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GitLab Docs archives | GitLab




GitLab Docs archives

This page has links to online versions of the GitLab documentation.
To browse a version that is not available online, see the offline archives.

They’re available for download so that you can browse through them locally.

Default version

The default version of this website
is built from the documentation directories on the default branches of:


  • GitLab
  • Omnibus GitLab
  • GitLab Runner
  • GitLab Charts
  • GitLab Operator

All of these are brought together by the
GitLab Docs project, which regularly
deploys this content to docs.gitlab.com.

Read article
Use custom Docker images for the GitLab chart | GitLab





  • Default image format
  • Example values file

Use custom Docker images for the GitLab chart

In certain scenarios (i.e. offline environments), you may want to bring your own images rather than pulling them down from the Internet. This requires specifying your own Docker image registry/repository for each of the charts that make up the GitLab release.

Default image format

Our default format for the image in most cases includes the full path to the image, excluding the tag:

image:
repository: repo.example.com/image
tag: custom-tag

The end result will be repo.example.com/image:custom-tag .

Example values file

There is an example values file that demonstrates how to configure a custom Docker registry/repository and tag. You can copy relevant sections of this file for your own releases.


note
Some of the charts (especially third party charts) sometimes have slightly different conventions for specifying the image registry/repository and tag. You can find documentation for third party charts on the Artifact Hub.
Read article
Set up standalone PostgreSQL database | GitLab





  • Create VM with Omnibus GitLab
  • Configure Omnibus GitLab

Set up standalone PostgreSQL database

We’ll make use of the Omnibus GitLab package for Ubuntu. This package provides versions of the services that are guaranteed to be compatible with the charts’ services.

Create VM with Omnibus GitLab

Create a VM on your provider of choice, or locally. This was tested with VirtualBox, KVM, and Bhyve.
Ensure that the instance is reachable from the cluster.

Install Ubuntu Server onto the VM that you have created. Ensure that openssh-server is installed, and that all packages are up to date.
Configure networking and a hostname. Make note of the hostname/IP, and ensure it is both resolvable and reachable from your Kubernetes cluster.
Be sure firewall policies are in place to allow traffic.

Follow the installation instructions for Omnibus GitLab. When you perform the package installation, do not provide the EXTERNAL_URL= value. We do not want automatic configuration to occur, as we’ll provide a very specific configuration in the next step.

Configure Omnibus GitLab

Create a minimal gitlab.rb file to be placed at /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb . Be very explicit about what is enabled on this node, use the contents below.

Note : This example is not intended to provide PostgreSQL for scaling.

NOTE : The values below should be replaced



  • DB_USERNAME default username is gitlab

  • DB_PASSSWORD unencoded value

  • DB_ENCODED_PASSWORD encoded value of DB_PASSWORD . Can be generated by replacing DB_USERNAME and DB_PASSWORD with real values in: echo -n 'DB_PASSSWORDDB_USERNAME' | md5sum - | cut -d' ' -f1

  • AUTH_CIDR_ADDRESS configure the CIDRs for MD5 authentication, should be the smallest possible subnets of your cluster or it’s gateway. For minikube, this value is 192.168.100.0/12
# Change the address below if you do not want PG to listen on all available addresses
postgresql['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0'
# Set to approximately 1/4 of available RAM.
postgresql['shared_buffers'] = "512MB"
# This password is: `echo -n '${password}${username}' | md5sum - | cut -d' ' -f1`
# The default username is `gitlab`
postgresql['sql_user_password'] = "DB_ENCODED_PASSWORD"
# Configure the CIDRs for MD5 authentication
postgresql['md5_auth_cidr_addresses'] = ['AUTH_CIDR_ADDRESSES']
# Configure the CIDRs for trusted authentication (passwordless)
postgresql['trust_auth_cidr_addresses'] = ['127.0.0.1/24']

## Configure gitlab_rails
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false
gitlab_rails['db_username'] = "gitlab"
gitlab_rails['db_password'] = "DB_PASSSWORD"


## Disable everything else
sidekiq['enable'] = false
puma['enable'] = false
registry['enable'] = false
gitaly['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
prometheus_monitoring['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false

After creating gitlab.rb , we’ll reconfigure the package with gitlab-ctl reconfigure . Once the task has completed, check the running processes with gitlab-ctl status . The output should appear as such:

# gitlab-ctl status
run: logrotate: (pid 4856) 1859s; run: log: (pid 31262) 77460s
run: postgresql: (pid 30562) 77637s; run: log: (pid 30561) 77637s
Read article
Configure the GitLab chart with an external database | GitLab




Configure the GitLab chart with an external database

For a production-ready GitLab chart deployment, use an external database.

