Container scanning

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Security vulnerabilities in container images create risk throughout your application lifecycle. Container scanning detects these risks early, before they reach production environments. When vulnerabilities appear in your base images or operating system's packages, container scanning identifies them and provides a remediation path for those that it can.

• <i class="fa-youtube-play" aria-hidden="true"></i> For an overview, see Container scanning - Advanced Security Testing.
• <i class="fa-youtube-play" aria-hidden="true"></i> For a video walkthrough, see How to set up container scanning using GitLab.
• For an introductory tutorial, see Scan a Docker container for vulnerabilities.

Container scanning is often considered part of Software Composition Analysis (SCA). SCA can contain aspects of inspecting the items your code uses. These items typically include application and system dependencies that are almost always imported from external sources, rather than sourced from items you wrote yourself.

GitLab offers both container scanning and dependency scanning to ensure coverage for all these dependency types. To cover as much of your risk area as possible, use all the security scanners. For a comparison of these features, see Dependency scanning compared to container scanning.

GitLab integrates with the Trivy security scanner to perform vulnerability static analysis in containers.

[!warning] The Grype analyzer is no longer maintained, except for limited fixes as explained in the GitLab statement of support. The existing current major version for the Grype analyzer image will continue to be updated with the latest advisory database, and operating system packages until GitLab 19.0, at which point the analyzer will stop working.

Features

Getting started

Enable the container scanning analyzer in your CI/CD pipeline. When a pipeline runs, the images your application depends on are scanned for vulnerabilities. You can customize container scanning by using CI/CD variables.

Prerequisites:

• The test stage is required in the .gitlab-ci.yml file.
• With self-managed runners you need a runner with the docker or kubernetes executor on Linux/amd64. If you're using the instance runners on GitLab.com, this is enabled by default.
• An image matching the supported distributions.
• Build and push the Docker image to your project's container registry.
• If you're using a third-party container registry, you might need to provide authentication credentials by using the CI/CD variables CS_REGISTRY_USER and CS_REGISTRY_PASSWORD. For more details on how to use these variables, see authenticate to a private external registry.

To enable the analyzer, either:

• Enable Auto DevOps, which includes dependency scanning.
• Use a preconfigured merge request.
• Create a scan execution policy that enforces container scanning.
• Edit the .gitlab-ci.yml file manually.

Use a preconfigured merge request

This method automatically prepares a merge request that includes the container scanning template in the .gitlab-ci.yml file. You then merge the merge request to enable container scanning.

[!note] This method works best with no existing .gitlab-ci.yml file, or with a minimal configuration file. If you have a complex GitLab configuration file it might not be parsed successfully, and an error might occur. In that case, use the manual method instead.

Prerequisites:

• The Developer, Maintainer, or Owner role for the project.
• The test stage exists in the .gitlab-ci.yml file.
• If you're using self-managed runners, a runner with the docker or kubernetes executor on Linux/amd64. If you're using the instance runners on GitLab.com, this is enabled by default.
• An image matching the supported distributions.
• The Docker image is built and pushed to your project's container registry.
• If you're using a third-party container registry, you might need to provide authentication credentials by using the CI/CD variables CS_REGISTRY_USER and CS_REGISTRY_PASSWORD. For more details, see authenticate to a private external registry.

To enable container scanning:

1. In the top bar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Secure > Security configuration.
3. In the Container Scanning row, select Configure with a merge request.
4. Select Create merge request.
5. Review the merge request, then select Merge.

Pipelines now include a container scanning job.

Edit the .gitlab-ci.yml file manually

This method requires you to manually edit the existing .gitlab-ci.yml file. Use this method if you have a complex GitLab configuration file or you need to use non-default options.

Prerequisites:

• The Developer, Maintainer, or Owner role for the project.
• The test stage exists in the .gitlab-ci.yml file.
• If you're using self-managed runners, a runner with the docker or kubernetes executor on Linux/amd64. If you're using the instance runners on GitLab.com, this is enabled by default.
• An image matching the supported distributions.
• The Docker image is built and pushed to your project's container registry.
• If you're using a third-party container registry, you might need to provide authentication credentials by using the CI/CD variables CS_REGISTRY_USER and CS_REGISTRY_PASSWORD. For more details, see authenticate to a private external registry.

To enable container scanning:

1. In the top bar, select Search or go to and find your project.

2. Select Build > Pipeline editor.

3. If no .gitlab-ci.yml file exists, select Configure pipeline, then delete the example content.

4. Copy and paste the following to the bottom of the .gitlab-ci.yml file. If an include line already exists, add only the template line below it.

   yamlCopy

   include:
     - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml
   

5. Select the Validate tab, then select Validate pipeline.

   The message Simulation completed successfully confirms the file is valid.

