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GitLab Managed Apps (DEPRECATED) (FREE)

NOTE: The new recommended way to manage cluster applications is to use the cluster management project template. If you want to migrate your GitLab managed apps management to this template, reference to migrating from GitLab managed apps to project template.

GitLab Managed Apps was created to help you configure applications in your cluster directly from GitLab. You could use this feature through two different methods: "one-click install" and "CI/CD template". Both methods are deprecated:

  • The one-click install method was removed in GitLab 14.0.
  • The CI/CD template method was deprecated in GitLab 13.12 and is scheduled to be removed in GitLab 15.0.

Both methods were limiting as you couldn't fully customize your third-party apps installed through GitLab Managed Apps. Therefore, we decided to deprecate this feature and provide better GitOps-driven alternatives to our users, such as cluster integrations and cluster management project.

Install using GitLab CI/CD (DEPRECATED)

WARNING: The GitLab Managed Apps CI/CD installation method was deprecated in 13.12. Your applications continue to work. However, we no longer support and maintain the GitLab CI/CD template for Managed Apps (Managed-Cluster-Applications.gitlab-ci.yml). The new recommended way to manage cluster applications is to use the cluster management project template. If you want to migrate your GitLab managed apps management to this template, reference to migrating from GitLab managed apps to project template.

The CI/CD template was the primary method for installing applications to clusters via GitLab Managed Apps and customize them through Helm.

Supported applications:

Usage

You can find and import all the files referenced below in the example cluster applications project.

To install applications using GitLab CI/CD:

  1. Connect the cluster to a cluster management project.

  2. In that project, add a .gitlab-ci.yml file with the following content:

    include:
  - template: Managed-Cluster-Applications.gitlab-ci.yml

    The job provided by this template connects to the * (default) cluster using tools provided in a custom Docker image. It requires that you have a runner registered with the Docker, Kubernetes, or Docker Machine executor.

    To install to a specific cluster, read Use the template with a custom environment.

  3. Add a .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml file to define which applications you would like to install. Define the installed key as true to install the application and false to uninstall the application. For example, to install Ingress:

    ingress:
  installed: true

  4. Optionally, define .gitlab/managed-apps/<application>/values.yaml file to customize values for the installed application.

A GitLab CI/CD pipeline runs on the master branch to install the applications you have configured. In case of pipeline failure, the output of the Helm Tiller binary is saved as a CI job artifact.

Usage in GitLab versions earlier than 13.5

For GitLab versions 13.5 and earlier, the Ingress, Fluentd, Prometheus, and Sentry apps were fetched from the central Helm stable repository (https://kubernetes-charts.storage.googleapis.com/). This repository was deleted on November 13, 2020. This causes the installation CI/CD pipeline to fail. Upgrade to GitLab 13.6, or alternatively, you can use the following .gitlab-ci.yml, which has been tested in GitLab 13.5:

include:
  - template: Managed-Cluster-Applications.gitlab-ci.yml

apply:
  image: "registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cluster-integration/cluster-applications:v0.37.0"

Use the template with a custom environment

If you only want apps to be installed on a specific cluster, or if your cluster's scope does not match production, you can override the environment name in your .gitlab-ci.yml file:

include:
  - template: Managed-Cluster-Applications.gitlab-ci.yml

apply:
  except:
    variables:
      - '$CI_JOB_NAME == "apply"'

.managed-apps:
  extends: apply

example-install:
  extends: .managed-apps
  environment:
    name: example/production

Important notes

Note the following:

  • We recommend using the cluster management project exclusively for managing deployments to a cluster. Do not add your application's source code to such projects.
  • When you set the value for installed key back to false, the application is unprovisioned from the cluster.
  • If you update .gitlab/managed-apps/<application>/values.yaml with new values, the application is redeployed.

Install Ingress using GitLab CI/CD

Deprecated in GitLab 13.12.

To install Ingress, define the .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml file with:

ingress:
  installed: true

Ingress is installed into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster.

