Using the GitLab-Shell chart

The gitlab-shell sub-chart provides an SSH server configured for Git SSH access to GitLab.

Requirements

This chart depends on access to Redis and Unicorn services, either as part of the complete GitLab chart or provided as external services reachable from the Kubernetes cluster this chart is deployed onto.

Design Choices

In order to easily support SSH replicas, and avoid using shared storage for the ssh authorized keys, we are using the SSH AuthorizedKeysCommand to authenticate against GitLab’s authorized keys endpoint. As a result, we don’t persist or update the AuthorizedKeys file within these pods.

Configuration

The gitlab-shell chart is configured in two parts: external services, and chart settings. The port exposed through Ingress is configured with global.shell.port, and defaults to 22.

Installation command line options

Parameter Default Description
annotations   Pod annotations
enabled true Shell enable flag
extraContainers   List of extra containers to include
extraInitContainers   List of extra init containers to include
extraVolumeMounts   List of extra volumes mounts to do
extraVolumes   List of extra volumes to create
hpa.targetAverageValue 100m Set the autoscaling target value
image.pullPolicy Always Shell image pull policy
image.pullSecrets   Secrets for the image repository
image.repository registry.com/gitlab-org/build/cng/gitlab-shell Shell image repository
image.tag latest Shell image tag
init.image busybox initContainer image
init.tag latest initContainer image tag
redis.serviceName redis Redis service name
replicaCount 1 Shell replicas
service.externalPort 22 Shell exposed port
service.internalPort 22 Shell internal port
service.name gitlab-shell Shell service name
service.type ClusterIP Shell service type
service.loadBalancerIP   IP address to assign to LoadBalancer (if supported)
service.loadBalancerSourceRanges   List of IP CIDRs allowed access to LoadBalancer (if supported)
service.type ClusterIP Shell service type
tolerations [] Toleration labels for pod assignment
unicorn.serviceName unicorn Unicorn service name

Chart configuration examples

image.pullSecrets

pullSecrets allows you to authenticate to a private registry to pull images for a pod.

Additional details about private registries and their authentication methods can be found in the Kubernetes documentation.

Below is an example use of pullSecrets:

image:
  repository: my.shell.repository
  tag: latest
  pullPolicy: Always
  pullSecrets:
  - name: my-secret-name
  - name: my-secondary-secret-name

tolerations

tolerations allow you schedule pods on tainted worker nodes

Below is an example use of tolerations:

tolerations:
- key: "node_label"
  operator: "Equal"
  value: "true"
  effect: "NoSchedule"
- key: "node_label"
  operator: "Equal"
  value: "true"
  effect: "NoExecute"

annotations

annotations allows you to add annotations to the GitLab Shell pods.

Below is an example use of annotations

annotations:
  kubernetes.io/example-annotation: annotation-value

External Services

This chart should be attached the Unicorn service, and should also use the same Redis as the attached Unicorn service.

Redis 

redis:
  host: redis.example.com
  serviceName: redis
  port: 6379
  password:
    secret: gitlab-redis
    key: redis-password
Name Type Default Description
host String   The hostname of the Redis server with the database to use. This can be omitted in lieu of serviceName.
password.key String   The name of the key in the secret below that contains the password.
password.secret String   The name of the Kubernetes Secret to pull from.
port Integer 6379 The port on which to connect to the Redis server.
serviceName String redis The name of the service which is operating the Redis database. If this is present, and host is not, the chart will template the hostname of the service (and current .Release.Name) in place of the host value. This is convenient when using Redis as a part of the overall GitLab chart.

Unicorn 

unicorn:
  host: unicorn.example.com
  serviceName: unicorn
  port: 8080
Name Type Default Description
host String   The hostname of the Unicorn server. This can be omitted in lieu of serviceName.
port Integer 8080 The port on which to connect to the Unicorn server.
serviceName String unicorn The name of the service which is operating the Unicorn server. If this is present, and host is not, the chart will template the hostname of the service (and current .Release.Name) in place of the host value. This is convenient when using Unicorn as a part of the overall GitLab chart.

Chart Settings

The following values are used to configure the GitLab Shell Pods.

hostKeys.secret

The name of the Kubernetes secret to grab the SSH host keys from. The keys in the secret must start with the key names ssh_host_ in order to be used by GitLab Shell.

authToken

GitLab Shell uses an Auth Token in its communication with Unicorn. Share the token with GitLab Shell and Unicorn using a shared Secret.

authToken:
 secret: gitlab-shell-secret
 key: secret
Name Type Default Description
authToken.key String   The name of the key in the above secret that contains the authToken.
authToken.secret String   The name of the Kubernetes Secret to pull from.

LoadBalancer Service

If the service.type is set to LoadBalancer, you can optionally specify service.loadBalancerIP to create the LoadBalancer with a user-specified IP (if your cloud provider supports it).

You can also optionally specify a list of service.loadBalancerSourceRanges to restrict the CIDR ranges that can access the LoadBalancer (if your cloud provider supports it).

Additional information about the LoadBalancer service type can be found in the Kubernetes documentation

service:
  type: LoadBalancer
  loadBalancerIP: 1.2.3.4
  loadBalancerSourceRanges:
  - 5.6.7.8/32
  - 10.0.0.0/8