Prerequisites:


  • A deployment of PostgreSQL 12 or later. If you do not have one, consider
    a cloud provided solution like AWS RDS PostgreSQL
    or GCP Cloud SQL. For a self-managed solution,
    consider the Omnibus GitLab package.
  • An empty database named gitlabhq_production by default.
  • A user with full database access. See the
    external database documentation for details.
  • A Kubernetes Secret with the password for the database user.
  • The pg_trgm and btree_gist extensions. If you don’t provide an account with
    the Superuser flag to GitLab, ensure these extensions are loaded prior to
    proceeding with the database installation.

Networking prerequisites:


  • Ensure that the database is reachable from the cluster. Be sure that your firewall policies allow traffic.

  • If you plan to use PostgreSQL as a load balancing cluster and Kubernetes
    DNS for service discovery, when you install the bitnami/postgresql chart,
    use --set slave.service.clusterIP=None .
    This setting configures the PostgreSQL secondary service as a headless service to
    allow DNS A records to be created for each secondary instance.

    For an example of how to use Kubernetes DNS for service discovery,
    see examples/database/values-loadbalancing-discover.yaml .

To configure the GitLab chart to use an external database:



  1. Set the following parameters:



    • postgresql.install : Set to false to disable the embedded database.

    • global.psql.host : Set to the hostname of the external database, can be a domain or an IP address.

    • global.psql.password.secret : The name of the secret that contains the database password for the gitlab user.

    • global.psql.password.key : Within the secret, the key that contains the password.

  2. Optional. The following items can be further customized if you are not using the defaults:



    • global.psql.port : The port the database is available on. Defaults to 5432 .

    • global.psql.database : The name of the database.

    • global.psql.username : The user with access to the database.

  3. Optional. If you use a mutual TLS connection to the database, set the following:



    • global.psql.ssl.secret : A secret that contains the client certificate, key, and certificate authority.

    • global.psql.ssl.serverCA : In the secret, the key that refers to the certificate authority (CA).

    • global.psql.ssl.clientCertificate : In the secret, the key that refers to the client certificate.

    • global.psql.ssl.clientKey : In the secret, the client.

  4. When you deploy the GitLab chart, add the values by using the --set flag. For example:


    helm install gitlab gitlab/gitlab
    --set postgresql.install=false
    --set global.psql.host=psql.example
    --set global.psql.password.secret=gitlab-postgresql-password
    --set global.psql.password.key=postgres-password
Read article
Setup standalone Gitaly | GitLab





  • Create VM with Omnibus GitLab
  • Configure Omnibus GitLab

Setup standalone Gitaly

The instructions here make use of the Omnibus GitLab package for Ubuntu.
This package provides versions of the services that are guaranteed to be compatible with the charts’ services.

Create VM with Omnibus GitLab

Create a VM on your provider of choice, or locally. This was tested with VirtualBox, KVM, and Bhyve.
Ensure that the instance is reachable from the cluster.

Install Ubuntu Server onto the VM that you have created. Ensure that openssh-server is installed, and that all packages are up to date.
Configure networking and a hostname. Make note of the hostname/IP, and ensure it is both resolvable and reachable from your Kubernetes cluster.
Be sure firewall policies are in place to allow traffic.

Follow the installation instructions for Omnibus GitLab. When you perform the package installation, do not provide the EXTERNAL_URL= value. We do not want automatic configuration to occur, as we’ll provide a very specific configuration in the next step.

Configure Omnibus GitLab

Create a minimal gitlab.rb file to be placed at /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb . Be
very explicit about what’s enabled on this node, using the following contents
based on the documentation for
running Gitaly on its own server.