You can customize the installation of Ingress by defining a .gitlab/managed-apps/ingress/values.yaml file in your cluster management project. Refer to the chart for the available configuration options.

Support for installing the Ingress managed application is provided by the GitLab Configure group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Configure group.

Install cert-manager using GitLab CI/CD

Deprecated in GitLab 13.12.

cert-manager is installed using GitLab CI/CD by defining configuration in .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml.

cert-manager:

  • Is installed into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster.
  • Can be installed with or without a default Let's Encrypt ClusterIssuer, which requires an email address to be specified. The email address is used by Let's Encrypt to contact you about expiring certificates and issues related to your account.

The following configuration is required to install cert-manager using GitLab CI/CD:

certManager:
  installed: true
  letsEncryptClusterIssuer:
    installed: true
    email: "user@example.com"

The following installs cert-manager using GitLab CI/CD without the default ClusterIssuer:

certManager:
  installed: true
  letsEncryptClusterIssuer:
    installed: false

You can customize the installation of cert-manager by defining a .gitlab/managed-apps/cert-manager/values.yaml file in your cluster management project. Refer to the chart for the available configuration options.

Support for installing the Cert Manager managed application is provided by the GitLab Configure group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Configure group.

Install Sentry using GitLab CI/CD

Deprecated in GitLab 13.12.

The Sentry Helm chart recommends at least 3 GB of available RAM for database migrations.

To install Sentry, define the .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml file with:

sentry:
  installed: true

Sentry is installed into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster.

You can customize the installation of Sentry by defining .gitlab/managed-apps/sentry/values.yaml file in your cluster management project. Refer to the chart for the available configuration options.

We recommend you pay close attention to the following configuration options:

  • email. Needed to invite users to your Sentry instance and to send error emails.
  • user. Where you can set the login credentials for the default administrator user.
  • postgresql. For a PostgreSQL password that can be used when running future updates.

When upgrading, it's important to provide the existing PostgreSQL password (given using the postgresql.postgresqlPassword key) to avoid authentication errors. Read the PostgreSQL chart documentation for more information.

Here is an example configuration for Sentry:

# Admin user to create
user:
  # Indicated to create the admin user or not,
  # Default is true as the initial installation.
  create: true
  email: "<your email>"
  password: "<your password>"

email:
  from_address: "<your from email>"
  host: smtp
  port: 25
  use_tls: false
  user: "<your email username>"
  password: "<your email password>"
  enable_replies: false

ingress:
  enabled: true
  hostname: "<sentry.example.com>"

# Needs to be here between runs.
# See https://github.com/helm/charts/tree/master/stable/postgresql#upgrade for more info
postgresql:
  postgresqlPassword: example-postgresql-password

Support for installing the Sentry managed application is provided by the GitLab Health group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Health group.

Install PostHog using GitLab CI/CD

Deprecated in GitLab 13.12.

PostHog 🦔 is a developer-friendly, open-source product analytics platform.

To install PostHog into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster, define the .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml file with:

posthog:
  installed: true

You can customize the installation of PostHog by defining .gitlab/managed-apps/posthog/values.yaml in your cluster management project. Refer to the Configuration section of the PostHog chart's README for the available configuration options.

You must provide a PostgreSQL password in postgresql.postgresqlPassword to avoid authentication errors. Read the PostgreSQL chart documentation for more information.

Redis pods are restarted between upgrades. To prevent downtime, provide a Redis password using the redis.password key. This prevents a new password from being generated on each restart.

Here is an example configuration for PostHog:

ingress:
  enabled: true
  hostname: "<posthog.example.com>"

# This will be autogenerated if you skip it. Include if you have 2 or more web replicas
posthogSecret: 'long-secret-key-used-to-sign-cookies'

# Needs to be here between runs.
# See https://github.com/helm/charts/tree/master/stable/postgresql#upgrade for more info
postgresql:
  postgresqlPassword: example-postgresql-password

# Recommended to set this to a value to redis prevent downtime between upgrades
redis:
  password: example-redis-password

Support for the PostHog managed application is provided by the PostHog team. If you run into issues, open a support ticket directly.

