Secure Files administration

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• Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate
• Offering: GitLab Self-Managed

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• Generally available and feature flag ci_secure_files removed in GitLab 15.7.

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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

1. Edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line:

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   gitlab_rails['ci_secure_files_enabled'] = false
   

2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab.

For self-compiled installations

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

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   ci_secure_files:
     enabled: false
   

2. 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

1. To change the storage path for example to /mnt/storage/ci_secure_files, edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb and add the following line:

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   gitlab_rails['ci_secure_files_storage_path'] = "/mnt/storage/ci_secure_files"
   

2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab.

For self-compiled installations

1. 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:

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   ci_secure_files:
     enabled: true
     storage_path: /mnt/storage/ci_secure_files
   

2. Save the file and restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.

Using object storage

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• Tier: Free, Premium, Ultimate
• Offering: GitLab Self-Managed

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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.

Consolidated object storage

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• Support for consolidated object storage was introduced in GitLab 17.0.

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Using the consolidated form of the object storage is recommended.

Storage-specific object storage

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.

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{{< tab title="Linux package (Omnibus)" >}}

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

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   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:

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

2. Save the file and reconfigure GitLab:

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   sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure
   

3. Migrate any existing local states to the object storage.

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

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   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
   

2. Save the file and restart GitLab:

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   # For systems running systemd
   sudo systemctl restart gitlab.target
   
   # For systems running SysV init
   sudo service gitlab restart
   

3. Migrate any existing local states to the object storage.

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Migrate to object storage

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• Introduced in GitLab 16.1.

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[!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:

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  sudo gitlab-rake gitlab:ci_secure_files:migrate
  

• For self-compiled installations:

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