SSL Configuration

Available SSL Configuration Tasks

Omnibus-GitLab supports several common use cases for SSL configuration.

  1. Allow https connections to GitLab instance services
  2. Configure public certificate bundles for external resource connections

Host Services

Administrators can enable secure http using any method supported by a GitLab service.

Service Manual SSL Let’s Encrypt
Primary GitLab Instance Domain Yes Yes
Container Registry Yes Yes
Mattermost Yes Yes
GitLab Pages Yes No

Let’s Encrypt Integration

GitLab can be integrated with Let’s Encrypt.

Primary GitLab Instance

Version history
  • Introduced in GitLab 10.5 and disabled by default.
  • Enabled by default in GitLab 10.7 and later if external_url is set with the https protocol and no certificates are configured.
Note: In order for Let’s Encrypt verification to work correctly, ports 80 and 443 will need to be accessible to the Let’s Encrypt servers that run the validation. Also note that the validation currently does not work with non-standard ports.
Caution: Administrators installing or upgrading to GitLab 10.7 or later and do not plan on using Let’s Encrypt should set letsencrypt['enable'] = false in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb to disable.

Add the following entries to /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb to enable Let’s Encrypt support for the primary domain: 

letsencrypt['enable'] = true                      # GitLab 10.5 and 10.6 require this option
external_url "https://gitlab.example.com"         # Must use https protocol
letsencrypt['contact_emails'] = ['foo@email.com'] # Optional
Maintenance Tip Certificates issued by Let’s Encrypt expire every ninety days. The optional contact_emails setting causes an expiration alert to be sent to the configured address when that expiration date approaches.

GitLab Components

Introduced in GitLab 11.0.

Follow the steps to enable basic Let’s Encrypt integration and modify /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb with any of the following that apply: 

registry_external_url "https://registry.example.com"     # container registry, must use https protocol
mattermost_external_url "https://mattermost.example.com" # mattermost, must use https protocol
#registry_nginx['ssl_certificate'] = "path/to/cert"      # Must be absent or commented out
Under the Hood The Let’s Encrypt certificate is created with the GitLab primary instance as the primary name on the certificate. Additional services such as the registry are added as alternate names to the same certificate. Note in the example above, the primary domain is gitlab.example.com and the registry domain is registry.example.com. Administrators do not need to worry about setting up wildcard certificates.

Automatic Let’s Encrypt Renewal

Introduced in GitLab 10.7.

Caution: Administrators installing or upgrading to GitLab 12.1 or later and plan on using their own Let’s Encrypt certificate should set letsencrypt['enable'] = false in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb to disable automatic renewal. Otherwise, a gitlab-ctl reconfigure may attempt to renew the certificates, and thus overwrite them.

Default installations schedule renewals after midnight on every 4th day. The minute is determined by the value in external_url to help distribute the load on the upstream Let's Encrypt servers.

Explicitly set renewal times by adding the following to /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb: 

# This example renews every 7th day at 12:30
letsencrypt['auto_renew_hour'] = "12"
letsencrypt['auto_renew_minute'] = "30"
letsencrypt['auto_renew_day_of_month'] = "*/7"

Disable automatic renewal with the following in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb: 

letsencrypt['auto_renew'] = false

Manual Let’s Encrypt Renewal

Renew Let’s Encrypt certificates manually using one of the following commands: 

sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure

sudo gitlab-ctl renew-le-certs
Caution: GitLab 12.1 or later will attempt to renew any Let’s Encrypt certificate. If you plan to use your own Let’s Encrypt certificate you must set letsencrypt['enable'] = false in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb to disable integration. Otherwise the certificate could be overwritten due to the renewal.
Tip The above commands require root privileges and only generate a renewal if the certificate is close to expiration. Consider the upstream rate limits if encountering an error during renewal.

Connecting to External Resources

Some environments connect to external resources for various tasks. Omnibus-GitLab allows these connections to use secure http (https).