Install Prometheus using GitLab CI/CD

Prometheus is an open-source monitoring and alerting system for supervising your deployed applications.

To install Prometheus into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster, define the .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml file with:

prometheus:
  installed: true

You can customize the installation of Prometheus by defining .gitlab/managed-apps/prometheus/values.yaml in your cluster management project. Refer to the Configuration section of the Prometheus chart's README for the available configuration options.

Support for installing the Prometheus managed application is provided by the GitLab APM group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the APM group.

Install GitLab Runner using GitLab CI/CD

Deprecated in GitLab 13.12.

GitLab Runner is installed using GitLab CI/CD by defining configuration in .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml.

The following configuration is required to install GitLab Runner using GitLab CI/CD:

gitlabRunner:
  installed: true

GitLab Runner is installed into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster.

For GitLab Runner to function, you must specify the following:

  • gitlabUrl: The GitLab server full URL (for example, https://gitlab.example.com) to register the Runner against.
  • runnerRegistrationToken: The registration token for adding new runners to GitLab. This must be retrieved from your GitLab instance.

These values can be specified using CI/CD variables:

  • GITLAB_RUNNER_GITLAB_URL is used for gitlabUrl.
  • GITLAB_RUNNER_REGISTRATION_TOKEN is used for runnerRegistrationToken

The methods of specifying these values are mutually exclusive. Either specify variables GITLAB_RUNNER_REGISTRATION_TOKEN and GITLAB_RUNNER_TOKEN as CI variables (recommended) or provide values for runnerRegistrationToken: and runnerToken: in .gitlab/managed-apps/gitlab-runner/values.yaml. If you choose to use CI variables, comment out or remove runnerRegistrationToken: and runnerToken: from .gitlab/managed-apps/gitlab-runner/values.

The runner registration token allows connection to a project by a runner and therefore should be treated as a secret to prevent malicious use and code exfiltration through a runner. For this reason, we recommend that you specify the runner registration token as a protected variable and masked variable and do not commit them to the Git repository in the values.yaml file.

You can customize the installation of GitLab Runner by defining .gitlab/managed-apps/gitlab-runner/values.yaml file in your cluster management project. Refer to the chart for the available configuration options.

Support for installing the GitLab Runner managed application is provided by the GitLab Runner group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Runner group.

Install Cilium using GitLab CI/CD

Cilium is a networking plugin for Kubernetes that you can use to implement support for NetworkPolicy resources. For more information, see Network Policies.

For an overview, see the Container Network Security Demo for GitLab 12.8.

Enable Cilium in the .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml file to install it:

# possible values are gke or eks
clusterType: gke

cilium:
  installed: true

The clusterType variable enables the recommended Helm variables for a corresponding cluster type. You can check the recommended variables for each cluster type in the official documentation:

Do not use clusterType for sandbox environments like Minikube.

You can customize Cilium's Helm variables by defining the .gitlab/managed-apps/cilium/values.yaml file in your cluster management project. Refer to the Cilium chart for the available configuration options.

You can check Cilium's installation status on the cluster management page:

WARNING: Installation and removal of the Cilium requires a manual restart of all affected pods in all namespaces to ensure that they are managed by the correct networking plugin. Whenever Hubble is enabled, its related pod might require a restart depending on whether it started prior to Cilium. For more information, see Failed Deployment in the Kubernetes docs.

NOTE: Major upgrades might require additional setup steps. For more information, see the official upgrade guide.

