• Overview
• Adding and creating a new GKE cluster via GitLab
  • Requirements
  • Creating the cluster
• Adding an existing Kubernetes cluster
• Security implications
• Gitlab-managed clusters
• Base domain
• Access controls
  • Attribute-based access control (ABAC)
  • Role-based access control (RBAC)
  • Security of GitLab Runners
• Installing applications
  • Upgrading applications
  • Uninstalling applications
  • Troubleshooting applications
• Getting the external endpoint
  • Automatically determining the external endpoint
  • Manually determining the external endpoint
  • Using a static IP
  • Pointing your DNS at the external endpoint
• Multiple Kubernetes clusters
• Setting the environment scope
• Deployment variables
  • Troubleshooting failed deployment jobs
• Monitoring your Kubernetes cluster
• Enabling or disabling the Kubernetes cluster integration
• Removing the Kubernetes cluster integration
• View Kubernetes pod logs from GitLab
• What you can get with the Kubernetes integration
  • Deploy Boards
  • Canary Deployments
  • Kubernetes monitoring
  • Auto DevOps
  • Web terminals
  • Integrating Amazon EKS cluster with GitLab
  • Serverless

Connecting GitLab with a Kubernetes cluster

Introduced in GitLab 10.1.

Connect your project to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) or an existing Kubernetes cluster in a few steps.

Overview

With one or more Kubernetes clusters associated to your project, you can use Review Apps, deploy your applications, run your pipelines, use it with Auto DevOps, and much more, all from within GitLab.

There are two options when adding a new cluster to your project; either associate your account with Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) so that you can create new clusters from within GitLab, or provide the credentials to an existing Kubernetes cluster.

Adding and creating a new GKE cluster via GitLab

Requirements

Before creating your first cluster on Google Kubernetes Engine with GitLab’s integration, make sure the following requirements are met:

• A billing account is set up and you have permissions to access it.
• The Kubernetes Engine API and related service are enabled. It should work immediately but may take up to 10 minutes after you create a project. For more information see the “Before you begin” section of the Kubernetes Engine docs.

Creating the cluster

If all of the above requirements are met, you can proceed to create and add a new Kubernetes cluster to your project:

1. Navigate to your project’s Operations > Kubernetes page.

   Note: You need Maintainer permissions and above to access the Kubernetes page.
2. Click Add Kubernetes cluster.
3. Click Create with Google Kubernetes Engine.
4. Connect your Google account if you haven’t done already by clicking the Sign in with Google button.
5. From there on, choose your cluster’s settings:
   • Kubernetes cluster name - The name you wish to give the cluster.
   • Environment scope - The associated environment to this cluster.
   • Google Cloud Platform project - Choose the project you created in your GCP console that will host the Kubernetes cluster. Learn more about Google Cloud Platform projects.
   • Zone - Choose the region zone under which the cluster will be created.
   • Number of nodes - Enter the number of nodes you wish the cluster to have.
   • Machine type - The machine type of the Virtual Machine instance that the cluster will be based on.
   • RBAC-enabled cluster - Leave this checked if using default GKE creation options, see the RBAC section for more information.
   • GitLab-managed cluster - Leave this checked if you want GitLab to manage namespaces and service accounts for this cluster. See the Managed clusters section for more information.
6. Finally, click the Create Kubernetes cluster button.

After a couple of minutes, your cluster will be ready to go. You can now proceed to install some pre-defined applications.

Adding an existing Kubernetes cluster

To add an existing Kubernetes cluster to your project:

1. Navigate to your project’s Operations > Kubernetes page.

   Note: You need Maintainer permissions and above to access the Kubernetes page.
2. Click Add Kubernetes cluster.
3. Click Add an existing Kubernetes cluster and fill in the details:
   • Kubernetes cluster name (required) - The name you wish to give the cluster.
   • Environment scope (required) - The associated environment to this cluster.