6. Select the Edit tab.

7. Complete the fields. Do not use the default branch for the Branch field.

8. Select the Start a new merge request with these changes checkbox, then select Commit changes.

9. Complete the fields according to your standard workflow, then select Create merge request.

10. Review and edit the merge request according to your standard workflow, wait until the pipeline passes, then select Merge.

Pipelines now include a container scanning job.

Understand the results

Prerequisites:

• The Security Manager, Developer, Maintainer, or Owner role for the project.

You can review vulnerabilities in a pipeline:

1. In the top bar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. In the left sidebar, select Build > Pipelines.
3. Select the pipeline.
4. Select the Security tab.
5. Select a vulnerability to view its details, including:
   • Description: Explains the cause of the vulnerability, its potential impact, and recommended remediation steps.
   • Status: Indicates whether the vulnerability has been triaged or resolved.
   • Severity: Categorized into six levels based on impact. Learn more about severity levels.
   • CVSS score: Provides a numeric value that maps to severity.
   • EPSS: Shows the likelihood of a vulnerability being exploited in the wild.
   • Has Known Exploit (KEV): Indicates that a given vulnerability has been exploited.
   • Project: Highlights the project where the vulnerability was identified.
   • Report type: Explains the output type.
   • Scanner: Identifies which analyzer detected the vulnerability.
   • Image: Provides the image attributed to the vulnerability
   • Namespace: Identifies the workspace attributed to the vulnerability.
   • Links: Evidence of the vulnerability being cataloged in various advisory databases.
   • Identifiers: A list of references used to classify the vulnerability, such as CVE identifiers.

For more details, see Pipeline security report.

Additional ways to see container scanning results:

• Vulnerability report: Shows confirmed vulnerabilities on the default branch.
• Container scanning report artifact

Optimization

GitLab provides two approaches for container scanning:

• Standard container scanning: Scan a single container image per job. Best for simple and distributed workflows.
• Multi-container scanning: Scan multiple images in parallel using a single configuration file. Best for scanning multiple images efficiently.

Roll out

After you are confident in the container scanning results for a single project, you can extend its implementation to additional projects:

• Use enforced scan execution to apply container scanning settings across groups.
• If you have unique requirements, container scanning can be run in offline environments.

Supported distributions

The following Linux distributions are supported:

• Alma Linux
• Alpine Linux
• Amazon Linux
• CentOS
• CBL-Mariner
• Debian
• Distroless
• Oracle Linux
• Photon OS
• Red Hat (RHEL)
• Rocky Linux
• SUSE
• Ubuntu

FIPS-enabled images

GitLab also offers FIPS-enabled Red Hat UBI versions of the container-scanning images. You can therefore replace standard images with FIPS-enabled images. To configure the images, set the CS_IMAGE_SUFFIX to -fips or modify the CS_ANALYZER_IMAGE variable to the standard tag plus the -fips extension.

[!note] The -fips flag is automatically added to CS_ANALYZER_IMAGE when FIPS mode is enabled in the GitLab instance.

Container scanning of images in authenticated registries is not supported when FIPS mode is enabled. When CI_GITLAB_FIPS_MODE is "true", and CS_REGISTRY_USER or CS_REGISTRY_PASSWORD is set, the analyzer exits with an error and does not perform the scan.

Configuration

Customizing analyzer behavior

To customize container scanning, use CI/CD variables.

Enable verbose output

Enable verbose output when you need to see in detail what the dependency scanning job does, for example when troubleshooting.

In the following example, the container scanning template is included and verbose output is enabled.

include:
  - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml

variables:
    SECURE_LOG_LEVEL: 'debug'

Report language-specific findings

The CS_DISABLE_LANGUAGE_VULNERABILITY_SCAN CI/CD variable controls whether the scan reports findings related to programming languages. For more information about the supported languages, see Language-specific Packages in the Trivy documentation.

By default, the report only includes packages managed by the Operating System (OS) package manager (for example, yum, apt, apk, tdnf). To report security findings in non-OS packages, set CS_DISABLE_LANGUAGE_VULNERABILITY_SCAN to "false":

include:
  - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml

container_scanning:
  variables:
    CS_DISABLE_LANGUAGE_VULNERABILITY_SCAN: "false"

When you enable this feature, you might see duplicate findings in the vulnerability report if dependency scanning is enabled for your project. This happens because GitLab can't automatically deduplicate findings across different types of scanning tools. To understand which types of dependencies are likely to be duplicated, see Dependency scanning compared to container scanning.

Running jobs in merge request pipelines

See Use security scanning tools with merge request pipelines.