NOTE : The values below should be replaced



  • AUTH_TOKEN should be replaced with the value in the gitaly-secret secret

  • GITLAB_URL should be replaced with the URL of the GitLab instance

  • SHELL_TOKEN should be replaced with the value in the gitlab-shell-secret secret
# Avoid running unnecessary services on the Gitaly server
postgresql['enable'] = false
redis['enable'] = false
nginx['enable'] = false
puma['enable'] = false
sidekiq['enable'] = false
gitlab_workhorse['enable'] = false
grafana['enable'] = false
gitlab_exporter['enable'] = false
gitlab_kas['enable'] = false

# If you run a seperate monitoring node you can disable these services
prometheus['enable'] = false
alertmanager['enable'] = false

# If you don't run a seperate monitoring node you can
# Enable Prometheus access & disable these extra services
# This makes Prometheus listen on all interfaces. You must use firewalls to restrict access to this address/port.
# prometheus['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9090'
# prometheus['monitor_kubernetes'] = false

# If you don't want to run monitoring services uncomment the following (not recommended)
# node_exporter['enable'] = false

# Prevent database connections during 'gitlab-ctl reconfigure'
gitlab_rails['auto_migrate'] = false

# Configure the gitlab-shell API callback URL. Without this, `git push` will
# fail. This can be your 'front door' GitLab URL or an internal load
# balancer.
gitlab_rails['internal_api_url'] = 'GITLAB_URL'
gitlab_shell['secret_token'] = 'SHELL_TOKEN'

# Make Gitaly accept connections on all network interfaces. You must use
# firewalls to restrict access to this address/port.
# Comment out following line if you only want to support TLS connections
gitaly['listen_addr'] = "0.0.0.0:8075"

# Authentication token to ensure only authorized servers can communicate with
# Gitaly server
gitaly['auth_token'] = 'AUTH_TOKEN'

git_data_dirs({
'default' => {
'path' => '/var/opt/gitlab/git-data'
},
'storage1' => {
'path' => '/mnt/gitlab/git-data'
},
})

# To use TLS for Gitaly you need to add
gitaly['tls_listen_addr'] = "0.0.0.0:8076"
gitaly['certificate_path'] = "path/to/cert.pem"
gitaly['key_path'] = "path/to/key.pem"

After creating gitlab.rb , reconfigure the package with gitlab-ctl reconfigure .
Once the task has completed, check the running processes with gitlab-ctl status .
The output should appear as such:

# gitlab-ctl status
run: gitaly: (pid 30562) 77637s; run: log: (pid 30561) 77637s
run: logrotate: (pid 4856) 1859s; run: log: (pid 31262) 77460s
Read article
Configure the GitLab chart with an external Gitaly | GitLab





  • Configure the chart

  • Multiple external Gitaly

    • Connecting to external Gitaly over TLS

Configure the GitLab chart with an external Gitaly

This document intends to provide documentation on how to configure this Helm chart with an external Gitaly service.

If you don’t have Gitaly configured, for on-premise or deployment to VM,
consider using our Omnibus GitLab package.


note
External Gitaly services can be provided by Gitaly nodes, or
Praefect clusters.

Configure the chart

Disable the gitaly chart and the Gitaly service it provides, and point the other services to the external service.

You need to set the following properties:



  • global.gitaly.enabled : Set to false to disable the included Gitaly chart.

  • global.gitaly.external : This is an array of external Gitaly service(s).

  • global.gitaly.authToken.secret : The name of the secret which contains the token for authentication.

  • global.gitaly.authToken.key : The key within the secret, which contains the token content.

The external Gitaly services will make use of their own instances of GitLab Shell.
Depending your implementation, you can configure those with the secrets from this
chart, or you can configure this chart’s secrets with the content from a predefined
source.

You may need to set the following properties:



  • global.shell.authToken.secret : The name of the secret which contains secret for GitLab Shell.

  • global.shell.authToken.key : The key within the secret, which contains the secret content.

A complete example configuration, with two external services ( external-gitaly.yml ):

global:
gitaly:
enabled: false
external:
- name: default # required
hostname: node1.git.example.com # required
port: 8075 # optional, default shown
- name: praefect # required
hostname: ha.git.example.com # required
port: 2305 # Praefect uses port 2305
tlsEnabled: false # optional, overrides gitaly.tls.enabled
authToken:
secret: external-gitaly-token # required
key: token # optional, default shown
tls:
enabled: false # optional, default shown

Example installation using the above configuration file in conjunction other
configuration via gitlab.yml :

helm upgrade --install gitlab gitlab/gitlab  \
-f gitlab.yml \
-f external-gitaly.yml

Multiple external Gitaly

If your implementation uses multiple Gitaly nodes external to these charts,
you can define multiple hosts as well. The syntax is slightly different, as
to allow the complexity required.

