gitlab'
      - '/srv/git_nfs/gitlab/logs:/var/log/gitlab'
      - '/srv/git_nfs/gitlab/data:/var/opt/gitlab'
      - '/srv/git_nfs/gitlab/secret:/secret/gitlab/backups'

so which directories must be emptied ?

Others questions :

3. Should I stop completly the docker container docker-compose down before performing the restore process ?
4. Should I stop GitLab to perform the restore process ? If Yes, with which command ?
5. How to restore the configuration and secrets ?

Thank you very much for your help about this critical point about restore process 😃

Best regards,