Available CI/CD variables

To customize container scanning, use CI/CD variables. The following table lists CI/CD variables specific to container scanning. You can also use any of the predefined CI/CD variables.

[!warning] Test customization of GitLab analyzers in a merge request before merging these changes to the default branch. Failure to do so can give unexpected results, including a large number of false positives.

Footnotes:

1. Fix status information is highly dependent on accurate fix availability data from the software vendor and container image operating system package metadata. It is also subject to interpretation by individual container scanners. In cases where a container scanner misreports the availability of a fixed package for a vulnerability, using CS_IGNORE_STATUSES can lead to false positive or false negative filtering of findings when this setting is enabled.

Configure Trivy directly with native environment variables

In addition to the GitLab-specific CS_* variables listed above, you can configure Trivy directly by setting any of its native environment variables in your container_scanning job. The GitLab container scanning analyzer passes all environment variables through to Trivy automatically.

For example, to manually specify the OS distribution for a container image where Trivy cannot auto-detect it (such as a customized base image):

include:
  - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml

container_scanning:
  variables:
    GIT_STRATEGY: fetch
    TRIVY_DISTRO: "alma/10"

[!note] The --distro flag used by TRIVY_DISTRO is experimental in Trivy. Results may vary depending on the Trivy version and the distribution specified.

Variables managed by the GitLab wrapper

The following TRIVY_* variables are set internally by the GitLab container scanning analyzer. They are controlled by the corresponding GitLab CI/CD variables and cannot be overridden directly:

Known issue with TRIVY_DB_REPOSITORY

Setting TRIVY_DB_REPOSITORY to point Trivy to a custom vulnerability database has no effect. The GitLab container scanning analyzer bundles the vulnerability database inside the analyzer image and passes --skip-db-update to Trivy at runtime, so Trivy never downloads a database regardless of this variable. To use a custom database location, see Use a Trivy Java database mirror for the Java database, or offline environment for general offline setups.

Overriding the container scanning template

If you want to override the job definition (for example, to change properties like variables), you must declare and override a job after the template inclusion, and then specify any additional keys.

This example sets GIT_STRATEGY to fetch:

include:
  - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml

container_scanning:
  variables:
    GIT_STRATEGY: fetch

Scan image in external registry

By default, container scanning scans images in the GitLab container registry. You can also scan images in external registries.

To scan an image in an external registry, configure the CS_IMAGE variable with the full path to the image.

include:
  - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml

container_scanning:
  variables:
    CS_IMAGE: <example.com>/<user>/<image>:<tag>

Authenticate to private external registry

If the external registry requires authentication, provide credentials using the CS_REGISTRY_USER and CS_REGISTRY_PASSWORD CI/CD variables.

[!note] Scanning images in an external private registry is not supported when FIPS mode is enabled.

For example, to scan an image in Google Container Registry:

1. Add a CI/CD variable for GCP_CREDENTIALS containing the JSON key, as described in the Google Cloud Platform Container Registry documentation.

   • The value of the variable might not fit the masking requirements for the mask variable option, so the value could be exposed in the job logs.
   • Scans might not run in unprotected feature branches if you select the protect variable option.
   • Consider creating credentials with read-only permissions and rotating them regularly if you don't select these options.

2. Add the following to the .gitlab-ci.yml file.

   yamlCopy

   include:
     - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml
   
   container_scanning:
     variables:
       CS_REGISTRY_USER: _json_key
       CS_REGISTRY_PASSWORD: "$GCP_CREDENTIALS"
       CS_IMAGE: "gcr.io/<path-to-your-registry>/<image>:<tag>"
   

For example, to scan an image in AWS Elastic Container Registry:

• Add the following to the .gitlab-ci.yml file:

  yamlCopy

  container_scanning:
    before_script:
      - ruby -r open-uri -e "IO.copy_stream(URI.open('https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip'), 'awscliv2.zip')"
      - unzip awscliv2.zip
      - sudo ./aws/install
      - export AWS_ECR_PASSWORD=$(aws ecr get-login-password --region <region>)
  
  include:
    - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml
  
  variables:
      CS_IMAGE: <aws_account_id>.dkr.ecr.<region>.amazonaws.com/<image>:<tag>
      CS_REGISTRY_USER: AWS
      CS_REGISTRY_PASSWORD: "$AWS_ECR_PASSWORD"
      AWS_DEFAULT_REGION: <region>
  