An example values file is provided, which shows the
appropriate set of configuration. The content of this values file is not
interpreted correctly via --set arguments, so should be passed to Helm
with the -f / --values flag.

Connecting to external Gitaly over TLS

If your external Gitaly server listens over TLS port,
you can make your GitLab instance communicate with it over TLS. To do this, you
have to



  1. Create a Kubernetes secret containing the certificate of the Gitaly
    server


    kubectl create secret generic gitlab-gitaly-tls-certificate --from-file=gitaly-tls.crt=<path to certificate>

  2. Add the certificate of external Gitaly server to the list of
    custom Certificate Authorities
    In the values file, specify the following


    global:
    certificates:
    customCAs:
    - secret: gitlab-gitaly-tls-certificate

    or pass it to the helm upgrade command using --set


    --set global.certificates.customCAs[0].secret=gitlab-gitaly-tls-certificate

  3. To enable TLS for all Gitaly instances, set global.gitaly.tls.enabled: true .


    global:
    gitaly:
    tls:
    enabled: true

    To enable for instances individually, set tlsEnabled: true for that entry.


    global:
    gitaly:
    external:
    - name: default
    hostname: node1.git.example.com
    tlsEnabled: true

note
You can choose any valid secret name and key for this, but make
sure the key is unique across all the secrets specified in customCAs to avoid
collision since all keys within the secrets will be mounted. You do not
need to provide the key for the certificate, as this is the client side .
Read article
Configure the GitLab chart with external GitLab Pages | GitLab





  • Requirements
  • Known limitations
  • Configure external GitLab Pages instance
  • Configure the chart

Configure the GitLab chart with external GitLab Pages

This document intends to provide documentation on how to configure this Helm
chart with a GitLab Pages instance, configured outside of the cluster, using an
Omnibus GitLab package.

Requirements


  1. GitLab 13.7 or later.

  2. External Object Storage, as
    recommended for production instances, should be used.
  3. Base64 encoded form of a 32-bytes-long API secret key for Pages to interact
    with GitLab Pages.

Known limitations



  1. GitLab Pages Access Control
    is not supported out of the box.

Configure external GitLab Pages instance



  1. Install GitLab using the Omnibus GitLab
    package.


  2. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb file and replace its contents with the
    following snippet. Update the values below to match your configuration:


    roles ['pages_role']

    # Root domain where Pages will be served.
    pages_external_url '<Pages root domain>' # Example: 'http://pages.example.io'

    # Information regarding GitLab instance
    gitlab_pages['gitlab_server'] = '<GitLab URL>' # Example: 'https://gitlab.example.com'
    gitlab_pages['api_secret_key'] = '<Base64 encoded form of API secret key>'

  3. Apply the changes by running sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure .

Configure the chart



  1. Create a bucket named gitlab-pages in the object storage for storing Pages
    deployments.


  2. Create a secret gitlab-pages-api-key with the Base64 encoded form of API
    secret key as value.


    kubectl create secret generic gitlab-pages-api-key --from-literal="shared_secret=<Base 64 encoded API Secret Key>"

  3. Refer the following configuration snippet and add necessary entries to your
    values file.


    global:
    pages:
    path: '/srv/gitlab/shared/pages'
    host: <Pages root domain>
    port: '80' # Set to 443 if Pages is served over HTTPS
    https: false # Set to true if Pages is served over HTTPS
    artifactsServer: true
    objectStore:
    enabled: true
    bucket: 'gitlab-pages'
    apiSecret:
    secret: gitlab-pages-api-key
    key: shared_secret
    extraEnv:
    PAGES_UPDATE_LEGACY_STORAGE: true # Bypass automatic disabling of disk storage

    note
    By setting PAGES_UPDATE_LEGACY_STORAGE environment variable to true,
    the feature flag pages_update_legacy_storage is enabled which deploys Pages
    to local disk. When you migrate to object storage, do remember to remove this
    variable.

