Deprecations
All CI/CD stages removed from the fuzz testing default template
In GitLab 14.0, the stages defined in the current API-Fuzzing.gitlab-ci.yml template
will be removed to avoid the situation where the template overrides manual changes
made by users of fuzz testing. This change is being made in response to customer issues where
the stages in the template caused problems when used with customized fuzz testing configurations.
Because of this removal, .gitlab-ci.yml configurations that do not specify a fuzz stage must be updated to include this stage.
In GitLab 13.11, the stages are deprecated so they’ve been removed from the API-Fuzzing.latest.gitlab-ci.yml template.
Anyone can test and see if any changes are needed in their configuration files.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Auto DevOps: Stable Auto Deploy template renewal
In GitLab 14.0, we will renew the Auto Deploy CI template to the latest version. This includes new features, bug fixes, and performance improvements with a dependency on the v2 auto-deploy-image. This latest template is opt-in. Unless you specifically customize Auto DevOps in your project, it uses the stable template with a dependency on the v1 auto-deploy-image.
Since the v1 and v2 versions are not backward compatible, your project might encounter an unexpected failure if you already have a deployed application. Please follow the upgrade guide to upgrade your environments. You can also start using the latest template today by following the early adoption guide.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Code Quality Rubocop support changing
Currently, by default, the Code Quality feature does not provide support for Ruby 2.6+ if you’re using the Code Quality template.
To better support the latest versions of Ruby, the default Rubocop version is being changed to add support for Ruby 2.4 through 3.0. As a result, support for Ruby 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 will be dropped. You can reenable support for older versions by customizing your configuration.
Relevant Issue: Default codeclimate-rubocop engine does not support Ruby 2.6+
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Container Scanning Engine Clair
GitLab 14.0 will replace its container scanning engine with Trivy. Currently, GitLab uses the open source Clair engine for container scanning. GitLab 13.9 deprecates Clair. For any 13.x release, customers who wish to continue to use Clair can do so by setting the CS_MAJOR_VERSION variable to version 3 (or earlier) in their .gitlab-ci.yaml file. Since Clair is deprecated, however, note that GitLab will no longer update or maintain that scanning engine. Beginning in the 14.0 release, Trivy will become the new default scanner and will receive regular updates and the latest features. Customers are advised to review their CI files in advance of the 14.0 release and to follow these instructions to ensure that their container scanning jobs continue to work. Customers can provide feedback and get additional details on our open deprecation issue.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
DAST environment variable renaming and removal
GitLab 13.8 renamed multiple CI/CD variables to support their broader usage in different workflows. In GitLab 14.0, the old variables will be permanently removed and will no longer work. Any configurations using these variables must be updated to the new variable names. Any scans using these variables in GitLab 14.0 and later will fail to be configured correctly. These variables are:
DAST_AUTH_EXCLUDE_URLS becomes DAST_EXCLUDE_URLS.AUTH_EXCLUDE_URLS becomes DAST_EXCLUDE_URLS.AUTH_USERNAME becomes DAST_USERNAME.AUTH_PASSWORD becomes DAST_PASSWORD.AUTH_USERNAME_FIELD becomes DAST_USERNAME_FIELD.AUTH_PASSWORD_FIELD becomes DAST_PASSWORD_FIELD.DAST_ZAP_USE_AJAX_SPIDER becomes DAST_USE_AJAX_SPIDER.DAST_FULL_SCAN_DOMAIN_VALIDATION_REQUIRED will be removed, since the feature is being removed.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Browser Performance Testing currently runs in a job named performance by default. With the introduction of Load Performance Testing in GitLab 13.2, this naming could be confusing.
To make it clear which job is running Browser Performance Testing, the default job name will be changed from performance to browser_performance in the template in GitLab 14.0.
Relevant Issue: Rename default Browser Performance Testing job
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Deprecate disk source configuration for GitLab Pages
GitLab Pages API-based configuration has been available since GitLab 13.0 and will replace the disk source configuration, which will be removed in GitLab 14.0. We recommend that you move away from using disk source configuration and move to gitlab for an API-based configuration, since disk will no longer be supported and cannot be chosen. You can migrate away from the ‘disk’ source configuration by setting gitlab_pages['domain_config_source'] = "gitlab" in your gitlab.rb/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb file. We recommend that you do this before GitLab 14.0 so you can find and troubleshoot any potential problems ahead of time.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Deprecating Global `SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGE_TAG` in SAST CI template
With the maturity of GitLab Secure scanning tools, we’ve needed to add more granularity to our release process. Currently, GitLab shares a major version number for all our analyzers and tools. This requires all tools to share a major version and prevent the use of semantic version numbering. Beginning in 14.0 GitLab SAST will deprecate the SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGE_TAG global variable in our managed SAST.gitlab-ci.yml CI template in favor of the analyzer job variable setting the ‘major.minor’ tag in the SAST vendored template. Each analyzer job will have a scoped SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGE_TAG variable which will be actively managed by GitLab and set to the ‘major.minor’ tag for the respective analyzer. To pin to a specific version you simply change the variable value to the specific version tag.