Default Configuration

Omnibus-GitLab ships with the official CAcert.org collection of trusted root certification authorities which are used to verify certificate authenticity.

Other Certificate Authorities

Omnibus GitLab supports connections to external services with self-signed certificates.

Compatibility Note Custom certificates were introduced in GitLab 8.9.
Further Reading For installations that use self-signed certificates, Omnibus-GitLab provides a way to manage these certificates. For more technical details how this works, see the details at the bottom of this page.

Install Custom Public Certificates

Note: A perl interpreter is required for c_rehash dependency to properly symlink the certificates. Perl is currently not bundled in Omnibus GitLab.
  1. Generate the PEM or DER encoded public certificate from your private key certificate.
  2. Copy the public certificate file only into the /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs directory.
  3. Run gitlab-ctl reconfigure.
Caution: If using a custom certificate chain, the root and/or intermediate certificates must be put into separate files in /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs due to c_rehash creating a hash for the first certificate only.

Troubleshooting

Useful OpenSSL Debugging Commands

Sometimes it’s helpful to get a better picture of the SSL certificate chain by viewing it directly at the source. These commands are part of the standard OpenSSL library of tools for diagnostics and debugging.

Note: GitLab includes its own custom-compiled version of OpenSSL that all GitLab libraries are linked against. It’s important to run the following commands using this OpenSSL version.

  • Perform a test connection to the host over HTTPS. Replace HOSTNAME with your GitLab URL (excluding HTTPS), and replace port with the port that serves HTTPS connections (usually 443): 

    echo | /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/openssl s_client -connect HOSTNAME:port

    The echo command sends a null request to the server, causing it to close the connection rather than wait for additional input. You can use the same command to test remote hosts (for example, a server hosting an external repository), by replacing HOSTNAME:port with the remote host’s domain and port number.

    This command’s output shows you the certificate chain, any public certificates the server presents, along with validation or connection errors if they occur. This makes for a quick check for any immediate issues with your SSL settings.

  • View a certificate’s details in text form using x509. Be sure to replace /path/to/certificate.crt with the certificate’s path: 

    /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/openssl x509 -in /path/to/certificate.crt -text -noout

    For example, GitLab automatically fetches and places certificates acquired from Let’s Encrypt at /etc/gitlab/ssl/hostname.crt. You can use the x509 command with that path to quickly display the certificate’s information (for example, the hostname, issuer, validity period, and more).

    If there’s a problem with the certificate, an error occurs.

  • Fetch a certificate from a server and decode it. This combines both of the above commands to fetch the server’s SSL certificate and decode it to text: 

    echo | /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/openssl s_client -connect HOSTNAME:port | /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/openssl x509 -text -noout

See the troubleshooting SSL documentation for more examples of troubleshooting SSL problems with OpenSSL.

Common SSL errors

  1. SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate

    This error indicates the client cannot get the root CA. To fix this, you can either trust the root CA of the server you are trying to connect to on the client or modify the certificate to present the full chained certificate on the server you are trying to connect to.

    Note: It is recommended to use the full certificate chain in order to prevent SSL errors when clients connect. The full certificate chain order should consist of the server certificate first, followed by all intermediate certificates, with the root CA last.

  2. unable to verify the first certificate

    This error indicates that an incomplete certificate chain is being presented by the server. To fix this error, you will need to replace server’s certificate with the full chained certificate. The full certificate chain order should consist of the server certificate first, followed by all intermediate certificates, with the root CA last.

  3. certificate signed by unknown authority

    This error indicates that the client does not trust the certificate or CA. To fix this error, the client connecting to server will need to trust the certificate or CA.

  4. SSL certificate problem: self signed certificate in certificate chain

    This error indicates that the client does not trust the certificate or CA. To fix this error, the client connecting to server will need to trust the certificate or CA.

Git-LFS and other embedded services written in golang report custom certificate signed by unknown authority

Note: In GitLab 11.5, the following workaround is no longer necessary, embedded golang apps now use the standard GitLab certificate directory automatically.

The gitlab-workhorse and other services written in golang use the crypto/tls library from golang instead of OpenSSL.

Add the following entry in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb to work around the issue as reported: 

gitlab_workhorse['env'] = {
  'SSL_CERT_DIR' => '/opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/'
}
Note: If you have installed GitLab to a path other than /opt/gitlab/ then modify the entry above with the correct path in your operating environment.

Reconfigure Fails Due to Certificates 

ERROR: Not a certificate: /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/FILE. Move it from /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs to a different location and reconfigure again.

Check /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs and remove any files other than README.md that aren’t valid X.509 certificates.

Under the Hood Running gitlab-ctl reconfigure constructs symlinks named from the subject hashes of your custom public certificates and places them in /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/. Broken symlinks in /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/ will be automatically removed. Files other than cacert.pem and README.md stored in /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/ will be moved into the /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/.

Custom Certificates Missing or Skipped

GitLab versions 8.9.0, 8.9.1, and 8.9.2 all mistakenly used the /etc/gitlab/ssl/trusted-certs/ directory. This directory is safe to remove if it is empty. If it still contains custom certificates then move them to /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/ and run gitlab-ctl reconfigure.

If no symlinks are created in /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/ and you see the message “Skipping cert.pem” after running gitlab-ctl reconfigure, that means there may be one of four issues:

  1. The file in /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/ is a symlink
  2. The file is not a valid PEM or DER-encoded certificate
  3. Perl is not installed on the operating system which is needed for c_rehash to properly symlink certificates.
  4. The certificate contains the string TRUSTED

Test the certificate’s validity using the commands below: 

/opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/openssl x509 -in /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/example.pem -text -noout
/opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/openssl x509 -inform DER -in /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/example.der -text -noout

Invalid certificate files produce the following output: 

unable to load certificate
140663131141784:error:0906D06C:PEM routines:PEM_read_bio:no start line:pem_lib.c:701:Expecting: TRUSTED CERTIFICATE

To test if c_rehash is not symlinking the certificate due to a missing perl interpreter: 

$ /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/c_rehash /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs
bash: /opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/c_rehash: /usr/bin/perl: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

If you see this message, you will need to install perl with your distribution’s package manager.

If you inspect the certificate itself, then look for the string TRUSTED: 

-----BEGIN TRUSTED CERTIFICATE-----
...
-----END TRUSTED CERTIFICATE-----

If it does, like the example above, then try removing the string TRUSTED and running gitlab-ctl reconfigure again.

Custom certificates not detected

If after running gitlab-ctl reconfigure:

  1. no symlinks are created in /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/;
  2. you have placed custom certificates in /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/; and
  3. you do not see any skipped or symlinked custom certificate messages

You may be encountering an issue where Omnibus GitLab thinks that the custom certificates have already been added.

To resolve, delete the trusted certificates directory hash: 

rm /var/opt/gitlab/trusted-certs-directory-hash

Then run gitlab-ctl reconfigure again. The reconfigure should now detect and symlink your custom certificates.

Let’s Encrypt Certificate signed by unknown authority

The initial implementation of Let’s Encrypt integration only used the certificate, not the full certificate chain.

Starting in 10.5.4, the full certificate chain will be used. For installs which are already using a certificate, the switchover will not happen until the renewal logic indicates the certificate is near expiration. To force it sooner, run the following 

rm /etc/gitlab/ssl/HOSTNAME*
gitlab-ctl reconfigure

Where HOSTNAME is the hostname of the certificate.

Let’s Encrypt fails on reconfigure

When you reconfigure, there are common scenarios under which Let’s Encrypt may fail:

  1. Let’s Encrypt may fail if your server isn’t able to reach the Let’s Encrypt verification servers or vice versa: 

    letsencrypt_certificate[gitlab.domain.com] (letsencrypt::http_authorization line 3) had an error: RuntimeError: acme_certificate[staging]  (/opt/gitlab/embedded/cookbooks/cache/cookbooks/letsencrypt/resources/certificate.rb line 20) had an error: RuntimeError: [gitlab.domain.com] Validation failed for domain gitlab.domain.com

    If you run into issues reconfiguring GitLab due to Let’s Encrypt make sure you have ports 80 and 443 open and accessible.

  2. Your domain’s Certification Authority Authorization (CAA) record does not allow Let’s Encrypt to issue a certificate for your domain. Look for the following error in the reconfigure output: 

    letsencrypt_certificate[gitlab.domain.net] (letsencrypt::http_authorization line 5) had an error: RuntimeError: acme_certificate[staging]   (/opt/gitlab/embedded/cookbooks/cache/cookbooks/letsencrypt/resources/certificate.rb line 25) had an error: RuntimeError: ruby_block[create certificate for gitlab.domain.net] (/opt/gitlab/embedded/cookbooks/cache/cookbooks/acme/resources/certificate.rb line 108) had an error: RuntimeError: [gitlab.domain.com] Validation failed, unable to request certificate

  3. If you’re using a test domain such as gitlab.example.com, without a certificate, you’ll see the unable to request certificate error shown above. In that case, disable Let’s Encrypt by setting letsencrypt['enable'] = false in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb.

You can test your domain using the Let’s Debug diagnostic tool. It can help you figure out why you can’t issue a Let’s Encrypt certificate.

Additional troubleshooting

For additional troubleshooting steps, see Troubleshooting SSL.

Details on how GitLab and SSL work

GitLab-Omnibus includes its own library of OpenSSL and links all compiled programs (e.g. Ruby, PostgreSQL, etc.) against this library. This library is compiled to look for certificates in /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs.

GitLab-Omnibus manages custom certificates by symlinking any certificate that gets added to /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/ to /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs using the c_rehash tool. For example, let’s suppose we add customcacert.pem to /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/: 

$ sudo ls -al /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs
total 272
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   4096 Jul 12 04:19 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root   4096 Jul  6 04:00 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     42 Jul 12 04:19 7f279c95.0 -> /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs/customcacert.pem
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 263781 Jul  5 17:52 cacert.pem
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    147 Feb  6 20:48 README

Here we see the fingerprint of the certificate is 7f279c95, which links to the custom certificate.

What happens when we make an HTTPS request? Let’s take a simple Ruby program: 

#!/opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/ruby
require 'openssl'
require 'net/http'

Net::HTTP.get(URI('https://www.google.com'))

This is what happens behind the scenes:

  1. The “require openssl” line causes the interpreter to load /opt/gitlab/embedded/lib/ruby/2.3.0/x86_64-linux/openssl.so.
  2. The Net::HTTP call then attempts to read the default certificate bundle in /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/cacert.pem.
  3. SSL negotiation occurs.
  4. The server sends its SSL certificates.
  5. If the certificates that are sent are covered by the bundle, SSL finishes successfully.
  6. Otherwise, OpenSSL may validate other certificates by searching for files that match their fingerprints inside the predefined certificate directory. For example, if a certificate has the fingerprint 7f279c95, OpenSSL will attempt to read /opt/gitlab/embedded/ssl/certs/7f279c95.0.

Note that the OpenSSL library supports the definition of SSL_CERT_FILE and SSL_CERT_DIR environment variables. The former defines the default certificate bundle to load, while the latter defines a directory in which to search for more certificates. These variables should not be necessary if you have added certificates to the trusted-certs directory. However, if for some reason you need to set them, they can be defined as environment variables. For example: 

gitlab_rails['env'] = {"SSL_CERT_FILE" => "/usr/lib/ssl/private/customcacert.pem"}