  4. Deploy the chart
    using this configuration.

Read article
Configure the GitLab chart with Mattermost Team Edition | GitLab





  • Prerequisites
  • Deploy the Mattermost Team Edition Helm chart
  • Deploy GitLab Helm chart
  • Create an OAuth application with GitLab
  • Troubleshooting

Configure the GitLab chart with Mattermost Team Edition

This document describes how to install Mattermost Team Edition Helm chart in proximity with an existing GitLab Helm chart deployment.

As the Mattermost Helm chart is installed in a separate namespace, it is recommended that
cert-manager and nginx-ingress be configured to manage cluster-wide Ingress and certificate resources. For additional configuration information,
refer to the Mattermost Helm configuration guide.

Prerequisites


  • A running Kubernetes cluster.
  • Helm v3

note
For the Team Edition you can have just one replica running.

Deploy the Mattermost Team Edition Helm chart

Once you have installed the Mattermost Team Edition Helm chart, you can deploy it using the following command:

helm repo add mattermost https://helm.mattermost.com
helm repo update
helm upgrade --install mattermost -f values.yaml mattermost/mattermost-team-edition

Wait for the pods to run. Then, using the Ingress host you specified in the configuration, access your Mattermost server.

For additional configuration information, refer to the Mattermost Helm configuration guide.
you experience any issues with this, please view the Mattermost Helm chart issue repository or
the Mattermost Forum.

Deploy GitLab Helm chart

To deploy the GitLab Helm chart, follow the instructions described here.

Here’s a light way to install it:

helm repo add gitlab https://charts.gitlab.io/
helm repo update
helm upgrade --install gitlab gitlab/gitlab \
--timeout 600s \
--set global.hosts.domain=<your-domain> \
--set global.hosts.externalIP=<external-ip> \
--set certmanager-issuer.email=<email>


  • <your-domain> : your desired domain, such as gitlab.example.com .

  • <external-ip> : the external IP pointing to your Kubernetes cluster.

  • <email> : email to register in Let’s Encrypt to retrieve TLS certificates.

Once you’ve deployed the GitLab instance, follow the instructions for the initial login.

Create an OAuth application with GitLab

The next part of the process is setting up the GitLab SSO integration.
To do so, you need to create the OAuth application to allow Mattermost to use GitLab as the authentication provider.


note
Only the default GitLab SSO is officially supported. “Double SSO”, where GitLab SSO is chained to other SSO solutions, is not supported. It may be possible to connect
GitLab SSO with AD, LDAP, SAML, or MFA add-ons in some cases, but because of the special logic required they’re not officially
supported and are known not to work on some experiences.

Troubleshooting

If you are following a process other than the one provided and experience authentication and/or deployment issues,
let us know in the Mattermost troubleshooting forum.

Read article
Configure the GitLab chart with an external NGINX Ingress Controller | GitLab






  • TCP services in the external Ingress Controller

    • Direct deployment
    • Helm deployment
  • Customize the GitLab Ingress options
  • Custom certificate management

Configure the GitLab chart with an external NGINX Ingress Controller

This chart configures Ingress resources for use with the official
NGINX Ingress implementation. The
NGINX Ingress Controller is deployed as a part of this chart. If you want to
reuse an existing NGINX Ingress Controller already available in your cluster,
this guide will help.

TCP services in the external Ingress Controller

The GitLab Shell component requires TCP traffic to pass through on
port 22 (by default; this can be changed). Ingress does not directly support TCP services, so some additional configuration is necessary. Your NGINX Ingress Controller may have been deployed directly (i.e. with a Kubernetes spec file) or through the official Helm chart. The configuration of the TCP pass through will differ depending on the deployment approach.

Direct deployment

In a direct deployment, the NGINX Ingress Controller handles configuring TCP services with a
ConfigMap (see docs here).
Assuming your GitLab chart is deployed to the namespace gitlab and your Helm
release is named mygitlab , your ConfigMap should be something like this:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: tcp-configmap-example
data:
22: "gitlab/mygitlab-gitlab-shell:22"

After you have that ConfigMap , you can enable it as described in the NGINX
Ingress Controller docs
using the --tcp-services-configmap option.

args:
- /nginx-ingress-controller
- --tcp-services-configmap=gitlab/tcp-configmap-example

Finally make sure that the Service for your NGINX Ingress Controller is exposing
port 22 in addition to 80 and 443.

