# Usage statistics

GitLab Inc. will periodically collect information about your instance in order
to perform various actions.

All statistics are opt-out, you can enable/disable them from the admin panel
under **Admin area > Settings > Usage statistics**.

## Version check **[CORE ONLY]**

If enabled, version check will inform you if a new version is available and the
importance of it through a status. This is shown on the help page (i.e. `/help`)
for all signed in users, and on the admin pages. The statuses are:

* Green: You are running the latest version of GitLab.
* Orange: An updated version of GitLab is available.
* Red: The version of GitLab you are running is vulnerable. You should install
  the latest version with security fixes as soon as possible.

![Orange version check example](img/update-available.png)

GitLab Inc. collects your instance's version and hostname (through the HTTP
referer) as part of the version check. No other information is collected.

This information is used, among other things, to identify to which versions
patches will need to be backported, making sure active GitLab instances remain
secure.

If you disable version check, this information will not be collected.  Enable or
disable the version check at **Admin area > Settings > Usage statistics**.

## Usage ping **[CORE ONLY]**

> [Introduced][ee-557] in GitLab Enterprise Edition 8.10. More statistics
[were added][ee-735] in GitLab Enterprise Edition
8.12. [Moved to GitLab Core][ce-23361] in 9.1. More statistics
[were added][ee-6602] in GitLab Ultimate 11.2.

GitLab sends a weekly payload containing usage data to GitLab Inc. The usage
ping uses high-level data to help our product, support, and sales teams. It does
not send any project names, usernames, or any other specific data. The
information from the usage ping is not anonymous, it is linked to the hostname
of the instance.

You can view the exact JSON payload in the administration panel. To view the payload:

1. Go to the **Admin area** (spanner symbol on the top bar).
1. Expand **Settings** in the left sidebar and click on **Metrics and profiling**.
1. Expand **Usage statistics** and click on the **Preview payload** button.

### Deactivate the usage ping

The usage ping is opt-out. If you want to deactivate this feature, go to
the Settings page of your administration panel and uncheck the Usage ping
checkbox.

To disable the usage ping and prevent it from being configured in future through
the administration panel, Omnibus installs can set the following in
[`gitlab.rb`](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/settings/configuration.html#configuration-options):

```ruby
gitlab_rails['usage_ping_enabled'] = false
```

And source installs can set the following in `gitlab.yml`:

```yaml
production: &base
  # ...
  gitlab:
    # ...
    usage_ping_enabled: false
```

## Instance statistics visibility **[CORE ONLY]**

Once usage ping is enabled, GitLab will gather data from other instances and
will be able to show [usage statistics](../../instance_statistics/index.md)
of your instance to your users.

This can be restricted to admins by selecting "Only admins" in the Instance
Statistics visibility section under **Admin area > Settings > Usage statistics**.

[ee-557]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/merge_requests/557
[ee-735]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/merge_requests/735
[ce-23361]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/23361
[ee-6602]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/merge_requests/6602
