gitlab2rbac

Version 1.1.0 is the last stable version. gitlab2rbac is used in production with kubernetes version 1.27.

gitlab2rbac ensures that your Kubernetes cluster users have the same permissions than on GitLab.

It takes GitLab Permissions by project as input and generates RBAC objects inside Kubernetes.

Installation

Requirements

Before anything else, gitlab2rbac requires:

• RBAC enabled on your Kubernetes cluster
• GitLab API with v4 support

Deploy with helm

helm install gitlab2rbac /path/to/chart/gitla2rbac --create-namespace gitlab2rbac --set data.GITLAB_URL=<your_gitlab_instance_url>,data.GITLAB_PRIVATE_TOKEN=<your_private_token>,data.KUBERNETES_LOAD_INCLUSTER_CONFIG=True

or

Configuration

gitlab2rbac needs a namespace, cluster roles and cluster role bindings. Create them with:

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/numberly/gitlab2rbac/master/deploy/configuration.yaml

You will then need to create a ConfigMap that contains all the useful information for gitlab2rbac:

cat <<EOF | kubectl create -f -
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: gitlab2rbac
  namespace: gitlab2rbac
data:
  GITLAB_URL: https://{{ your GitLab instance URL }}
  GITLAB_PRIVATE_TOKEN: {{ your GitLab private token }}
  KUBERNETES_LOAD_INCLUSTER_CONFIG: "True"
EOF

Deployment

Finally, just apply the manifest:

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/numberly/gitlab2rbac/master/deploy/gitlab2rbac.yaml

This will deploy gitlab2rbac to your cluster, under the gitlab2rbac namespace. The components in the manifest are:

• the deployment, which is the cluster-wide controller that handles RBAC policies
• the service account and the RBAC permissions that the controller needs to function

Running locally

Requirements

• A kube environment, you can set up a minikube
• Python 3 (should also work with Python 2 but it's not supported)
• Virtualenv (recommended)

Setup

Even if gitlab2rbac doesn't run inside Kubernetes, it needs a cluster with existing cluster roles. Create them with:

$ kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/numberly/gitlab2rbac/master/deploy/configuration.yaml

Then you can clone the repository, install the dependencies and run gitlab2rbac:

$ git clone https://github.com/numberly/gitlab2rbac.git
$ cd gitlab2rbac
$ virtualenv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
(.venv) $ pip install -r requirements.txt
(.venv) $ GITLAB_URL={{ your GitLab instance URL }} GITLAB_PRIVATE_TOKEN={{ your GitLab private token }} python gitlab2rbac.py

Default configuration

Roles description

Role	Use cases	Typical examples
Guest	Inspiration	Someone from another team
Reporter	Complete overview, tests	Project manager, marketing
Developer	Deployment, debug	Engineer, technical project manager
Maintainer	Sensitive configurations	Lead/senior engineer

RBAC grid

What we mean by R and W is defined by Kubernetes API verbs:

• Read (R): get, list, watch
• Write (W): create, update, patch, delete, deletecollection

Cluster-wide

Any authenticated user has access to those cluster-wide resources:

• apiservices
• componentstatuses (deprecated in v1.19+)
• namespaces
• nodes

Any admin on GitLab is an admin of the Kubernetes cluster.

Workload

Resource	Guest	Reporter	Developer	Maintainer
cronjobs	R	R	R+W	R+W
daemonsets	R	R	R+W	R+W
deployments	R	R	R+W	R+W
horizontalpodautoscalers	R	R	R+W	R+W
ingresses	R	R	R+W	R+W
jobs	R	R	R+W	R+W
pods	R	R	R+W	R+W
replicasets	R	R	R+W	R+W
replicationcontrollers	R	R	R+W	R+W
services	R	R	R+W	R+W
statefulsets	R	R	R+W	R+W
verticalpodautoscalers	R	R	R+W	R+W
events		R	R	R+W

Actions

Resource	Guest	Reporter	Developer	Maintainer
pods/log		R+W	R+W	R+W
pods/portforward		R+W	R+W	R+W
deployments/rollback			R+W	R+W
deployments/scale			R+W	R+W
pods/attach			R+W	R+W
pods/exec			R+W	R+W
replicasets/scale			R+W	R+W
replicationcontrollers/scale			R+W	R+W
statefulsets/scale			R+W	R+W

Setup

Resource	Guest	Reporter	Developer	Maintainer
configmaps	R	R	R+W	R+W
endpoints	R	R	R+W	R+W
networkpolicies	R	R	R+W	R+W
persistentvolumeclaims	R	R	R+W	R+W
persistentvolumeclaims/status	R	R	R+W	R+W
poddisruptionbudgets	R	R	R+W	R+W
poddisruptionbudgets/status	R	R	R+W	R+W
serviceaccounts	R	R	R+W	R+W
certificates			R+W	R+W
secrets			R+W	R+W
limitranges			R	R+W
resourcequotas			R	R+W
rolebindings			R	R+W
roles			R	R+W

Advanced configuration

gitlab2rbac supports multiple environment variables for advanced configuration:

Flag	Description	Default
GITLAB2RBAC_FREQUENCY	Update interval in seconds.	60
GITLAB_ADMINS_GROUP	Base your k8s admins on GitLab namespace (None means GitLab administrators).	None
GITLAB_GROUPS_SEARCH	Limit to those groups (separated by commas, empty means all groups).	gitlab2rbac
GITLAB_NAMESPACE_GRANULARITY	Whether to get permissions from GitLab projects or groups.	project
GITLAB_PRIVATE_TOKEN	Configure gitlab API token.
GITLAB_TIMEOUT	Timeout for GitLab operations, in seconds.	10
GITLAB_URL	Configure gitlab API target.
KUBERNETES_AUTO_CREATE	Replicate GitLab groups/projects as Kubernetes namespaces.	False
KUBERNETES_LOAD_INCLUSTER_CONFIG	Load configuration inside Kubernetes when gitlab2rbac runs as a pod.	False
KUBERNETES_TIMEOUT	Timeout for Kubernetes operations, in seconds.	10

License

MIT