Helm deployment

If you have installed or will install the NGINX Ingress Controller via it’s Helm chart, then you will need to add a value to the chart via the command line:

--set tcp.22="gitlab/mygitlab-gitlab-shell:22"

or a values.yaml file:

tcp:
22: "gitlab/mygitlab-gitlab-shell:22"

The format for the value is the same as describe above in the “Direct Deployment” section.

Customize the GitLab Ingress options

The NGINX Ingress Controller uses an annotation to mark which Ingress Controller
will service a particular Ingress (see docs).
You can configure the Ingress class to use with this chart using the
global.ingress.class setting. Make sure to set this in your Helm options.

--set global.ingress.class=myingressclass

While not necessarily required, if you’re using an external Ingress Controller, you will likely want to
disable the Ingress Controller that is deployed by default with this chart:

--set nginx-ingress.enabled=false

Custom certificate management

The full scope of your TLS options are documented elsewhere.

If you are using an external Ingress Controller, you may also be using an external cert-manager instance
or managing your certificates in some other custom manner. The full documentation around your TLS options is here,
however for the purposes of this discussion, here are the two values that would need to be set to disable the cert-manager chart and tell
the GitLab component charts to NOT look for the built in certificate resources:

--set certmanager.install=false
--set global.ingress.configureCertmanager=false
Read article
IAM roles for AWS when using the GitLab chart | GitLab





  • IAM role

  • Chart configuration

    • Registry
    • LFS, Artifacts, Uploads, Packages
    • Backups

    • Using IAM roles for service accounts

      • Workaround to perform backups before GitLab 14.4
      • Using pre-created service accounts
      • Using chart-owned service accounts
  • Troubleshooting
  • WebIdentityErr: failed to retrieve credentials

IAM roles for AWS when using the GitLab chart

The default configuration for external object storage in the charts uses access and secret keys.
It is also possible to use IAM roles in combination with kube2iam ,
kiam , or IRSA.

IAM role

The IAM role will need read, write and list permissions on the S3 buckets. You can choose to have a role per bucket or combine them.

Chart configuration

IAM roles can be specified by adding annotations and changing the secrets, as specified below:

Registry

An IAM role can be specified via the annotations key:

--set registry.annotations."iam\.amazonaws\.com/role"=<role name>

When creating the registry-storage.yaml secret, omit the access and secret key:

s3:
bucket: gitlab-registry
v4auth: true
region: us-east-1

Note : If you provide the key pair, IAM role will be ignored. See AWS documentation for more details.

LFS, Artifacts, Uploads, Packages

For LFS, artifacts, uploads, and packages an IAM role can be specified via the annotations key in the webservice and sidekiq configuration:

--set gitlab.sidekiq.annotations."iam\.amazonaws\.com/role"=<role name>
--set gitlab.webservice.annotations."iam\.amazonaws\.com/role"=<role name>

For the object-storage.yaml secret, omit
the access and secret key. Because the GitLab Rails codebase uses Fog for S3
storage, the use_iam_profile
key should be added for Fog to use the role:

provider: AWS
use_iam_profile: true
region: us-east-1

note
Do NOT include endpoint in this configuration.
IRSA makes use of STS tokens, which use specialized endpoints.
When endpoint is provided, the AWS client will attempt
to send an AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity message to this endpoint and will fail.

Backups

The Toolbox configuration allows for annotations to be set to upload backups to S3:

--set gitlab.toolbox.annotations."iam\.amazonaws\.com/role"=<role name>

The s3cmd.config secret is to be created without the access and secret keys:

[default]
bucket_location = us-east-1

Using IAM roles for service accounts

If GitLab is running in an AWS EKS cluster (version 1.14 or greater), you can
use an AWS IAM role to authenticate to the S3 object storage without the need
of generating or storing access tokens. More information regarding using
IAM roles in an EKS cluster can be found in the
Introducing fine-grained IAM roles for service accounts
documentation from AWS.

Appropriate IRSA annotations for roles can be applied to ServiceAccounts throughout
this Helm chart in one of two ways:


  1. ServiceAccounts that have been pre-created as described in the above AWS documentation.
    This ensures the proper annotations on the ServiceAccount and the linked OIDC provider.
  2. Chart-generated ServiceAccounts with annotations defined. We allow for the configuration
    of annotations on ServiceAccounts both globally and on a per-chart basis.