Use a Trivy Java database mirror

When the trivy scanner is used and a jar file is encountered in a container image being scanned, trivy downloads an additional trivy-java-db vulnerability database. By default, the trivy-java-db database is hosted as an OCI artifact at ghcr.io/aquasecurity/trivy-java-db:1. If this registry is not accessible or responds with TOOMANYREQUESTS, one solution is to mirror the trivy-java-db to a more accessible container registry:

mirror trivy java db:
  image:
    name: ghcr.io/oras-project/oras:v1.1.0
    entrypoint: [""]
  script:
    - oras login -u $CI_REGISTRY_USER -p $CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD $CI_REGISTRY
    - oras pull ghcr.io/aquasecurity/trivy-java-db:1
    - oras push $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:1 --config /dev/null:application/vnd.aquasec.trivy.config.v1+json javadb.tar.gz:application/vnd.aquasec.trivy.javadb.layer.v1.tar+gzip

The vulnerability database is not a regular Docker image, so you cannot pull it by using docker pull. The image shows an error if you view it in the GitLab UI.

If the container registry is gitlab.example.com/trivy-java-db-mirror, then the container scanning job should be configured in the following way. Do not add the tag :1 at the end, it is added by trivy:

include:
  - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml

container_scanning:
  variables:
    CS_TRIVY_JAVA_DB: gitlab.example.com/trivy-java-db-mirror

Setting the default branch image

By default, container scanning assumes that the image naming convention stores any branch-specific identifiers in the image tag rather than the image name. When the image name differs between the default branch and the non-default branch, previously-detected vulnerabilities show up as newly detected in merge requests.

When the same image has different names on the default branch and a non-default branch, you can use the CS_DEFAULT_BRANCH_IMAGE variable to indicate what that image's name is on the default branch. GitLab then correctly determines if a vulnerability already exists when running scans on non-default branches.

As an example, suppose the following:

• Non-default branches publish images with the naming convention $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE/$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH:$CI_COMMIT_SHA.
• The default branch publishes images with the naming convention $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:$CI_COMMIT_SHA.

In this example, you can use the following CI/CD configuration to ensure that vulnerabilities aren't duplicated:

include:
  - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml

container_scanning:
  variables:
    CS_DEFAULT_BRANCH_IMAGE: $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:$CI_COMMIT_SHA
  before_script:
    - export CS_IMAGE="$CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE/$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH:$CI_COMMIT_SHA"
    - |
      if [ "$CI_COMMIT_BRANCH" == "$CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH" ]; then
        export CS_IMAGE="$CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:$CI_COMMIT_SHA"
      fi

CS_DEFAULT_BRANCH_IMAGE should remain the same for a given CS_IMAGE. If it changes, then a duplicate set of vulnerabilities are created, which must be manually dismissed.

When using Auto DevOps, CS_DEFAULT_BRANCH_IMAGE is automatically set to $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE/$CI_DEFAULT_BRANCH:$CI_APPLICATION_TAG.

Using a custom SSL CA certificate authority

You can use the ADDITIONAL_CA_CERT_BUNDLE CI/CD variable to configure a custom SSL CA certificate authority, which is used to verify the peer when fetching Docker images from a registry which uses HTTPS. The ADDITIONAL_CA_CERT_BUNDLE value should contain the text representation of the X.509 PEM public-key certificate. For example, to configure this value in the .gitlab-ci.yml file, use the following:

container_scanning:
  variables:
    ADDITIONAL_CA_CERT_BUNDLE: |
        -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
        MIIGqTCCBJGgAwIBAgIQI7AVxxVwg2kch4d56XNdDjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADCB
        ...
        jWgmPqF3vUbZE0EyScetPJquRFRKIesyJuBFMAs=
        -----END CERTIFICATE-----

The ADDITIONAL_CA_CERT_BUNDLE value can also be configured as a custom variable in the UI, either as a file, which requires the path to the certificate, or as a variable, which requires the text representation of the certificate.

Scanning a multi-arch image

You can use the TRIVY_PLATFORM CI/CD variable to configure the container scan to run against a specific operating system and architecture. For example, to configure this value in the .gitlab-ci.yml file, use the following:

container_scanning:
  # Use an arm64 SaaS runner to scan this natively
  tags: ["saas-linux-small-arm64"]
  variables:
    TRIVY_PLATFORM: "linux/arm64"

Vulnerability allowlisting

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• Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated

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Prerequisites:

• The Developer, Maintainer, or Owner role for the project.

To allowlist specific vulnerabilities, follow these steps:

1. Set GIT_STRATEGY: fetch in your .gitlab-ci.yml file by following the instructions in overriding the container scanning template.
2. Define the allowlisted vulnerabilities in a YAML file named vulnerability-allowlist.yml. This must use the format described in vulnerability-allowlist.yml data format.
3. Add the vulnerability-allowlist.yml file to the root folder of your project's Git repository.

vulnerability-allowlist.yml data format

The vulnerability-allowlist.yml file is a YAML file that specifies a list of CVE IDs of vulnerabilities that are allowed to exist, because they're false positives, or they're not applicable.