By default, Cilium's audit mode is enabled. In audit mode, Cilium doesn't drop disallowed packets. You can use policy-verdict log to observe policy-related decisions. You can disable audit mode by adding the following to .gitlab/managed-apps/cilium/values.yaml:

config:
  policyAuditMode: false

agent:
  monitor:
    eventTypes: ["drop"]

The Cilium monitor log for traffic is logged out by the cilium-monitor sidecar container. You can check these logs with the following command:

kubectl -n gitlab-managed-apps logs -l k8s-app=cilium -c cilium-monitor

You can disable the monitor log in .gitlab/managed-apps/cilium/values.yaml:

agent:
  monitor:
    enabled: false

The Hubble monitoring daemon is enabled by default and it's set to collect per namespace flow metrics. This metrics are accessible on the Threat Monitoring dashboard. You can disable Hubble by adding the following to .gitlab/managed-apps/cilium/values.yaml:

global:
  hubble:
    enabled: false

You can also adjust Helm values for Hubble by using .gitlab/managed-apps/cilium/values.yaml:

global:
  hubble:
    enabled: true
    metrics:
      enabled:
      - 'flow:sourceContext=namespace;destinationContext=namespace'

Support for installing the Cilium managed application is provided by the GitLab Container Security group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Container Security group.

Install Falco using GitLab CI/CD

GitLab Container Host Security Monitoring uses Falco as a runtime security tool that listens to the Linux kernel using eBPF. Falco parses system calls and asserts the stream against a configurable rules engine in real-time. For more information, see Falco's Documentation.

You can enable Falco in the .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml file:

falco:
  installed: true

You can customize Falco's Helm variables by defining the .gitlab/managed-apps/falco/values.yaml file in your cluster management project. Refer to the Falco chart for the available configuration options.

WARNING: By default eBPF support is enabled and Falco uses an eBPF probe to pass system calls to user space. If your cluster doesn't support this, you can configure it to use Falco kernel module instead by adding the following to .gitlab/managed-apps/falco/values.yaml:

ebpf:
  enabled: false

In rare cases where probe installation on your cluster isn't possible and the kernel/probe isn't pre-compiled, you may need to manually prepare the kernel module or eBPF probe with driverkit and install it on each cluster node.

By default, Falco is deployed with a limited set of rules. To add more rules, add the following to .gitlab/managed-apps/falco/values.yaml (you can get examples from Cloud Native Security Hub):

customRules:
  file-integrity.yaml: |-
    - rule: Detect New File
      desc: detect new file created
      condition: >
        evt.type = chmod or evt.type = fchmod
      output: >
        File below a known directory opened for writing (user=%user.name
        command=%proc.cmdline file=%fd.name parent=%proc.pname pcmdline=%proc.pcmdline gparent=%proc.aname[2])
      priority: ERROR
      tags: [filesystem]
    - rule: Detect New Directory
      desc: detect new directory created
      condition: >
        mkdir
      output: >
        File below a known directory opened for writing (user=%user.name
        command=%proc.cmdline file=%fd.name parent=%proc.pname pcmdline=%proc.pcmdline gparent=%proc.aname[2])
      priority: ERROR
      tags: [filesystem]

By default, Falco only outputs security events to logs as JSON objects. To set it to output to an external API or application, add the following to .gitlab/managed-apps/falco/values.yaml:

falco:
  programOutput:
    enabled: true
    keepAlive: false
    program: mail -s "Falco Notification" someone@example.com

  httpOutput:
    enabled: true
    url: http://some.url

You can check these logs with the following command:

kubectl -n gitlab-managed-apps logs -l app=falco

Support for installing the Falco managed application is provided by the GitLab Container Security group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Container Security group.

Install Vault using GitLab CI/CD

HashiCorp Vault is a secrets management solution which can be used to safely manage and store passwords, credentials, certificates, and more. A Vault installation could be leveraged to provide a single secure data store for credentials used in your applications, GitLab CI/CD jobs, and more. It could also serve as a way of providing SSL/TLS certificates to systems and deployments in your infrastructure. Leveraging Vault as a single source for all these credentials allows greater security by having a single source of access, control, and auditability around all your sensitive credentials and certificates. This feature requires giving GitLab the highest level of access and control. Therefore, if GitLab is compromised, the security of this Vault instance is as well. To avoid this security risk, GitLab recommends using your own HashiCorp Vault to leverage external secrets with CI.

To install Vault, enable it in the .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml file:

vault:
  installed: true

By default you receive a basic Vault setup with no scalable storage backend. This is enough for simple testing and small-scale deployments, though has limits to how much it can scale, and as it's a single instance deployment, upgrading the Vault application causes downtime.