   • API URL (required) - It’s the URL that GitLab uses to access the Kubernetes API. Kubernetes exposes several APIs, we want the “base” URL that is common to all of them, e.g., https://kubernetes.example.com rather than https://kubernetes.example.com/api/v1.

     Get the API URL by running this command:

     kubectl cluster-info | grep 'Kubernetes master' | awk '/http/ {print $NF}'
     

   • CA certificate (required) - A valid Kubernetes certificate is needed to authenticate to the EKS cluster. We will use the certificate created by default.
     • List the secrets with kubectl get secrets, and one should named similar to default-token-xxxxx. Copy that token name for use below.
     • Get the certificate by running this command:

     kubectl get secret <secret name> -o jsonpath="{['data']['ca\.crt']}" | base64 --decode
     

   • Token - GitLab authenticates against Kubernetes using service tokens, which are scoped to a particular namespace. The token used should belong to a service account with cluster-admin privileges. To create this service account:

     1. Create a file called gitlab-admin-service-account.yaml with contents:

        apiVersion: v1
        kind: ServiceAccount
        metadata:
          name: gitlab-admin
          namespace: kube-system
        ---
        apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1beta1
        kind: ClusterRoleBinding
        metadata:
          name: gitlab-admin
        roleRef:
          apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
          kind: ClusterRole
          name: cluster-admin
        subjects:
        - kind: ServiceAccount
          name: gitlab-admin
          namespace: kube-system
        

     2. Apply the service account and cluster role binding to your cluster:

         kubectl apply -f gitlab-admin-service-account.yaml
        

        Output:

         serviceaccount "gitlab-admin" created
         clusterrolebinding "gitlab-admin" created
        

     3. Retrieve the token for the gitlab-admin service account:

         kubectl -n kube-system describe secret $(kubectl -n kube-system get secret | grep gitlab-admin | awk '{print $1}')
        

        Copy the <authentication_token> value from the output:

        Name:         gitlab-admin-token-b5zv4
        Namespace:    kube-system
        Labels:       <none>
        Annotations:  kubernetes.io/service-account.name=gitlab-admin
                      kubernetes.io/service-account.uid=bcfe66ac-39be-11e8-97e8-026dce96b6e8
        
        Type:  kubernetes.io/service-account-token
        
        Data
        ====
        ca.crt:     1025 bytes
        namespace:  11 bytes
        token:      <authentication_token>
        

     Note: For GKE clusters, you will need the container.clusterRoleBindings.create permission to create a cluster role binding. You can follow the Google Cloud documentation to grant access.

   • GitLab-managed cluster - Leave this checked if you want GitLab to manage namespaces and service accounts for this cluster. See the Managed clusters section for more information.

   • Project namespace (optional) - You don’t have to fill it in; by leaving it blank, GitLab will create one for you. Also:
     • Each project should have a unique namespace.
     • The project namespace is not necessarily the namespace of the secret, if you’re using a secret with broader permissions, like the secret from default.
     • You should not use default as the project namespace.
     • If you or someone created a secret specifically for the project, usually with limited permissions, the secret’s namespace and project namespace may be the same.
4. Finally, click the Create Kubernetes cluster button.

After a couple of minutes, your cluster will be ready to go. You can now proceed to install some pre-defined applications.

Security implications

The default cluster configuration grants access to a wide set of functionalities needed to successfully build and deploy a containerized application. Bear in mind that the same credentials are used for all the applications running on the cluster.

Gitlab-managed clusters

Introduced in GitLab 11.5. Became optional in GitLab 11.11.

You can choose to allow GitLab to manage your cluster for you. If your cluster is managed by GitLab, resources for your projects will be automatically created. See the Access controls section for details on which resources will be created.

If you choose to manage your own cluster, project-specific resources will not be created automatically. If you are using Auto DevOps, you will need to explicitly provide the KUBE_NAMESPACE deployment variable that will be used by your deployment jobs, otherwise a namespace will be created for you.

Base domain

Introduced in GitLab 11.8.