If a matching entry is found in the vulnerability-allowlist.yml file, the following happens:

• The vulnerability is not included when the analyzer generates the gl-container-scanning-report.json file.
• The Security tab of the pipeline does not show the vulnerability. It is not included in the JSON file, which is the source of truth for the Security tab.

Example vulnerability-allowlist.yml file:

generalallowlist:
  CVE-2019-8696:
  CVE-2014-8166: cups
  CVE-2017-18248:
images:
  registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/dast/webgoat-8.0@sha256:
    CVE-2018-4180:
  your.private.registry:5000/centos:
    CVE-2015-1419: libxml2
    CVE-2015-1447:

This example excludes from gl-container-scanning-report.json:

1. All vulnerabilities with CVE IDs: CVE-2019-8696, CVE-2014-8166, CVE-2017-18248.
2. All vulnerabilities found in the registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/dast/webgoat-8.0@sha256 container image with CVE ID CVE-2018-4180.
3. All vulnerabilities found in your.private.registry:5000/centos container with CVE IDs CVE-2015-1419, CVE-2015-1447.

File format

• generalallowlist block allows you to specify CVE IDs globally. All vulnerabilities with matching CVE IDs are excluded from the scan report.

• images block allows you to specify CVE IDs for each container image independently. All vulnerabilities from the given image with matching CVE IDs are excluded from the scan report. The image name is retrieved from one of the environment variables used to specify the Docker image to be scanned, such as $CI_APPLICATION_REPOSITORY:$CI_APPLICATION_TAG or CS_IMAGE. The image provided in this block must match this value and must not include the tag value. For example, if you specify the image to be scanned using CS_IMAGE=alpine:3.7, then you would use alpine in the images block, but you cannot use alpine:3.7.

  You can specify container image in multiple ways:

  • as image name only (such as centos).
  • as full image name with registry hostname (such as your.private.registry:5000/centos).
  • as full image name with registry hostname and sha256 label (such as registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/dast/webgoat-8.0@sha256).

[!note] The string after CVE ID (cups and libxml2 in the previous example) is an optional comment format. It has no impact on the handling of vulnerabilities. You can include comments to describe the vulnerability.

Container scanning job log format

You can verify the results of your scan and the correctness of your vulnerability-allowlist.yml file by looking at the logs that are produced by the container scanning analyzer in container_scanning job details.

The log contains a list of found vulnerabilities as a table, for example:

+------------+-------------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|   STATUS   |      CVE SEVERITY       |      PACKAGE NAME      |    PACKAGE VERSION    |                            CVE DESCRIPTION                             |
+------------+-------------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Approved  |   High CVE-2019-3462    |          apt           |         1.4.8         | Incorrect sanitation of the 302 redirect field in HTTP transport metho |
|            |                         |                        |                       | d of apt versions 1.4.8 and earlier can lead to content injection by a |
|            |                         |                        |                       |  MITM attacker, potentially leading to remote code execution on the ta |
|            |                         |                        |                       |                             rget machine.                              |
+------------+-------------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Unapproved |  Medium CVE-2020-27350  |          apt           |         1.4.8         | APT had several integer overflows and underflows while parsing .deb pa |
|            |                         |                        |                       | ckages, aka GHSL-2020-168 GHSL-2020-169, in files apt-pkg/contrib/extr |
|            |                         |                        |                       | acttar.cc, apt-pkg/deb/debfile.cc, and apt-pkg/contrib/arfile.cc. This |
|            |                         |                        |                       |  issue affects: apt 1.2.32ubuntu0 versions prior to 1.2.32ubuntu0.2; 1 |
|            |                         |                        |                       | .6.12ubuntu0 versions prior to 1.6.12ubuntu0.2; 2.0.2ubuntu0 versions  |
|            |                         |                        |                       | prior to 2.0.2ubuntu0.2; 2.1.10ubuntu0 versions prior to 2.1.10ubuntu0 |
|            |                         |                        |                       |                                  .1;                                   |
+------------+-------------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Unapproved |  Medium CVE-2020-3810   |          apt           |         1.4.8         | Missing input validation in the ar/tar implementations of APT before v |
|            |                         |                        |                       | ersion 2.1.2 could result in denial of service when processing special |
|            |                         |                        |                       |                         ly crafted deb files.                          |
+------------+-------------------------+------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Vulnerabilities in the log are marked as Approved when the corresponding CVE ID is added to the vulnerability-allowlist.yml file.