To optimally use Vault in a production environment, it's ideal to have a good understanding of the internals of Vault and how to configure it. This can be done by reading the Vault Configuration guide, the Vault documentation and the Vault Helm chart values.yaml file.

At a minimum, most users set up:

The following is an example values file (.gitlab/managed-apps/vault/values.yaml) that configures Google Key Management Service for auto-unseal, using a Google Cloud Storage backend, enabling the Vault UI, and enabling HA with 3 pod replicas. The storage and seal stanzas below are examples and should be replaced with settings specific to your environment.

# Enable the Vault WebUI
ui:
  enabled: true
server:
  # Disable the built in data storage volume as it's not safe for High Availability mode
  dataStorage:
    enabled: false
  # Enable High Availability Mode
  ha:
    enabled: true
    # Configure Vault to listen on port 8200 for normal traffic and port 8201 for inter-cluster traffic
    config: |
      listener "tcp" {
        tls_disable = 1
        address = "[::]:8200"
        cluster_address = "[::]:8201"
      }
      # Configure Vault to store its data in a GCS Bucket backend
      storage "gcs" {
        path = "gcs://my-vault-storage/vault-bucket"
        ha_enabled = "true"
      }
      # Configure Vault to unseal storage using a GKMS key
      seal "gcpckms" {
         project     = "vault-helm-dev-246514"
         region      = "global"
         key_ring    = "vault-helm-unseal-kr"
         crypto_key  = "vault-helm-unseal-key"
      }

After you have successfully installed Vault, you must initialize the Vault and obtain the initial root token. You need access to your Kubernetes cluster that Vault has been deployed into in order to do this. To initialize the Vault, get a shell to one of the Vault pods running inside Kubernetes (typically this is done by using the kubectl command line tool). After you have a shell into the pod, run the vault operator init command:

kubectl -n gitlab-managed-apps exec -it vault-0 sh
/ $ vault operator init

This should give you your unseal keys and initial root token. Make sure to note these down and keep these safe, as they're required to unseal the Vault throughout its lifecycle.

Support for installing the Vault managed application is provided by the GitLab Release Management group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Release Management group.

Install JupyterHub using GitLab CI/CD

JupyterHub is installed using GitLab CI/CD by defining configuration in .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml as follows:

jupyterhub:
  installed: true
  gitlabProjectIdWhitelist: []
  gitlabGroupWhitelist: []

In the configuration:

  • gitlabProjectIdWhitelist restricts GitLab authentication to only members of the specified projects.
  • gitlabGroupWhitelist restricts GitLab authentication to only members of the specified groups.
  • Specifying an empty array for both allows any user on the GitLab instance to sign in.

JupyterHub is installed into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster.

For JupyterHub to function, you must set up an OAuth Application. Set:

  • "Redirect URI" to http://<JupyterHub Host>/hub/oauth_callback.
  • "Scope" to api read_repository write_repository.

In addition, the following variables must be specified using CI/CD variables:

  • JUPYTERHUB_PROXY_SECRET_TOKEN - Secure string used for signing communications from the hub. Read proxy.secretToken.
  • JUPYTERHUB_COOKIE_SECRET - Secure string used for signing secure cookies. Read hub.cookieSecret.
  • JUPYTERHUB_HOST - Hostname used for the installation. For example, jupyter.gitlab.example.com.
  • JUPYTERHUB_GITLAB_HOST - Hostname of the GitLab instance used for authentication. For example, gitlab.example.com.
  • JUPYTERHUB_AUTH_CRYPTO_KEY - A 32-byte encryption key used to set auth.state.cryptoKey.
  • JUPYTERHUB_AUTH_GITLAB_CLIENT_ID - "Application ID" for the OAuth Application.
  • JUPYTERHUB_AUTH_GITLAB_CLIENT_SECRET - "Secret" for the OAuth Application.

By default, JupyterHub is installed using a default values file. You can customize the installation of JupyterHub by defining a .gitlab/managed-apps/jupyterhub/values.yaml file in your cluster management project.

