• IAM role
• Chart configuration
  • Registry
  • LFS, Artifacts, Uploads, Packages
  • Backups
  • Using IAM roles for service accounts
    • 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

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.

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.