Offline environment

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

{{< /details >}}

To run container scanning in an offline environment, you must do an initial setup and perform ongoing maintenance.

Initial setup:

• Configure runner (ensure the docker or kubernetes executor is available).
• Set up a local container registry. For details, see GitLab container registry.
• Copy the image to your local container registry.
• Configure CI/CD for each project using container scanning.
• Depending on your requirements, you can optionally configure the following:
  • Scan an image in an external registry.
  • Use a Trivy Java database mirror.

Ongoing maintenance:

• Update the local container scanning image as new versions are released.

Configure runner

Configure runner (ensure the docker or kubernetes executor is available). For details, see getting started.

By default the runner pulls container images from the GitLab container registry even if a local copy is available. If you prefer to use only local container images, you can change the pull_policy can be set to if-not-present. However, you should keep the pull_policy setting to the default unless you have good reason to change it.

Copy container image

Import the following image from the GitLab.com container registry into your local container registry. This image must be accessible from your offline GitLab instance.

registry.gitlab.com/security-products/container-scanning:8

The process for importing images into a local container registry depends on your network security policy. Consult your IT staff to find an accepted and approved process by which you can import or temporarily access external resources.

Configure CI/CD for each project

[!note] These configuration changes do not apply to container scanning for registry because it does not reference the .gitlab-ci.yml file. To configure automatic container scanning for registry in an offline environment, define the CS_ANALYZER_IMAGE variable in the GitLab UI instead.

For all projects using container scanning, edit the CI/CD configuration in all locations where it's applied. This might include:

• Individual project .gitlab-ci.yml files
• Pipeline execution policy
• Scan execution policy

Update your container scanning configuration with the following variables:

1. Optional. If the container scanning template is not already included, add it.
2. Set CS_ANALYZER_IMAGE to the container scanning image in your local container registry.
3. Optional. If using a non-GitLab container registry, set CS_REGISTRY_USER and CS_REGISTRY_PASSWORD to match your registry credentials.
4. Optional. If using a self-signed certificate for your local container registry, set CS_DOCKER_INSECURE: "true".

Example .gitlab-ci.yml configuration for an offline environment:

include:
  - template: Jobs/Container-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml

container_scanning:
  variables:
    # Container scanning-specific variables
    CS_ANALYZER_IMAGE: <hostname>:<port>/analyzers/container-scanning:8
    CS_REGISTRY_USER: <username>
    CS_REGISTRY_PASSWORD: <password>
    CS_DOCKER_INSECURE: "true"

Update local container image

The container scanning image is periodically updated and pushed to the GitLab.com registry. In an offline environment, you must update the container scanning image in your local container registry, either automatically (recommended) or manually.

• Manual method: Update the container scanning image manually in your local registry if it cannot access the GitLab.com registry over the network. Use the same method you used when you copied the image for the initial setup.
• Automatic method: If your offline GitLab instance has read access to GitLab.com, set up a scheduled pipeline to automatically update the image on a preset schedule.

Automatic image update method

The following .gitlab-ci.yml extract demonstrates how to automatically update the container scanning image in a local registry. This method defines variables for the source image and target image, then uses the Docker CLI to pull the image from the GitLab.com registry and push it to your local registry.

If you're using a non-GitLab registry, update the CI_REGISTRY value and configure authentication by setting CI_REGISTRY_USER and CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD variables to match your local registry credentials.

variables:
  SOURCE_IMAGE: registry.gitlab.com/security-products/container-scanning:8
  TARGET_IMAGE: $CI_REGISTRY/namespace/container-scanning

image: docker:cli

update-scanner-image:
  services:
    - docker:dind
  script:
    - docker pull $SOURCE_IMAGE
    - docker tag $SOURCE_IMAGE $TARGET_IMAGE
    - echo "$CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD" | docker login $CI_REGISTRY --username $CI_REGISTRY_USER --password-stdin
    - docker push $TARGET_IMAGE

Scanning archive formats

{{< history >}}

• Scanning tar files introduced in GitLab 18.0.

{{< /history >}}

Container scanning supports images in archive formats (.tar, .tar.gz). Such images may be created, for example, using docker save or docker buildx build.

To scan an archive file, set the environment variable CS_IMAGE to the format archive://path/to/archive:

• The archive:// scheme prefix specifies that the analyzer is to scan an archive.
• path/to/archive specifies the path to the archive to scan, whether an absolute path or a relative path.

Container scanning supports tar image files following the Docker Image Specification. OCI tarballs are not supported. For more information regarding supported formats, see Trivy tar file support.