To use IAM roles for ServiceAccounts in EKS clusters, the specific annotation must be eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn: arn:aws:iam::<ACCOUNT_ID>:role/<IAM_ROLE_NAME> .

To enable IAM roles for ServiceAccounts for GitLab running in an AWS EKS cluster, follow the instructions on
IAM roles for service accounts.


caution
Using the backup-utility as specified in the backup documentation
does not properly copy the backup file to the S3 bucket. The backup-utility uses
the s3cmd to perform the copy of the backup file and it has a known
issue of not supporting OIDC authentication.
This has been resolved in their 2.2.0 release, which has been
merged into GitLab 14.4.

Workaround to perform backups before GitLab 14.4

If you are on a version earlier than 14.4, run the following command in your task-runner pod to sideload
the latest version of s3cmd . You can then run backup-utility as per usual.

pip install --upgrade s3cmd && export PATH="$(python3 -m site --user-base)/bin:${PATH}"

Using pre-created service accounts

Set the following options when the GitLab chart is deployed. It is important
to note that the ServiceAccount is enabled but not created.

global:
serviceAccount:
enabled: true
create: false
name: <SERVICE ACCT NAME>

Fine-grained ServiceAccounts control is also available:

registry:
serviceAccount:
create: false
name: gitlab-registry
gitlab:
webservice:
serviceAccount:
create: false
name: gitlab-webservice
sidekiq:
serviceAccount:
create: false
name: gitlab-sidekiq
toolbox:
serviceAccount:
create: false
name: gitlab-toolbox

Using chart-owned service accounts

The eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn annotation can be applied to all ServiceAccounts
created by GitLab owned charts by configuring global.serviceAccount.annotations .

global:
serviceAccount:
annotations:
eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn: arn:aws:iam::xxxxxxxxxxxx:role/name

Annotations can also be added on a per ServiceAccount basis, but adding the matching
definition for each chart. These can be the same role, or individual roles.

registry:
serviceAccount:
annotations:
eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn: arn:aws:iam::xxxxxxxxxxxx:role/gitlab-registry
gitlab:
webservice:
serviceAccount:
annotations:
eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn: arn:aws:iam::xxxxxxxxxxxx:role/gitlab
sidekiq:
serviceAccount:
annotations:
eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn: arn:aws:iam::xxxxxxxxxxxx:role/gitlab
toolbox:
serviceAccount:
annotations:
eks.amazonaws.com/role-arn: arn:aws:iam::xxxxxxxxxxxx:role/gitlab-toolbox

Troubleshooting

You can test if the IAM role is correctly set up and that GitLab is
accessing S3 using the IAM role by logging into the toolbox pod and
using awscli (replace <namespace> with the namespace where GitLab is
installed):

kubectl exec -ti $(kubectl get pod -n <namespace> -lapp=toolbox -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') -n <namespace> -- bash

With the awscli package installed, verify that you are able to communicate
with the AWS API:

aws sts get-caller-identity

A normal response showing the temporary user ID, account number and IAM
ARN (this will not be the IAM ARN for the role used to access S3) will be
returned if connection to the AWS API was successful. An unsuccessful
connection will require more troubleshooting to determine why the toolbox
pod is not able to communicate with the AWS APIs.

If connecting to the AWS APIs is successful, then the following command
will assume the IAM role that was created and verify that a STS token can
be retrieved for accessing S3. The AWS_ROLE_ARN and AWS_WEB_IDENTITY_TOKEN_FILE
variables are defined in the environment when IAM role annotation has been
added to the pod and do not require that they be defined:

aws sts assume-role-with-web-identity --role-arn $AWS_ROLE_ARN  --role-session-name gitlab --web-identity-token file://$AWS_WEB_IDENTITY_TOKEN_FILE

If the IAM role could not be assumed then an error message similar to the
following will be displayed:

An error occurred (AccessDenied) when calling the AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity operation: Not authorized to perform sts:AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity

Otherwise, the STS credentials and IAM role information will be displayed.


WebIdentityErr: failed to retrieve credentials

If you see this error in the logs, this suggests that endpoint has
been configured in your object-storage.yaml secret. Remove
this setting and restart the webservice and sidekiq pods.

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