Specifying a base domain will automatically set KUBE_INGRESS_BASE_DOMAIN as an environment variable. If you are using Auto DevOps, this domain will be used for the different stages. For example, Auto Review Apps and Auto Deploy.

The domain should have a wildcard DNS configured to the Ingress IP address. After ingress has been installed (see Installing Applications), you can either:

• Create an A record that points to the Ingress IP address with your domain provider.
• Enter a wildcard DNS address using a service such as nip.io or xip.io. For example, 192.168.1.1.xip.io.

Access controls

When creating a cluster in GitLab, you will be asked if you would like to create an Attribute-based access control (ABAC) cluster, or a Role-based access control (RBAC) one.

Whether ABAC or RBAC is enabled, GitLab will create the necessary service accounts and privileges in order to install and run GitLab managed applications:

• If GitLab is creating the cluster, a gitlab service account with cluster-admin privileges will be created in the default namespace, which will be used by GitLab to manage the newly created cluster.

• A project service account with edit privileges will be created in the project namespace (also created by GitLab), which will be used in deployment jobs.

  Note: Restricted service account for deployment was introduced in GitLab 11.5.

• When you install Helm into your cluster, the tiller service account will be created with cluster-admin privileges in the gitlab-managed-apps namespace. This service account will be added to the installed Helm Tiller and will be used by Helm to install and run GitLab managed applications. Helm will also create additional service accounts and other resources for each installed application. Consult the documentation of the Helm charts for each application for details.

If you are adding an existing Kubernetes cluster, ensure the token of the account has administrator privileges for the cluster.

The following sections summarize which resources will be created on ABAC/RBAC clusters.

Attribute-based access control (ABAC)

Role-based access control (RBAC)

Security of GitLab Runners

GitLab Runners have the privileged mode enabled by default, which allows them to execute special commands and running Docker in Docker. This functionality is needed to run some of the Auto DevOps jobs. This implies the containers are running in privileged mode and you should, therefore, be aware of some important details.

The privileged flag gives all capabilities to the running container, which in turn can do almost everything that the host can do. Be aware of the inherent security risk associated with performing docker run operations on arbitrary images as they effectively have root access.

If you don’t want to use GitLab Runner in privileged mode, first make sure that you don’t have it installed via the applications, and then use the Runner’s Helm chart to install it manually.

Installing applications

GitLab provides GitLab Managed Apps, a one-click install for various applications which can be added directly to your configured cluster. These applications are needed for Review Apps and deployments when using Auto DevOps. You can install them after you create a cluster.

Applications managed by GitLab will be installed onto the gitlab-managed-apps namespace. This differrent from the namespace used for project deployments. It is only created once and its name is not configurable.

To see a list of available applications to install:

1. Navigate to your project’s Operations > Kubernetes.
2. Select your cluster.

Install Helm first as it’s used to install other applications.

With the exception of Knative, the applications will be installed in a dedicated namespace called gitlab-managed-apps.

Upgrading applications

Introduced in GitLab 11.8.

Users can perform a one-click upgrade for the GitLab Runner application, when there is an upgrade available.

To upgrade the GitLab Runner application:

1. Navigate to your project’s Operations > Kubernetes.
2. Select your cluster.
3. Click the Upgrade button for the Runnner application.

The Upgrade button will not be shown if there is no upgrade available.

Uninstalling applications

Introduced in GitLab 11.11.

The applications below can be uninstalled.

To uninstall an application:

1. Navigate to your project’s Operations > Kubernetes.
2. Select your cluster.
3. Click the Uninstall button for the application.

Support for uninstalling all applications is planned for progressive rollout. To follow progress, see the relevant epic.

Troubleshooting applications

Applications can fail with the following error:

Error: remote error: tls: bad certificate

To avoid installation errors:

• Before starting the installation of applications, make sure that time is synchronized between your GitLab server and your Kubernetes cluster.