Building supported tar files

Container scanning uses metadata from the tar file for image naming. When building tar image files, ensure the image is tagged:

# Pull or build an image with a name and a tag
docker pull image:latest
# OR
docker build . -t image:latest
# Then export to tar using docker save
docker save image:latest -o image-latest.tar

# Or build an image with a tag using buildx build
docker buildx create --name container --driver=docker-container
docker buildx build -t image:latest --builder=container -o type=docker,dest=- . > image-latest.tar

# With podman
podman build -t image:latest .
podman save -o image-latest.tar image:latest

Image name

Container scanning determines the image name by first evaluating the archive's manifest.json and using the first item in RepoTags. If this is not found, index.json is used to fetch the io.containerd.image.name annotation. If this is not found, the archive filename is used instead.

• manifest.json is defined in Docker Image Specification v1.1.0 and created by using the command docker save.
• index.json format is defined in the OCI image specification v1.1.1. io.containerd.image.name is available in containerd v1.3.0 and later when using ctr image export.

Scanning archives built in a previous job

To scan an archive built in a CI/CD job, you must pass the archive artifact from the build job to the container scanning job. Use the artifacts:paths and dependencies keywords to pass artifacts from one job to a following one:

build_job:
  script:
    - docker build . -t image:latest
    - docker save image:latest -o image-latest.tar
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - "image-latest.tar"

container_scanning:
  variables:
    CS_IMAGE: "archive://image-latest.tar"
  dependencies:
    - build_job

Scanning archives from the project repository

To scan an archive found in your project repository, ensure that your Git strategy enables access to your repository. Set the GIT_STRATEGY keyword to either clone or fetch in the container_scanning job because it is set to none by default.

container_scanning:
  variables:
    GIT_STRATEGY: fetch

Running the standalone container scanning tool

It's possible to run the GitLab container scanning tool against a Docker container without needing to run it within the context of a CI job. To scan an image directly, follow these steps:

1. Run Docker Desktop or Docker Machine.

2. Run the analyzer's Docker image, passing the image and tag you want to analyze in the CI_APPLICATION_REPOSITORY and CI_APPLICATION_TAG variables:

   shellCopy

   docker run \
     --interactive --rm \
     --volume "$PWD":/tmp/app \
     -e CI_PROJECT_DIR=/tmp/app \
     -e CI_APPLICATION_REPOSITORY=registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/dast/webgoat-8.0@sha256 \
     -e CI_APPLICATION_TAG=bc09fe2e0721dfaeee79364115aeedf2174cce0947b9ae5fe7c33312ee019a4e \
     registry.gitlab.com/security-products/container-scanning
   

The results are stored in gl-container-scanning-report.json.

Reports JSON format

The container scanning tool emits JSON reports which the GitLab Runner recognizes through the artifacts:reports keyword in the CI/CD configuration file.

After the CI/CD job finishes, the runner uploads these reports to GitLab, which are then available in the CI/CD job artifacts. In GitLab Ultimate, these reports can be viewed in the corresponding pipeline and the vulnerability report.

These reports must comply with the container scanning report schema.

Example container scanning report.

CycloneDX Software Bill of Materials

In addition to the JSON report file, the container scanning tool outputs a CycloneDX Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for the scanned image. This CycloneDX SBOM is named gl-sbom-report.cdx.json and is saved in the same directory as the JSON report file. This feature is only supported when the Trivy analyzer is used.

This report can be viewed in the dependency list.

You can download CycloneDX SBOMs the same way as other job artifacts.

License Information in CycloneDX Reports

{{< history >}}

• Introduced in GitLab 18.0.

{{< /history >}}

Container scanning can include license information in CycloneDX reports. This feature is disabled by default to maintain backward compatibility.

To enable license scanning in your container scanning results:

• Set the CS_INCLUDE_LICENSES variable in your .gitlab-ci.yml file:

container_scanning:
  variables:
    CS_INCLUDE_LICENSES: "true"

• After enabling this feature, the generated CycloneDX report will include license information for components detected in your container images.
• You can view this license information in the dependency list page or as part of the downloadable CycloneDX job artifact.

It is important to mention that only SPDX licenses are supported. However, licenses that are non-compliant with SPDX will still be ingested without any user-facing error.

End-of-life operating system detection

Container scanning includes the ability to detect and report when your container images are using operating systems that have reached their end-of-life (EOL). Operating systems that have reached EOL no longer receive security updates, leaving them vulnerable to newly discovered security issues.

The EOL detection feature uses Trivy to identify operating systems that are no longer supported by their respective distributions. When an EOL operating system is detected, it's reported as a vulnerability in your container scanning report alongside other security findings.

To enable EOL detection, set CS_REPORT_OS_EOL to "true".