If you override or maintain custom versions of SAST.gitlab-ci.yml you will want to update your CI templates to stop referencing the global SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGE_TAG and move it to a scoped analyzer job tag. We strongly encourage inheriting and overriding our managed CI templates to future proof your CI templates. This change will allow you to instead override with a pinned major.minor version to more granular control future analyzer updates. This change will happen with GitLab 14.0 releasing June 22, 2021.
This deprecation and planned removal changes our previously announced plan to Pin the Static Analysis tools.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Deprecation of disk/NFS storage for GitLab Pages
To make GitLab Pages cloud-native compatible, starting in GitLab 14.0, we’re changing the underlying storage architecture used by GitLab Pages to the recently introduced ZIP storage.
Your migration to the new zip archives architecture is designed to be automatic. However, if after the migration, some Pages stop working (you see a 404), it likely means automatic migration failed. To ease this transition to zip, a temporary flag gitlab_pages['use_legacy_storage'] = true will be available from GitLab 14.0 to 14.3, but it will be removed in GitLab 14.4. This flag will allow GitLab and GitLab Pages to use the non-zip deployments to serve content.
In GitLab 13.11 & GitLab 13.12 you will be able to migrate to the new architecture earlier and test it in your environment prior to 14.0.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
GitLab 14.0 will remove support for the release description in the Tags API. You’ll no longer be able to add a release description when creating a new tag. You’ll also no longer be able to create or update a release through the Tags API. Please migrate to use the Releases API instead.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Deprecations for Dependency Scanning
We are reiterating the deprecations coming up in 14.0, as mentioned in 13.9 and this blog post.
Previously to exclude a DS analyzer, you needed to remove it from the default list of analyzers and use that to set the DS_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS variable in your project’s CI template. We determined it should be easier to avoid running a particular analyzer without losing the benefit of newly added analyzers. As a result we ask you to migrate from DS_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS to DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS when it is available. Read about it in issue #287691.
Previously to prevent the Gemnasium analyzers to fetch the advisory database at runtime, you needed to set the GEMNASIUM_DB_UPDATE variable. This is not documented properly and its naming is inconsistent with the equivalent BUNDLER_AUDIT_UPDATE_DISABLED variable. As a result we ask you to migrate from GEMNASIUM_DB_UPDATE to GEMNASIUM_UPDATE_DISABLED when it is available. Read about it in issue #215483.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Dropping support for SAST scanning of Go projects without Go modules enabled
As part of maintaining our Go SAST analyzer GoSec, we need to upgrade to Go 1.16. This means that we will no long scan projects that do not have Go modules enabled, which drops support for Go versions prior to 1.11. If you require scanning of older Go projects you can override our managed CI templates and pin the Go analyzer to v2.20.0.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
GitLab OAuth implicit grant deprecation
GitLab is deprecating the OAuth 2 implicit grant flow as it has been removed for OAuth 2.1.
Beginning in 14.0, new applications will be unable to be created with the OAuth 2 implicit grant flow. Existing OAuth implicit grant flows will no longer be supported in 14.4. Please migrate existing applications to other supported OAuth2 flows before release 14.4.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
GitLab Runner installation to ignore the skel directory
In GitLab Runner 14.0, the installation process will ignore the skel directory by default when creating the user home directory. Refer to issue #4845 for details.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Helm v2 support
Helm v2 was officially deprecated in November of 2020, with the stable repository being de-listed from the Helm Hub shortly thereafter. With the release of GitLab 14.0, which will include the 5.0 release of the GitLab Helm chart, Helm v2 will no longer be supported.
Users of the chart should upgrade to Helm v3 to deploy GitLab 14.0 and above.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Legacy Feature Flags Deprecation
Legacy Feature Flags became read-only in GitLab 13.4. Support for legacy Feature Flags will be removed in GitLab 14.0. You must migrate your legacy Feature Flags to the new version. You can do this by first taking a screenshot of the legacy flag for tracking, then delete the flag through the API or UI (you don’t need to alter the code), and finally create a new Feature Flag with the same name as the legacy flag you deleted. Also, make sure the strategies and environments match the deleted flag. We created a video tutorial to help with this migration.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Limit projects returned in GET /groups/:id/
To improve performance, we will be limiting the number of projects returned from the GET /groups/:id/ API call to 100. A complete list of projects can still be retrieved by using the GET /groups/:id/projects API call.
