Secure Files administration

DETAILS: Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: Self-managed

Introduced in GitLab 14.8 with a flag named ci_secure_files. Disabled by default.

Generally available in GitLab 15.7. Feature flag ci_secure_files removed.

You can securely store up to 100 files for use in CI/CD pipelines as secure files. These files are stored securely outside of your project's repository and are not version controlled. It is safe to store sensitive information in these files. Secure files support both plain text and binary file types, and must be 5 MB or less.

The storage location of these files can be configured using the options described below, but the default locations are:

/var/opt/gitlab/gitlab-rails/shared/ci_secure_files for installations using the Linux package.
/home/git/gitlab/shared/ci_secure_files for self-compiled installations.

Use external object storage configuration for GitLab Helm chart installations.

Disabling Secure Files

You can disable Secure Files across the entire GitLab instance. You might want to disable Secure Files to reduce disk space, or to remove access to the feature.

To disable Secure Files, follow the steps below according to your installation.

Prerequisites:

You must be an administrator.

For Linux package installations

Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line:
```
gitlab_rails['ci_secure_files_enabled'] = false
```
Save the file and reconfigure GitLab.

For self-compiled installations

Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:
```
ci_secure_files:
  enabled: false
```
Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Using local storage

The default configuration uses local storage. To change the location where Secure Files are stored locally, follow the steps below.

For Linux package installations

To change the storage path for example to /mnt/storage/ci_secure_files, edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line:
```
gitlab_rails['ci_secure_files_storage_path'] = "/mnt/storage/ci_secure_files"
```
Save the file and reconfigure GitLab.

For self-compiled installations

To change the storage path for example to /mnt/storage/ci_secure_files, edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:
```
ci_secure_files:
  enabled: true
  storage_path: /mnt/storage/ci_secure_files
```
Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Using object storage

DETAILS: Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate Offering: Self-managed

Instead of storing Secure Files on disk, you should use one of the supported object storage options. This configuration relies on valid credentials to be configured already.

NOTE: This feature is not supported by consolidated object storage configuration. Adding support is proposed in issue 414673.

Object storage settings

The following settings are:

Nested under ci_secure_files: and then object_store: on self-compiled installations.
Prefixed by ci_secure_files_object_store_ on Linux package installations.

Setting	Description	Default
`enabled`	Enable/disable object storage	`false`
`remote_directory`	The bucket name where Secure Files are stored
`connection`	Various connection options described below

S3-compatible connection settings

See the available connection settings for different providers.

For Linux package installations:

Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following lines, but using the values you want:

gitlab_rails['ci_secure_files_object_store_enabled'] = true
gitlab_rails['ci_secure_files_object_store_remote_directory'] = "ci_secure_files"
gitlab_rails['ci_secure_files_object_store_connection'] = {
  'provider' => 'AWS',
  'region' => 'eu-central-1',
  'aws_access_key_id' => 'AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID',
  'aws_secret_access_key' => 'AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'
}

NOTE: If you are using AWS IAM profiles, be sure to omit the AWS access key and secret access key/value pairs:

gitlab_rails['ci_secure_files_object_store_connection'] = {
  'provider' => 'AWS',
  'region' => 'eu-central-1',
  'use_iam_profile' => true
}

Save the file and reconfigure GitLab.
Migrate any existing local states to the object storage.

For self-compiled installations

Edit /home/git/gitlab/config/gitlab.yml and add or amend the following lines:

ci_secure_files:
  enabled: true
  object_store:
    enabled: true
    remote_directory: "ci_secure_files"  # The bucket name
    connection:
      provider: AWS  # Only AWS supported at the moment
      aws_access_key_id: AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID
      aws_secret_access_key: AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
      region: eu-central-1

Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.
Migrate any existing local states to the object storage.

Migrate to object storage

Introduced in GitLab 16.1.

WARNING: It's not possible to migrate Secure Files from object storage back to local storage, so proceed with caution.

To migrate Secure Files to object storage, follow the instructions below.

For Linux package installations:

sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:ci_secure_files:migrate

For self-compiled installations:

sudo -u git -H bundle exec rake gitlab:ci_secure_files:migrate RAILS_ENV=production