Container scanning for registry

{{< details >}}

• Tier: Ultimate
• Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated

{{< /details >}}

{{< history >}}

• Introduced in GitLab 17.1 with a flag named enable_container_scanning_for_registry. Disabled by default.
• Enabled on GitLab Self-Managed, and GitLab Dedicated in GitLab 17.2.
• Generally available in GitLab 17.2. Feature flag enable_container_scanning_for_registry removed.

{{< /history >}}

When a container image is pushed with the latest tag, a container scanning job is automatically triggered by the security policy bot in a new pipeline against the default branch.

Unlike regular container scanning, the scan results do not include a security report. Instead, container scanning for registry relies on continuous vulnerability scanning to inspect the components detected by the scan.

When security findings are identified, GitLab populates the vulnerability report with these findings. Vulnerabilities can be viewed under the Container registry vulnerabilities tab of the vulnerability report page.

Container scanning for registry populates the vulnerability report only when a new advisory is published to the GitLab advisory database. Support for populating the vulnerability report with all present advisory data, instead of only newly-detected data, is proposed in epic 11219.

[!warning] Vulnerabilities detected by container scanning for registry cannot be automatically marked as resolved when you update or remove vulnerable components. These vulnerabilities remain visible indefinitely because this feature only generates SBOMs, not the security reports required for vulnerability resolution.

Turn on container scanning for registry

Prerequisites:

• The Security Manager, Maintainer or Owner role for the project.
• The project must not be empty. If you are using an empty project solely for storing container images, this feature won't function as intended. As a workaround, ensure the project contains an initial commit on the default branch.
• By default there is a limit of 50 scans per project per day.
• You must configure container registry notifications.
• You must configure the package metadata database. In GitLab.com, this is configured by default.

To turn on container scanning for the GitLab container registry:

1. In the top bar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Secure > Security configuration.
3. Scroll down to the Container Scanning For Registry section and turn on the toggle.

Use with offline or air-gapped environments

To use container scanning for registry in an offline or air-gapped environment, you must use a local copy of the container scanning analyzer image. Because this feature is managed by the GitLab Security Policy Bot, the analyzer image cannot be configured by editing the .gitlab-ci.yml file.

Instead, you must override the default scanner image by setting the CS_ANALYZER_IMAGE CI/CD variable in the GitLab UI. The dynamically-created scanning job inherits variables defined in the UI. You can use a project, group, or instance CI/CD variable.

Prerequisites:

• The Maintainer or Owner role for the project or group.

To configure a custom scanner image:

1. In the top bar, select Search or go to and find your project or group.
2. Select Settings > CI/CD.
3. Expand the Variables section.
4. Select Add variable and fill in the details:
   • Key: CS_ANALYZER_IMAGE
   • Value: The full URL to your mirrored container scanning image. For example, my.local.registry:5000/analyzers/container-scanning:7.
5. Select Add variable.

The GitLab Security Policy Bot will use the specified image when it triggers a scan.

Vulnerabilities database

All analyzer images are updated daily.

The images use data from upstream advisory databases:

• AlmaLinux Security Advisory
• Amazon Linux Security Center
• Arch Linux Security Tracker
• SUSE CVRF
• CWE Advisories
• Debian Security Bug Tracker
• GitHub Security Advisory
• Go Vulnerability Database
• CBL-Mariner Vulnerability Data
• NVD
• OSV
• Red Hat OVAL v2
• Red Hat Security Data API
• Photon Security Advisories
• Rocky Linux UpdateInfo
• Ubuntu CVE Tracker (only data sources from mid 2021 and later)

In addition to the sources provided by these scanners, GitLab maintains the following vulnerability databases:

• The proprietary GitLab advisory database.
• The open source GitLab advisory database (Open Source Edition).

In the GitLab Ultimate tier, the data from the GitLab advisory database is merged in to augment the data from the external sources. In the GitLab Premium and Free tiers, the data from the GitLab Advisory Database (Open Source Edition) is merged in to augment the data from the external sources. This augmentation only applies to the analyzer images for the Trivy scanner.

Database update information for other analyzers is available in the maintenance table.

Solutions for vulnerabilities (auto-remediation)

{{< details >}}

• Tier: Ultimate
• Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated

{{< /details >}}

Some vulnerabilities can be fixed by applying the solution that GitLab automatically generates.

To enable remediation support, the scanning tool must have access to the Dockerfile specified by the CI/CD variable CS_DOCKERFILE_PATH. To ensure that the scanning tool has access to this file, it's necessary to set GIT_STRATEGY: fetch in your .gitlab-ci.yml file by following the instructions described in this document's overriding the container scanning template section.

Read more about the solutions for vulnerabilities.