title: gitlab-ctl reconfigure: Unable to determine node name
body: <p>I did setup a new GitLab instance on Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS. Installing the package went fine and GitLab seems to be up and running. I then started to configure the instance and setup SMTP in <code>/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb</code>. Afterwards I ran <code>sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure</code>. It failed with the following error message:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Starting Chef Client, version 13.6.4
  
  Running handlers:
  There was an error running gitlab-ctl reconfigure:
  
  Unable to determine node name: configure node_name or configure the system's hostname and fqdn
  
  Running handlers complete
  Chef Client failed. 0 resources updated in 10 seconds
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The system's hostname and fqdn are set:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ hostname --fqdn
  git-lab.dom
  $ hostname
  git-lab
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Ohai seems to to successfully read hostname, fqdn and domain:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/ohai
  [...]
  "hostname": "git-lab",
  "machinename": "git-lab",
  "fqdn": "git-lab.dom",
  "domain": "dom",
  [...]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/36785430">answer to a similar question</a> suggested to manually set the <code>node_name</code> in <code>/etc/chef/client.rb</code>. However, the gitlab omnibus package seems to put the client.rb somewhere else. I am also reluctant to follow this advice since it seems strange to me that I did not have to do it for other GitLab installations so far. Also the docs state (emphasis mine):</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>node_name: The name of the node. Determines which configuration should
    be applied and sets the client_name, which is the name used when
    authenticating to a Chef server. The default value is the FQDN of the
    chef-client, as detected by Ohai. In general, <strong>Chef recommends that you
    leave this setting blank</strong> and let Ohai assign the FQDN of the node as
    the node_name during each chef-client run.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>How can I solve the issue and continue configuring my new installation?</p>