• Prerequisites
• Configure GitLab
• Security considerations
  • Secure your requests to the Harbor APIs
  • CI/CD variable security
• Examples of Harbor variables in CI/CD
  • Push a Docker image with kaniko
  • Push a Helm chart with an OCI registry

Harbor

You can use Harbor as the container registry for your GitLab project.

Harbor is an open-source registry that can help you manage artifacts across cloud-native compute platforms like Kubernetes and Docker.

The Harbor integration can help you if you need GitLab CI/CD and a container image repository.

Prerequisites

In the Harbor instance, ensure that:

• The project to be integrated has been created.
• The authenticated user has permission to pull, push, and edit images in the Harbor project.

Configure GitLab

GitLab supports integrating Harbor projects at the group or project level. Complete these steps in GitLab:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Settings > Integrations.
3. Select Harbor.
4. Under Enable integration, select the Active checkbox.
5. Provide the Harbor configuration information:
   • Harbor URL: The base URL of Harbor instance which is being linked to this GitLab project. For example, https://harbor.example.net.
   • Harbor project name: The project name in the Harbor instance. For example, testproject.
   • Username: Your username in the Harbor instance, which should meet the requirements in prerequisites.
   • Password: Password of your username.
6. Select Save changes.

After the Harbor integration is activated:

• The global variables $HARBOR_USERNAME, $HARBOR_HOST, $HARBOR_OCI, $HARBOR_PASSWORD, $HARBOR_URL, and $HARBOR_PROJECT are created for CI/CD use.
• The project-level integration settings override the group-level integration settings.

Security considerations

Secure your requests to the Harbor APIs

For each API request through the Harbor integration, the credentials for your connection to the Harbor API use the username:password combination. The following are suggestions for safe use:

• Use TLS on the Harbor APIs you connect to.
• Follow the principle of least privilege (for access on Harbor) with your credentials.
• Have a rotation policy on your credentials.

CI/CD variable security

Malicious code pushed to your .gitlab-ci.yml file could compromise your variables, including $HARBOR_PASSWORD, and send them to a third-party server. For more details, see CI/CD variable security.

Examples of Harbor variables in CI/CD

Push a Docker image with kaniko

For more information, see Use kaniko to build Docker images.

docker:
  stage: docker
  image:
    name: gcr.io/kaniko-project/executor:debug
    entrypoint: ['']
  script:
    - mkdir -p /kaniko/.docker
    - echo "{\"auths\":{\"${HARBOR_HOST}\":{\"auth\":\"$(echo -n ${HARBOR_USERNAME}:${HARBOR_PASSWORD} | base64)\"}}}" > /kaniko/.docker/config.json
    - >-
      /kaniko/executor
      --context "${CI_PROJECT_DIR}"
      --dockerfile "${CI_PROJECT_DIR}/Dockerfile"
      --destination "${HARBOR_HOST}/${HARBOR_PROJECT}/${CI_PROJECT_NAME}:${CI_COMMIT_TAG}"
  rules:
  - if: $CI_COMMIT_TAG

Push a Helm chart with an OCI registry

Helm supports OCI registries by default. OCI is supported in Harbor 2.0 and later. Read more about OCI in Helm’s blog and documentation.

helm:
  stage: helm
  image:
    name: dtzar/helm-kubectl:latest
    entrypoint: ['']
  variables:
    # Enable OCI support (not required since Helm v3.8.0)
    HELM_EXPERIMENTAL_OCI: 1
  script:
    # Log in to the Helm registry
    - helm registry login "${HARBOR_URL}" -u "${HARBOR_USERNAME}" -p "${HARBOR_PASSWORD}"
    # Package your Helm chart, which is in the `test` directory
    - helm package test
    # Your helm chart is created with <chart name>-<chart release>.tgz
    # You can push all building charts to your Harbor repository
    - helm push test-*.tgz ${HARBOR_OCI}/${HARBOR_PROJECT}