• Ensure certificates are not out of sync. When installing applications, GitLab expects a new cluster with no previous installation of Helm.

  You can confirm that the certificates match via kubectl:

  kubectl get configmaps/values-content-configuration-ingress -n gitlab-managed-apps -o \
  "jsonpath={.data['cert\.pem']}" | base64 -d > a.pem
  kubectl get secrets/tiller-secret -n gitlab-managed-apps -o "jsonpath={.data['ca\.crt']}" | base64 -d > b.pem
  diff a.pem b.pem
  

Getting the external endpoint

In order to publish your web application, you first need to find the endpoint which will be either an IP address or a hostname associated with your load balancer.

Automatically determining the external endpoint

Introduced in GitLab 10.6.

After you install Ingress or Knative, Gitlab attempts to determine the external endpoint and it should be available within a few minutes. If the endpoint doesn’t appear and your cluster runs on Google Kubernetes Engine:

1. Check your Kubernetes cluster on Google Kubernetes Engine to ensure there are no errors on its nodes.
2. Ensure you have enough Quotas on Google Kubernetes Engine. For more information, see Resource Quotas.
3. Check Google Cloud’s Status to ensure they are not having any disruptions.

If GitLab is still unable to determine the endpoint of your Ingress or Knative application, you can manually determine it by following the steps below.

Manually determining the external endpoint

If the cluster is on GKE, click the Google Kubernetes Engine link in the Advanced settings, or go directly to the Google Kubernetes Engine dashboard and select the proper project and cluster. Then click Connect and execute the gcloud command in a local terminal or using the Cloud Shell.

If the cluster is not on GKE, follow the specific instructions for your Kubernetes provider to configure kubectl with the right credentials. The output of the following examples will show the external endpoint of your cluster. This information can then be used to set up DNS entries and forwarding rules that allow external access to your deployed applications.

If you installed the Ingress via the Applications, run the following command:

kubectl get service --namespace=gitlab-managed-apps ingress-nginx-ingress-controller -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip}'

Some Kubernetes clusters return a hostname instead, like Amazon EKS. For these platforms, run:

kubectl get service --namespace=gitlab-managed-apps ingress-nginx-ingress-controller -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].hostname}'

For Istio/Knative, the command will be different:

kubectl get svc --namespace=istio-system knative-ingressgateway -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[0].ip} '

Otherwise, you can list the IP addresses of all load balancers:

kubectl get svc --all-namespaces -o jsonpath='{range.items[?(@.status.loadBalancer.ingress)]}{.status.loadBalancer.ingress[*].ip} '

Using a static IP

By default, an ephemeral external IP address is associated to the cluster’s load balancer. If you associate the ephemeral IP with your DNS and the IP changes, your apps will not be able to be reached, and you’d have to change the DNS record again. In order to avoid that, you should change it into a static reserved IP.

Read how to promote an ephemeral external IP address in GKE.

Pointing your DNS at the external endpoint

Once you’ve set up the external endpoint, you should associate it with a wildcard DNS record such as *.example.com. in order to be able to reach your apps. If your external endpoint is an IP address, use an A record. If your external endpoint is a hostname, use a CNAME record.

Multiple Kubernetes clusters

Introduced in GitLab Premium 10.3.

With GitLab Premium, you can associate more than one Kubernetes clusters to your project. That way you can have different clusters for different environments, like dev, staging, production, etc.

Simply add another cluster, like you did the first time, and make sure to set an environment scope that will differentiate the new cluster with the rest.

Setting the environment scope

When adding more than one Kubernetes cluster to your project, you need to differentiate them with an environment scope. The environment scope associates clusters with environments similar to how the environment-specific variables work.

The default environment scope is *, which means all jobs, regardless of their environment, will use that cluster. Each scope can only be used by a single cluster in a project, and a validation error will occur if otherwise. Also, jobs that don’t have an environment keyword set will not be able to access any cluster.

