Connect to a GitLab host

This page explains how to connect a GitLab host to Cloud Build.

Before you begin

• Enable the Cloud Build and Secret Manager APIs.

  Roles required to enable APIs

  To enable APIs, you need the serviceusage.services.enable permission. If you created the project, then you likely already have this permission through the Owner role (roles/owner). Otherwise, you can get this permission through the Service Usage Admin role (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin). Learn how to grant roles.

  Enable the APIs

Connect to a GitLab host

Before creating a host connection for your GitLab instance, you must create personal access tokens in GitLab by completing the following steps:

1. Log into your GitLab instance.

2. On the GitLab page for your instance, click your avatar in the upper-right corner.

3. Click Edit profile.

4. On the left sidebar, select Access tokens.

   You see the Personal Access Tokens page.

5. Create an access token with the api scope to use for connecting and disconnecting repositories.

6. Create an access token with the read_api scope to ensure Cloud Build repositories can access source code in repositories.

   Note: In addition to personal access tokens, you can also use project access tokens. If your GitLab version is 14.2 or higher, you can also use group access tokens. If you use project or group access tokens, select the Maintainer role to ensure a successful connection.

Console

To connect your GitLab host to Cloud Build:

1. Open the Repositories page in the Google Cloud console.

   Open the Repositories page

   You see the Repositories page.

2. At the top of the page, select the 2nd gen tab.

3. In the project selector in the top bar, select your Google Cloud project.

4. Click Create host connection to connect a new host to Cloud Build.

5. On the left panel, select GitLab as your source provider.

6. In the Configure Connection section, enter the following information:

   • Region: Select a region for your connection.

     Note: You must specify a region. Your connection cannot exist globally.

   • Name: Enter a name for your connection.

7. In the Host details section, go to GitLab host and select GitLab.com.

8. Optional: If you want to manage the encryption keys used to encrypt the access tokens for your GitLab repositories, then go to the Encryption section and choose a Cloud Key Management Service key. For more information, see Enable customer-managed encryption keys for Secret Manager.

9. In the Personal access tokens section, enter the following information:

   • API access token: Enter the token with the api scope access. This token is used for connecting and disconnecting repositories.

   • Read API access token: Enter the token with the read_api scope access. Cloud Build triggers use this token to access source code in repositories.

10. Click Connect.

    After clicking the Connect button, your personal access tokens are securely stored in Secret Manager. Following host connection, Cloud Build also creates a webhook secret on your behalf. You can view and manage your secrets on the Secret Manager page.

You have now successfully created a GitLab connection.

gcloud

Prior to connecting your GitLab host to Cloud Build, complete the following steps to store your credentials:

1. Store your token in Secret Manager.

2. Create a webhook secret in Secret Manager by running the following command:

    cat /proc/sys/kernel/random/uuid | tr -d '\n' | gcloud secrets create my-gle-webhook-secret --data-file=-
   

3. If you store your secrets in a different Google Cloud project than the one you plan to use to create a host connection, enter the following command to grant your project access to the Cloud Build service agent:

   PN=$(gcloud projects describe PROJECT_ID --format="value(projectNumber)")
   CLOUD_BUILD_SERVICE_AGENT="service-${PN}@gcp-sa-cloudbuild.iam.gserviceaccount.com"
   gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID \
     --member="serviceAccount:${CLOUD_BUILD_SERVICE_AGENT}" \
     --role="roles/secretmanager.admin"
   

   Where:

   • PROJECT_ID is your Google Cloud project ID.

You can now proceed to connect your GitLab host to Cloud Build.

Complete the following steps:

To connect your GitLab host to Cloud Build:

1. Enter the following command to create a GitLab connection:

   gcloud builds connections create gitlab CONNECTION_NAME \
     --host-uri=HOST_URI \
     --project=PROJECT_ID \
     --region=REGION \
     --authorizer-token-secret-version=projects/PROJECT_ID/secrets/API_TOKEN/versions/SECRET_VERSION \
     --read-authorizer-token-secret-version=projects/PROJECT_ID/secrets/READ_TOKEN/versions/SECRET_VERSION \
     --webhook-secret-secret-version=projects/PROJECT_ID/secrets/WEBHOOK_SECRET/versions/SECRET_VERSION
   

   Where:

   • CONNECTION_NAME is a name for your GitLab host connection in Cloud Build.
   • HOST_URI is the URI of your GitLab instance. For example, https://my-gle-server.net.
   • PROJECT_ID is your Google Cloud project ID.
   • REGION is the region for your connection.
   • API_TOKEN is the name of your token with apiscope.
   • READ_TOKEN is the name of your token with read_apiscope.
   • SECRET_VERSION is the version of your secret.
   • WEBHOOK_SECRET is your webhook secret.

You have now successfully created a GitLab connection.

Rotate old or expired GitLab access tokens

Rotate your access tokens so that your Cloud Build host connection can maintain its connection to your GitLab repository. If your GitLab access token expires, then your Cloud Build host connection is disconnected from its GitLab repository. When this happens, you can't disable the connection or link a repository until you rotate the expired token. In addition, you will see errors in the following circumstances:

• The Connections detail page for your connection shows an error message stating Connection is disconnected due to an invalid or expired access token.

• If you try to link a repository to a connection that has an expired token, you see an Invalid access token message. Clicking View connection takes you to the Connection details page for the connection with the expired token.

Cloud Build lets you rotate access tokens by entering new token values and saving them in Secret Manager in the latest secret version for those tokens. To rotate your access tokens, do the following:

1. Rotate each access token in GitLab:

   1. Go to the GitLab repository connected to your Cloud Build host connection.

   2. Follow the instructions in the GitLab documentation to rotate an access token. When you rotate a token, GitLab creates a new token with new credentials and invalidates the previous version of that token. Your rotated token has the same permissions and scope as the original token.

   3. Copy the IDs of your rotated tokens.

2. Update your access token in Cloud Build:

   1. Go to the Connection details page for your connection.

   2. Select Update access tokens.

   3. In the Token rotation menu, enter your new tokens in the API access token and Read access token fields.

   4. (Optional): If you want your connection to always use the latest version of the secret for your tokens, select Update connection to always use latest version. Leaving this option unselected may be helpful if your connection uses a specific secret version number.

   5. Select Update to save your changes.

      Cloud Build saves the new access tokens as the latest version of your secret in Secret Manager.

For more information, see Access token expiration in the GitLab documentation.

What's next

• Learn how to connect a GitLab repository.
• Learn how to build and deploy your workloads to Google Cloud using Google-managed CI/CD components in your GitLab pipeline. See GitLab on Google Cloud.