Use Akeyless secrets in GitLab CI/CD

Status: Experiment
History
This feature is an experiment and not intended for production use. There is no support available for this feature and it is subject to removal at any time in accordance to GitLab policy.

You can use the secrets:akeyless keyword to authenticate and retrieve Akeyless secrets.

Prerequisites:

To retrieve secrets from Akeyless, review the CI/CD configuration example that matches your use case. The akeyless:name keyword can contain any secrets type.

JWT authentication 

job:
  id_tokens:
    AKEYLESS_JWT:
      aud: 'https://gitlab.com'
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      token: $AKEYLESS_JWT
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'

akeyless_token 

job:
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        akeyless_token: '<akeyless_token>'

Akeyless access types

aws_iam 

job:
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        akeyless_access_type: 'aws_iam'

azure_ad 

job:
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        akeyless_access_type: 'azure_ad'
        azure_object_id: 'azure_object_id'

gcp 

job:
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        akeyless_access_type: 'gcp'
        gcp_audience: 'gcp_audience'

universal_identity 

job:
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        akeyless_access_type: 'universal_identity'
        uid_token: 'uid_token'

k8s 

job:
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        akeyless_access_type: 'k8s'
        k8s_service_account_token: 'k8s_service_account_token'
        k8s_auth_config_name: 'k8s_auth_config_name'
        akeyless_api_url: 'akeyless_api_url'

api_key 

job:
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        akeyless_access_type: 'api_key'
        akeyless_access_key: "<Access Key>"

If you intend to fetch multiple secrets or run multiple jobs using the same Akeyless token, you should run the first job as follows to store and re-use the same token as a dedicated CI/CD variable.

JWT reuse

When re-using the same token, there is no akeyless:name reference, which allows the token to be re-used for multiple jobs. 

job:  # This job fetches the Akeyless Token
  id_tokens:
    AKEYLESS_JWT:
      aud: 'https://gitlab.com'
  secrets:
    AKEYLESS_TOKEN:
      token: $AKEYLESS_JWT
      akeyless:

Fetch a JSON Secret 

job:
  id_tokens:
    AKEYLESS_JWT:
      aud: 'https://gitlab.com'
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      token: $AKEYLESS_JWT
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        data_key: 'imp'

This example fetches the imp JSON key.

Issue certificate

Use public_key_data when issuing certificates.

SSH 

job:
  id_tokens:
    AKEYLESS_JWT:
      aud: 'https://gitlab.com'
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      token: $AKEYLESS_JWT
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        cert_user_name: 'cert_user_name'
        public_key_data: 'public_key_data'

Issue certificate 

job:
  id_tokens:
    AKEYLESS_JWT:
      aud: 'https://gitlab.com'
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      token: $AKEYLESS_JWT
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        public_key_data: 'public_key_data'

You can also use csr_data instead of public_key_data.

Work with a gateway

Set your gateway URL using the akeyless_api_url keyword. When working with a CA Certificate you can provide your gateway_ca_certificate as well: 

job:
  id_tokens:
    AKEYLESS_JWT:
      aud: 'https://gitlab.com'
  secrets:
    DATABASE_PASSWORD:
      token: $AKEYLESS_JWT
      akeyless:
        name: 'secret_name'
        akeyless_api_url: 'http://gateway_url:8080/v2'
        gateway_ca_certificate: 'ca_certificate'

Troubleshooting

The secrets provider can not be found. Check your CI/CD variables and try again. message

You might receive this error when attempting to start a job configured to access Akeyless: 

The secrets provider can not be found. Check your CI/CD variables and try again.

The job can’t be created because the required variable is not defined:

  • AKEYLESS_ACCESS_ID