Refer to the chart reference for the available configuration options.

Support for installing the JupyterHub managed application is provided by the GitLab Configure group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Configure group.

Install Elastic Stack using GitLab CI/CD

Elastic Stack is installed using GitLab CI/CD by defining configuration in .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml.

The following configuration is required to install Elastic Stack using GitLab CI/CD:

elasticStack:
  installed: true

Elastic Stack is installed into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster.

You can check the default values.yaml we set for this chart.

You can customize the installation of Elastic Stack by defining .gitlab/managed-apps/elastic-stack/values.yaml file in your cluster management project. Refer to the chart for all available configuration options.

Support for installing the Elastic Stack managed application is provided by the GitLab APM group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the APM group.

Install Crossplane using GitLab CI/CD

Crossplane is installed using GitLab CI/CD by defining configuration in .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml.

The following configuration is required to install Crossplane using GitLab CI/CD:

Crossplane:
  installed: true

Crossplane is installed into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster.

You can check the default values.yaml we set for this chart.

You can customize the installation of Crossplane by defining .gitlab/managed-apps/crossplane/values.yaml file in your cluster management project. Refer to the chart for the available configuration options. Note that this link points to the documentation for the current development release, which may differ from the version you have installed.

Support for the Crossplane managed application is provided by the Crossplane team. If you run into issues, open a support ticket directly.

Install Fluentd using GitLab CI/CD

To install Fluentd into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster using GitLab CI/CD, define the following configuration in .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml:

Fluentd:
  installed: true

You can also review the default values set for this chart in the values.yaml file.

You can customize the installation of Fluentd by defining .gitlab/managed-apps/fluentd/values.yaml file in your cluster management project. Refer to the configuration chart for the current development release of Fluentd for all available configuration options.

The configuration chart link points to the current development release, which may differ from the version you have installed. To ensure compatibility, switch to the specific branch or tag you are using.

Support for installing the Fluentd managed application is provided by the GitLab Container Security group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Container Security group.

Install Knative using GitLab CI/CD

Deprecated in GitLab 13.12.

To install Knative, define the .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml file with:

knative:
  installed: true

You can customize the installation of Knative by defining .gitlab/managed-apps/knative/values.yaml file in your cluster management project. Refer to the chart for all available configuration options.

Here is an example configuration for Knative:

domain: 'my.wildcard.A.record.dns'

If you plan to use GitLab Serverless capabilities, be sure to set an A record wildcard domain on your custom configuration.

Support for installing the Knative managed application is provided by the GitLab Configure group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Configure group.

Knative Metrics

GitLab provides Invocation Metrics for your functions. To collect these metrics, you must have:

  1. Knative and Prometheus managed applications installed on your cluster.

  2. Manually applied the custom metrics on your cluster by running the following command:

    kubectl apply -f https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cluster-integration/cluster-applications/-/raw/02c8231e30ef5b6725e6ba368bc63863ceb3c07d/src/default-data/knative/istio-metrics.yaml

Uninstall Knative

To uninstall Knative, you must first manually remove any custom metrics you have added by running the following command:

kubectl delete -f https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cluster-integration/cluster-applications/-/raw/02c8231e30ef5b6725e6ba368bc63863ceb3c07d/src/default-data/knative/istio-metrics.yaml

Install AppArmor using GitLab CI/CD

To install AppArmor into the gitlab-managed-apps namespace of your cluster using GitLab CI/CD, define the following configuration in .gitlab/managed-apps/config.yaml:

apparmor:
  installed: true

You can define one or more AppArmor profiles by adding them into .gitlab/managed-apps/apparmor/values.yaml as the following:

profiles:
  profile-one: |-
    profile profile-one {
      file,
    }

Refer to the AppArmor chart for more information on this chart.