For example, let’s say the following Kubernetes clusters exist in a project:

And the following environments are set in .gitlab-ci.yml:

stages:
- test
- deploy

test:
  stage: test
  script: sh test

deploy to staging:
  stage: deploy
  script: make deploy
  environment:
    name: staging
    url: https://staging.example.com/

deploy to production:
  stage: deploy
  script: make deploy
  environment:
    name: production
    url: https://example.com/

The result will then be:

• The development cluster will be used for the “test” job.
• The staging cluster will be used for the “deploy to staging” job.
• The production cluster will be used for the “deploy to production” job.

Deployment variables

The Kubernetes cluster integration exposes the following deployment variables in the GitLab CI/CD build environment.

Troubleshooting failed deployment jobs

GitLab will create a namespace and service account specifically for your deployment jobs. On project level clusters, this happens when the cluster is created. On group level clusters, resources are created immediately before the deployment job starts.

However, sometimes GitLab can not create them. In such instances, your job will fail with the message:

This job failed because the necessary resources were not successfully created.

To find the cause of this error when creating a namespace and service account, check the logs.

Common reasons for failure include:

• The token you gave GitLab did not have cluster-admin privileges required by GitLab.
• Missing KUBECONFIG or KUBE_TOKEN variables. To be passed to your job, they must have a matching environment:name. If your job has no environment:name set, it will not be passed the Kubernetes credentials.

Monitoring your Kubernetes cluster

Introduced in GitLab Ultimate 10.6.

When Prometheus is deployed, GitLab will automatically monitor the cluster’s health. At the top of the cluster settings page, CPU and Memory utilization is displayed, along with the total amount available. Keeping an eye on cluster resources can be important, if the cluster runs out of memory pods may be shutdown or fail to start.

Enabling or disabling the Kubernetes cluster integration

After you have successfully added your cluster information, you can enable the Kubernetes cluster integration:

1. Click the Enabled/Disabled switch
2. Hit Save for the changes to take effect

You can now start using your Kubernetes cluster for your deployments.

To disable the Kubernetes cluster integration, follow the same procedure.

Removing the Kubernetes cluster integration

To remove the Kubernetes cluster integration from your project, simply click the Remove integration button. You will then be able to follow the procedure and add a Kubernetes cluster again.

View Kubernetes pod logs from GitLab

Learn how to easily view the logs of running pods in connected Kubernetes clusters.

What you can get with the Kubernetes integration

Here’s what you can do with GitLab if you enable the Kubernetes integration.

Deploy Boards

GitLab’s Deploy Boards offer a consolidated view of the current health and status of each CI environment running on Kubernetes, displaying the status of the pods in the deployment. Developers and other teammates can view the progress and status of a rollout, pod by pod, in the workflow they already use without any need to access Kubernetes.

Read more about Deploy Boards

Canary Deployments

Leverage Kubernetes’ Canary deployments and visualize your canary deployments right inside the Deploy Board, without the need to leave GitLab.

Read more about Canary Deployments

Kubernetes monitoring

Automatically detect and monitor Kubernetes metrics. Automatic monitoring of NGINX ingress is also supported.

Read more about Kubernetes monitoring

Auto DevOps

Auto DevOps automatically detects, builds, tests, deploys, and monitors your applications.

To make full use of Auto DevOps(Auto Deploy, Auto Review Apps, and Auto Monitoring) you will need the Kubernetes project integration enabled.

Read more about Auto DevOps

Web terminals

When enabled, the Kubernetes service adds web terminal support to your environments. This is based on the exec functionality found in Docker and Kubernetes, so you get a new shell session within your existing containers. To use this integration, you should deploy to Kubernetes using the deployment variables above, ensuring any pods you create are labelled with app=$CI_ENVIRONMENT_SLUG. GitLab will do the rest!

Integrating Amazon EKS cluster with GitLab

• Learn how to connect and deploy to an Amazon EKS cluster.

Serverless

• Run serverless workloads on Kubernetes with Knative.