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clone-all-gitlab.sh

A bash script that clones all accessible GitLab repositories from a GitLab instance, organizing them by their group/namespace structure.

export GITLAB_URL="https://your-gitlab-instance.com"
export GITLAB_TOKEN="your-personal-access-token"
curl https://albud.ca/clone-all-gitlab.sh | bash

What It Does

Main Features

• Clones all accessible repositories from a GitLab instance
• Preserves group/namespace directory structure (e.g., group/subgroup/project)
• Updates existing repositories automatically if they have no uncommitted changes
• Skips repositories with uncommitted changes to prevent data loss
• Runs clone/update operations in parallel for faster execution

Configuration

Required Environment Variables

• GITLAB_URL – The URL of your GitLab instance
• GITLAB_TOKEN – Your GitLab Personal Access Token (PAT)

Optional Settings (edit script to customize)

• CLONE_DIR – Directory where repos will be cloned (default: current directory)
• PAGE_SIZE – API pagination size (default: 100)
• CLONE_METHOD – Use “ssh_url_to_repo” or “http_url_to_repo” (default: ssh)
• MAX_PARALLEL_JOBS – Number of parallel clone operations (default: 10)

Requirements

• curl for API requests
• jq for JSON parsing
• git for cloning repositories
• GitLab Personal Access Token with at least read_api and read_repository permissions