Using AppArmor profiles in your deployments

After installing AppAmor, you can use profiles by adding Pod Annotations. If you're using Auto DevOps, you can customize auto-deploy-values.yaml to annotate your pods. Although it's helpful to be aware of the list of custom attributes, you're only required to set podAnnotations as follows:

podAnnotations:
  container.apparmor.security.beta.kubernetes.io/auto-deploy-app: localhost/profile-one

The only information to be changed here is the profile name which is profile-one in this example. Refer to the AppArmor tutorial for more information on how AppArmor is integrated in Kubernetes.

Using PodSecurityPolicy in your deployments

To enable AppArmor annotations on a Pod Security Policy you must first load the corresponding AppArmor profile.

Pod Security Policies are resources at the cluster level that control security-related properties of deployed pods. You can use such a policy to enable loaded AppArmor profiles and apply necessary pod restrictions across a cluster. You can deploy a new policy by adding the following to.gitlab/managed-apps/apparmor/values.yaml:

securityPolicies:
  example:
    defaultProfile: profile-one
    allowedProfiles:
    - profile-one
    - profile-two
    spec:
      privileged: false
      seLinux:
        rule: RunAsAny
      supplementalGroups:
        rule: RunAsAny
      runAsUser:
        rule: RunAsAny
      fsGroup:
        rule: RunAsAny
      volumes:
        - '*'

This example creates a single policy named example with the provided specification, and enables AppArmor annotations on it.

Support for installing the AppArmor managed application is provided by the GitLab Container Security group. If you run into unknown issues, open a new issue, and ping at least 2 people from the Container Security group.

Install with one click (REMOVED)

Removed in GitLab 14.0.

The one-click installation method was deprecated in GitLab 13.9 and removed in GitLab 14.0. The removal does not break nor uninstall any apps you have installed, it only removes the "Applications" tab from the cluster page. The new recommended way to manage cluster applications is to use the cluster management project template.

If you are not yet on GitLab 14.0 or later, you can refer to an older version of this document.

Browse applications logs

Introduced in GitLab 13.2.

Logs produced by pods running GitLab Managed Apps can be browsed using Log Explorer.

Take ownership of your GitLab Managed Apps

Introduced in GitLab 13.12.

With the removal of the One-click install method in GitLab 14.0, the Applications tab (under your project's Infrastructure > Kubernetes clusters) is no longer displayed:

GitLab Managed Apps - Applications tab

This tab was dedicated to installing and maintaining GitLab Managed Apps. To continue managing your installed applications, one of the possible ways is to install Helm locally, as described below.

View installed applications

To view the applications you have installed in your cluster through GitLab Managed Apps, you need to verify the resources you have in the gitlab-managed-apps namespace. On your computer, configure kubectl to connect to your cluster, open the terminal and run:

kubectl get all -n gitlab-managed-apps

If there is no output or the namespace does not exist, you do not have any applications installed through GitLab Managed Apps. If this is the case, you have nothing else to do.

Identify the Helm version

Next, verify which Helm version GitLab used to install your applications.

For apps installed with Helm v3

To list your apps installed with Helm v3, run:

kubectl get secrets -n gitlab-managed-apps | grep 'helm.sh/release'

You can manage these applications with Helm v3 and you don't need any further steps.

All applications not listed with the command above were installed with Helm v2.

For apps installed with Helm v2

If you have apps installed with Helm v2, you can either:

  • A. Install Helm v3 and upgrade your apps to Helm v3.
  • B. Install Helm v2 and keep using this Helm version, which is not recommended as Helm v2 was deprecated in favor of Helm v3.

If you choose to keep using Helm v2 (B), follow the steps below to manage your apps:

  1. Install Helm v2 in your computer.

  2. Start a local Tiller server:

    export TILLER_NAMESPACE=gitlab-managed-apps
tiller -listen localhost:44134

  3. In another tab, initialize your Helm client:

    export HELM_HOST="localhost:44134"
helm init --client-only

  4. Now your environment is ready to manage your apps with Helm v2. For example, to list your releases:

    helm ls

Cluster integrations

Some applications were not only installed in your cluster by GitLab through Managed Apps but were also directly integrated with GitLab. If you had one of these applications installed before GitLab 14.0, then a corresponding cluster integration has been automatically enabled: