12.1

GitLab 12.1 Release

GitLab 12.1 released with Parallel Merge Trains and Merge Requests for Confidential Issues

GitLab 12.1 released with Parallel Merge Trains, MRs for Confidential Issues, Automated Let's Encrypt certificates for GitLab Pages and much more!

With GitLab 12.1 we are excited to announce new features that are unique to GitLab, such as Parallel Merge Trains and Merge Requests for Confidential issues - along with long-awaited features like managed Let's Encrypt certificates for GitLab Pages. Read on to learn more!

Keep the master branch green at high velocity

Keeping the master branch green is critical for Continuous Delivery. When the production build breaks, it means your new code isn't going live, which impacts users and revenue. The only way to be 100% sure the master branch stays green when new code merges is to run the pipeline using the latest version of the master branch. For teams that have a high volume of merges, this can be difficult or even impossible. In the time it takes the pipeline to complete on one code change, other changes can get merged to master with the potential for conflict. The only way to mitigate this is to queue and sequence the changes so that once a production pipeline starts, other code doesn't get merged ahead of that change. This is why we came up with Merge Trains, and shipped the first iteration in Gitlab 12.0.

Merge Trains make use of GitLab's "Pipelines for Merged Results" feature. With Pipelines for Merged Results enabled, GitLab automatically creates a separate ref that contains the result of merging the source and target branch. The Merge Request pipeline runs on that result ref rather than just running on the source branch. This way, you know if your code is safe to merge into master or not without needing to rebase continually.

Building on this functionality, Merge Trains then make sure that merges are put in the proper order once they are set to merge into the target branch. The merge button in the MR is replaced with a start/add to merge train button that adds that merge to the Merge Train queue. Merges are processed in the proper order even if they are coming in at a rapid pace.

Initially, Merge Train pipelines executed sequentially. The previous MR in the train needed to complete before the pipeline for the next MR would start, this kept master green, but could slow things down, especially for projects with long-running pipelines. Now with GitLab 12.1, we’ve improved Merge Trains to run in parallel. Up to four pipelines execute simultaneously including the ref from the previous Merge Request in the train based on the assumption that all previous Merge Request succeeds. This way, the pipelines only need to re-run if a previous Merge Request fails. Executing Merge Train pipelines in parallel significantly speeds up the process. You can get started with Merge Trains today by enabling Pipelines for Merged Results and enjoy CD with an always-green master branch.

Iterate privately on sensitive updates

Working publicly in the open is a powerful vehicle for collaboration. Open source projects with public code, and issue trackers know the benefits of enabling people to contribute regardless of their location. At GitLab we think transparency grants so many benefits that we don’t just make our issues and code public, but our business processes as well.

Alongside all the things that work great when they are out in the open are a few things that are better kept private. A typical scenario for many public projects is the need to keep security vulnerabilities private while they are being worked on to mitigate risk. Previously, GitLab supported Confidential Issues in public projects but if you wanted to create a confidential merge request you needed to coordinate in a separate, private code repository.

Now, Merge Requests for Confidential Issues is making this a lot easier. Clicking on the Create Confidential Merge Request button on a Confidential Issue allows users to select a private fork within which to create the new branch and merge request, this keeps everything under wraps until it’s appropriate to reveal it by merging the code from the private fork back into the upstream public project.

Get automatic HTTPS certs for Pages using Let’s Encrypt

GitLab Pages is a great way to publish web content, from landing pages and documentation to project artifacts and reports. Of course, securing your traffic with HTTPS is a must, but keeping track of the process to procure, provision, and renew certs can be daunting. It's even more challenging if you are managing a large number of domains. Not having built-in, supported certificate management meant that many organizations operating at scale wanted to use GitLab Pages, but couldn't.

Many of you in the GitLab community have told us how valuable automated Let’s Encrypt certificates for GitLab Pages would be. Today, we’re happy to say this highly-requested feature is available for use. Now, getting secured web traffic to all of your GitLab Pages custom domains and subdomains is as simple as clicking a toggle in your Pages settings.

And much more!

There are such a lot of great features shipping with GitLab 12.1 that we couldn’t possibly highlight them all. Git object deduplication, and Deploy Boards for Kubernetes clusters at the Group and Instance level are just a few of the improvements in this release. Keep reading below to get details on every feature along with links to the docs.

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GitLab MVP badge

MVP This month's Most Valuable Person (MVP) is awarded to Guillaume Grossetie

Guillaume’s contributions to GitLab 12.0 AND 12.1 bring some much needed (and requested) enhancements to our support for AsciiDoc in both repository and wiki views.

Thanks so much to Guillaume for your contributions!

12.1 Key improvements released in GitLab 12.1

Parallel execution strategy for Merge Trains

Parallel execution strategy for Merge Trains

When you are rapidly deploying changes at a high volume, master or target branches should stay green with accelerated validation and a high degree of accuracy. To meet these needs, we have enhanced merge trains to use a parallel strategy for pipeline execution. Parallel execution accelerates validation by sequencing merge requests in order and kicking off controlled, parallel pipelines. Accuracy is achieved by automatically removing failed merges in the train and refactoring validated merge results in the new order for your target branch.

Merge Requests for Confidential Issues

Merge Requests for Confidential Issues

When discussing, planning and resolving confidential issues, such as security vulnerabilities, it can be particularly challenging for open source projects to remain efficient since the Git repository is public.

As of 12.1, it is now possible for confidential issues in a public project to be resolved within a streamlined workflow using the Create confidential merge request button, which helps you create a merge request in a private fork of the project.

Merge Requests for Confidential Issues

Automatic HTTPS for Pages with Let’s Encrypt

Automatic HTTPS for Pages with Let’s Encrypt

In 12.1, Pages users that add a new custom domain can enable “Automatic certificate management using Let’s Encrypt”. With this setting configured, GitLab automatically procures certs from Let’s Encrypt, provisions them to your custom domain in GitLab, keeps track of the expiration date and automatically renews your certs.

Your selections can be set on a per-domain basis to accommodate varying users and requirements.

Automatic HTTPS for Pages with Let's Encrypt

Git object deduplication

Git object deduplication

Forking workflows makes it easy to contribute to any project by creating a copy of the upstream project to work on before opening a merge request to merge your changes into the upstream project. For popular projects, the server-side storage requirements needed for thousands of copies accumulate quickly and increase hosting costs.

In GitLab 12.1, creating a fork of a public project creates an object pool (if one doesn’t already exist) and uses objects/info/alternates to reduce the storage requirements of forks.

Object deduplication requires hashed storage to be enabled, and for the parent project to be using hashed storage. Existing forks are not currently migrated to object pools automatically – for updates follow gitaly#1560.

In an upcoming release, we will also implement fast forking by directly creating the fork in a deduplicated state. Currently, the fork is first created, then deduplicated.

12.1 Other improvements in GitLab 12.1

Project Aliases for Git over SSH

Project Aliases for Git over SSH

When migrating Git repositories to GitLab and other systems that need to access them, it is useful to use the same name between systems; This is already possible in most cases, but a few Git tools like Gitolite allow projects to be accessible without a namespace. In GitLab, every project exists within a namespace, making it difficult to migrate these projects.

In GitLab 12.1 instance, administrators can use the new Project Alias API to map a short project alias to a project in GitLab, reducing the risks of migrating to GitLab.

Enforced inclusion of pipeline templates at the instance level

Enforced inclusion of pipeline templates at the instance level

Instance administrators can specify a required include: that runs on every pipeline created in that instance, this can be used to ensure adherence to compliance or standardized processes that should run with no exceptions, helping to enforce consistency across your company’s CI/CD process.

GitLab.com (SaaS) Self-service Plan Upgrades

GitLab.com (SaaS) Self-service Plan Upgrades

You can now upgrade your GitLab Plan via the customer billing portal! Previously, upgrading your GitLab Plan required reaching out to GitLab manually to request an upgrade which was often frustrating and time-consuming.

Adding the ability to upgrade a plan without manual intervention is an exciting first step towards providing you with a fully self-serviced billing and licensing platform.

For more information on what the Fulfillment team’s roadmap looks like, please check out the direction page!

AsciiDoc code block syntax highlighting

AsciiDoc code block syntax highlighting

AsciiDoc code blocks are now syntax highlighted when viewing AsciiDoc files in repositories or wikis.

Thanks Guillaume Grossetie for your contribution!

AsciiDoc code block syntax highlighting

Automatically enable Rugged for NFS

Automatically enable Rugged for NFS

After removing Rugged and enabling Gitaly for all Git operations, we observed severe performance regressions for large GitLab instances when using NFS. To address these performance problems we added and backported feature flags to re-enable the Rugged implementations that improve performance for GitLab instances using NFS.

If GitLab detects that Rugged can safely be enabled, GitLab automatically re-enables Rugged to improve performance for GitLab instances using NFS.

Performance improvements are being made every release to improve Git access patterns, improve Git performance and implement caching. You can read more about this in our recent blog post, “What we’re doing to fix Gitaly NFS performance regressions”.

default keyword for top-level .gitlab-ci.yml configurations

default keyword for top-level .gitlab-ci.yml configurations

To improve the organization and clarity of top-level configuration options in gitlab-ci.yml, we are moving the following configuration options under a separate keyword called default: before_script, after_script, image, services, variables, and cache. The change is fully backwards compatible, and existing configuration options outside of the default context are still honored.

Deploy Boards for instance-level Kubernetes clusters

Deploy Boards for instance-level Kubernetes clusters

Deploy Boards offer a consolidated view of the current health and status of each CI environment running on Kubernetes, displaying the status of the pods in the deployment.

Starting in GitLab 12.1, deployments made using an instance-level cluster supports the deploy boards feature.

Deploy Boards for instance-level Kubernetes clusters

Deploy Boards for group-level Kubernetes clusters

Deploy Boards for group-level Kubernetes clusters

Deploy Boards offer a consolidated view of the current health and status of each CI environment running on Kubernetes, displaying the status of the pods in the deployment.

Starting in GitLab 12.1, deployments made using a group-level cluster supports the deploy boards feature.

Uninstall Ingress from Kubernetes GitLab Managed Apps

Uninstall Ingress from Kubernetes GitLab Managed Apps

With GitLab 12.1, the Ingress application can now be uninstalled from your Kubernetes cluster.

Update Knative version to 0.6

Update Knative version to 0.6

The Knative application chart has been updated to v0.6, providing a number of improvements which include better scaling and alpha auto-TLS support.

Geo verifies file integrity for Attachments, LFS objects and Job Artifacts

Geo verifies file integrity for Attachments, LFS objects and Job Artifacts

Data integrity is crucial when replicating data from a Primary node to a Secondary node. The Geo team is currently working to improve how we verify replicated data. In 12.1, Geo now calculates checksums for attachments, LFS objects and job artifacts on Secondary nodes after transfer compares it with the stored checksums and rejects transfers if mismatched. Please note that Geo currently does not support an automatic way to verify these data if they sync before 12.1.

Warning for incompatible characters in Container Registry

Warning for incompatible characters in Container Registry

The GitLab Container Registry allows you to build, push and share Docker images/tags to GitLab. However, if you have special characters (e.g. leading underscore, trailing hyphen/dash, double hyphen/dash) in either your group, project or branch name and navigates to your projects Container Registry, you receive a 500 error and no explanation why.

In 12.1, we have updated the landing page for the Container Registry in the case where you can’t connect to the Docker registry to include an explanation of the error and a link to documentation on how to remediate the issue.

Warning for incompatible characters in Container Registry

API to retrieve Dependency List data

API to retrieve Dependency List data

You are now able to leverage the data contained in the Dependency List via an API so that you can create automated processes or to feed other external tools. This API should make the generation of dependency data needed for compliance reports easier and faster.

This API is public so you can retrieve information for this list in a JSON format.

Option to set Security Dashboard as the default view for groups

Option to set Security Dashboard as the default view for groups

Security Teams use the dashboard as the primary tool for their work. They should be able to set it as the default view for a group, so going to the group shows it immediately.

Require use of a smartcard for Git activity

Require use of a smartcard for Git activity

Instances using smartcards for authenticating with a hardware token have been able to log into the GitLab UI since 11.6. In 12.1, we’re extending smartcard support into the command line by allowing instances to enable the requirement to log in with a smartcard before allowing git activity.

With this change, organizations using smartcards can now use them as a complete authentication solution for both UI and git activity - especially when combined with LDAP.

Collapse issue board lists

Collapse issue board lists

Issue boards can have many lists, making them difficult to navigate horizontally. In 12.1, we added the ability to collapse an issue board list, allowing you to hide lists. Additionally, you are now able to drag issues from open to closed more easily by collapsing board lists in-between the open and closed lists.

Add settings for adjusting time tracking hours

Add settings for adjusting time tracking hours

Not all parts of the world have a 40 hour work week, leading to time tracking in GitLab being inaccurate for those areas that may have a 35-hour workweek. In 12.1, an instance-level setting is introduced to configure the number of hours in a week and always display absolute hours for time tracking purposes.

Omnibus improvements

Omnibus improvements

Extensible Runners

Extensible Runners

In the 12.1 release, we’ve introduced a powerful new way to extend the GitLab Runner with custom behaviors which can be used to support different provisioning platforms, set up a secure environment/implement compliance processes, configure secure variables or to run any custom code during a GitLab Runner execution sequence.

This feature is usable with gitlab.com, but because the configuration maps to the runner rather than the .gitlab-ci.yml, it requires you to register your custom runners.

Multiple diff discussions

Multiple diff discussions

Discussing and requesting changes proposed in a merge request is central to the merge request workflow, but a single line change may need multiple independent discussions. For example, a discussion of the correctness of a line of code may be separate to a discussion of it’s broader implications elsewhere through the codebase.

In GitLab 12.1, it is now possible for multiple discussions to exist on the same line in a merge request diff, making it possible for different discussions to occur in parallel and reducing noise in diff discussions.

Multiple diff discussions

Upcoming Releases

Upcoming Releases

It is helpful to some people to create and communicate a Release before it is shipped. You can now create an Upcoming Release through our Releases API by modifying and editing the released_at value with a future date, this makes the Upcoming Release viewable on the Releases page in chronological order with releases and display the “Upcoming Release” label for future dated releases.

If you do not modify the released_at date then the created_date is assumed by default.

Upcoming Releases

Improved AsciiDoc formatting

Improved AsciiDoc formatting

AsciiDoc implements several formatting marks above and beyond those supported by Markdown, including underline, line-through, highlight, small and admonition (alert boxes) marks. These formatting marks are now rendered and visible when viewing AsciiDoc files in repositories and wikis.

Thanks Guillaume Grossetie for your contribution!

Improved AsciiDoc formatting

Pool cat-file processes per Rails session

Pool cat-file processes per Rails session

In GitLab, there are interfaces where the details of arbitrary commits are shown, like merge requests discussions or CI pipeline lists. Fetching commit information one commit at a time is slow since there is an overhead to launching the Git process each time.

GitLab now shares the same Git cat-file process for each Rails request session. After deploying this change to GitLab.com, we observed significant decreases in median latency for FindCommit and TreeEntry RPCs.

You can read more about this in our recent blog post, “What we’re doing to fix Gitaly NFS performance regressions”.

Instance-level cluster Web Terminal access

Instance-level cluster Web Terminal access

Web terminals provide a great way to debug issues without leaving the comfort of your web browser.

As part of GitLab 12.1, web terminals are now available for deployments made using instance-level Kubernetes clusters.

Group-level cluster Web Terminal access

Group-level cluster Web Terminal access

Web terminals provide a great way to debug issues without leaving the comfort of your web browser.

As part of GitLab 12.1, web terminals are now available for deployments made using group-level Kubernetes clusters.

Uninstall JupyterHub from Kubernetes GitLab Managed Apps

Uninstall JupyterHub from Kubernetes GitLab Managed Apps

With GitLab 12.1, the JupyterHub application can now be uninstalled from your Kubernetes cluster.

Define and store your metrics dashboards in your repository

Define and store your metrics dashboards in your repository

You can create custom dashboards based on important metrics needed to observe the state of your applications. Starting in 12.1, you can source control those dashboard definitions right alongside your application code. In 12.1, we started with support for area and single-stat chart types.

Annotate GitLab incidents with Prometheus alert attributes

Annotate GitLab incidents with Prometheus alert attributes

When an incident occurs, usually at the least convenient time, it can be difficult to hone in on what is causing the problem, and where you need to start remediation. In 12.1, we enable annotation of GitLab incident issues using Prometheus alert attributes. This implementation is an MVC, and we are excited to continue to iterate on customizing incidents in future milestones.

Annotate GitLab incidents with Prometheus alert attributes

Subgroup support for NPM Registry

Subgroup support for NPM Registry

The GitLab NPM Registry allows node.js developers to publish and share NPM packages. However, many people were blocked from using the feature due to a lack of support for sub-groups. We are excited to announce that with 12.1, we’ve updated the NPM Registry package name format to @root_namespace_path/any-name to allow for authentication and pulling packages at the group/sub-group level.

Improve discovery and navigation for GitLab Package features

Improve discovery and navigation for GitLab Package features

The GitLab Package stage includes the Container registry, the Package Registry and the [Dependency Proxy](/direction/package/#dependency-proxy. Until 12.1, all of these features were nested under different sections of the top-level navigation, creating discovery and usability issues. As we launch more features and integrations for the Package stage, we must ensure that they have a consistent, easy-to-find navigation path.

With 12.1 we have grouped all of the above features under a new top-level navigation Packages to improve discoverability and ensure we have a place to nest future features such as metrics and policies related to the Package stage.

Improve discovery and navigation for GitLab Package features

Support custom PyPI registries in Dependency Scanning

Support custom PyPI registries in Dependency Scanning

Allow custom PyPI registries to be used in Dependency Scanning by supporting PIP_INDEX_URL and PIP_EXTRA_INDEX_URL environment variables.

Include the list of all scanned URLs in DAST

Include the list of all scanned URLs in DAST

Today we don’t include all the paths/URLs that were scanned and tested with Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) in the MR, this leaves the user unaware of what was scanned and if a full-scan was completed.

Developer role can rewrite/remove Git tags

Developer role can rewrite/remove Git tags

Git tags are useful for referencing specific points and are typically used for tagging specific versioned releases. To make git tags easier to use by development teams, we’re adding the ability to allow Developers to rewrite and remove non-protected tags. Protected tags still require Maintainer or Owner permissions.

Change milestone for many issues at the group level

Change milestone for many issues at the group level

User can change the milestone for many issues at the same time in a specific project. In GitLab 12.1, we are releasing the capability to bulk edit milestones for many issues at the group level, allowing for easier management of milestones and issues.

GitLab Runner 12.1

GitLab Runner 12.1

We’re also releasing GitLab Runner 12.1 today! GitLab Runner is the open-source project that is used to run your CI/CD jobs and send the results back to GitLab.

Most interesting changes:

List of all changes are found in GitLab Runner’s CHANGELOG.

Performance improvements

Performance improvements

We continue to improve the performance of GitLab with every release for GitLab instances of every size.

Some of the improvements in GitLab 12.1 are:

Deprecations Deprecations

Remove ‘app’ label matching from Kubernetes deployment selector

Remove ‘app’ label matching from Kubernetes deployment selector

As part of GitLab 12.1, we have removed the app label matching for the Kubernetes deployment selector. As part of GitLab 11.10, we introduced a new matching mechanism which uses app.gitlab.com/app and app.gitlab.com/env to show deployments on deploy boards.

To see these deployments in your deploy boards, all you need to do is push a new deployment, and GitLab uses the new labels for your deployments.

Planned removal date: July 22nd, 2019.

Remove support for creating non-RBAC Kubernetes clusters

Remove support for creating non-RBAC Kubernetes clusters

As part of GitLab 12.1, we have removed the ability to create a non-RBAC Kubernetes cluster when using the GKE integration.

Starting with Kubernetes version 1.12, GKE clusters have basic authentication and client certificate issuance disabled by default.

Planned removal date: July 22nd, 2019.

Deprecation of node[‘gitlab’] settings for monitoring components in omnibus-gitlab

Deprecation of node[‘gitlab’] settings for monitoring components in omnibus-gitlab

In omnibus-gitlab, settings handling monitoring components like Prometheus, Alertmanager, Grafana, various exporters etc. have been moved to be under the monitoring cookbook. This means, in gitlab.rb, instead of referring them like node['gitlab']['prometheus']['username'], they should be referred using node['monitoring']['prometheus]['username]. Check the update notes for details.

Planned removal date: July 22nd, 2019.

Deprecation of openSUSE 42.3 packages

Deprecation of openSUSE 42.3 packages

GitLab 12.1 is the last version with openSUSE 42.3 packages. openSUSE 15.0 packages are available from 12.1 onwards.

Planned removal date: July 22nd, 2019.

Removal of MySQL client from Omnibus

Removal of MySQL client from Omnibus

In GitLab 12.1, mysql-client is removed from the GitLab packages, in conjunction with the removal of support for MySQL.

Planned removal date: July 22nd, 2019.

Removal of Sentry settings for error reporting and logging will come from the UI

Removal of Sentry settings for error reporting and logging will come from the UI

Sentry settings for error reporting and logging are removed from the UI in GitLab 12.1. These settings have been available within gitlab.yml since GitLab 11.11. Also, you can able to define a Sentry Environment to differentiate between multiple deployments like development, staging, and production. See gitlab-ce#49771 for more details.

Planned removal date: Jul. 22, 2019

Removals and breaking changes Removals and breaking changes

The complete list of all removed features can be viewed in the GitLab documentation. To be notified of upcoming breaking changes, subscribe to our Breaking Changes RSS feed.

Important notes on upgrading to GitLab Important notes on upgrading to GitLab 12.1

  • GitLab 12.1 includes a Rails upgrade to 5.2, this may cause issues with zero-downtime upgrades. If zero downtime is required, we recommend using a load balancer and taking nodes out gradually to upgrade.
  • Similar to GitLab 12.0, GitLab 12.1 will automatically upgrade the PostgreSQL version to 10.7.
  • Ability to skip the auto-upgrade of PostreSQL 10.7 creating /etc/gitlab/disable-postgresql-upgrade.
  • In contrast to GitLab 12.0, GitLab 12.1 supports updating GitLab Geo on both the primary and all secondary nodes.

Changelog Changelog

Please check out the changelog to see all the named changes:

Installing Installing

If you are setting up a new GitLab installation please see the download GitLab page.

Updating Updating

Check out our update page.

Questions? Questions?

We'd love to hear your thoughts! Visit the GitLab Forum and let us know if you have questions about the release.

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