Deprecation date:
June 22nd, 2021
Make pwsh the default shell for newly-registered Windows Runners
In GitLab Runner 13.2, PowerShell Core support was added to the Shell executor. In 14.0, pwsh will be the default shell for newly-registered Windows runners. Windows CMD will still be available as a shell option for Windows runners. Refer to issue #26419 for details.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Migrate from SAST_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS to SAST_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS
Until GitLab 13.9, if you wanted to avoid running one particular GitLab SAST analyzer, you needed to remove it from the long string of analyzers in the SAST.gitlab-ci.yml file and use that to set the SAST_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS variable in your project’s CI file. If you did this, it would exclude you from future new analyzers because this string hard codes the list of analyzers to execute. We avoid this problem by inverting this variable’s logic to exclude, rather than choose default analyzers.
Beginning with 13.9, we migrated to SAST_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS in our SAST.gitlab-ci.yml file. We encourage anyone who uses a customized SAST configuration in their project CI file to migrate to this new variable. If you have not overridden SAST_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS, no action is needed. The CI/CD variable SAST_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS will be removed in GitLab 14.0, which will release on June 22, 2021.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
NFS for Git repository storage deprecated
With the general availability of Gitaly Cluster
(introduced in GitLab 13.0), we are deprecating
support for NFS for Git repositories in GitLab 14.0.
We want to help you avoid purchasing expensive NFS appliances
you won’t need, so invite customers currently using NFS for Git repositories to
begin planning their migration.
We are pleased to provide documentation on Migrating to Gitaly Cluster.
To see our overall status, please review our Gitaly Cluster roadmap.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
One-click GitLab Managed Apps will be removed in GitLab 14.0
We are deprecating one-click install of GitLab Managed Apps. Although they made it very easy to get started with deploying to Kubernetes from GitLab, the overarching community feedback was that they were not flexible or customizable enough for real-world Kubernetes applications. Instead, our future direction will focus on installing apps on Kubernetes via GitLab CI/CD in order to provide a better balance between ease-of-use and expansive customization.
We plan to remove one-click Managed Apps completely in GitLab version 14.0. This will not affect how existing managed applications run inside your cluster, however, you’ll no longer have the ability to update modify those applications via the GitLab UI. We recommend cluster administrators plan to migrate any existing managed applications by reinstalling them either manually or via CI/CD. Migration instructions will be available in our documentation later.
For users of alerts on managed Prometheus, in GitLab version 14.0, we will also remove the ability to setup/modify alerts from the GitLab UI. This change is necessary because the existing solution will no longer function once managed Prometheus is removed.
Deprecation date:
May 22, 2021
PostgreSQL 11 support
PostgreSQL 12 will be the minimum required version in GitLab 14.0. It offers significant improvements to indexing, partitioning, and general performance benefits.
Starting in GitLab 13.7, all new installations default to version 12. From GitLab 13.8, single-node instances are automatically upgraded as well. If you aren’t ready to upgrade, you can opt-out of automatic upgrades.
Multi-node database instances will need to switch from repmgr to Patroni, prior to upgrading with Patroni. Geo secondaries can then be updated and re-synchronized.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Removal of legacy fields from DAST report
As a part of the migration to a common report format for all of the Secure scanners in GitLab, DAST is making changes to the DAST JSON report. Certain legacy fields are being deprecated in 13.8 and will be completely removed in 14.0. These fields are @generated, @version, site, and spider. This should not affect any normal DAST operation, but does affect users who consume the JSON report in an automated way and use these fields. Anyone impacted by these changes who needs these fields for business reasons is encouraged to open a new GitLab issue and explain the need.
For more information, see the removal issue.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Removal of merge request approvers endpoint in favor of Approval Rules API
The PUT /projects/:id/merge_requests/:merge_request_iid/approvers API endpoint was deprecated and scheduled for removal on September 22, 2019 due to the release of Approval Rules. Approval rules for merge requests allow you to communicate who should participate in code reviews by specifying the eligible approvers, and the minimum number of approvals for each.
GitLab 13.11 removes support for this endpoint. If you currently use this endpoint, read the documentation to learn how to implement the feature using the Approval Rules API.
Deprecation date:
May 22, 2021
Removal of project approvers endpoint in favor of Approval Rules API
The PUT /projects/:id/approvers API endpoint was deprecated and scheduled for removal on September 22, 2019 due to the release of Approval Rules. Approval rules for merge requests allow you to communicate who should participate in code reviews by specifying the eligible approvers, and the minimum number of approvals for each.
GitLab 13.11 removes support for this endpoint. If you currently use this endpoint, read the documentation to learn how to implement the feature using the Approval Rules API.
Deprecation date:
May 22, 2021
Remove /usr/lib/gitlab-runner symlink from package
In GitLab Runner 13.3, a symlink was added from /user/lib/gitlab-runner/gitlab-runner to /usr/bin/gitlab-runner. In 14.0, we will remove this symlink and the runner will be installed in /usr/bin/gitlab-runner. Refer to issue #26651 for details.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Remove DAST default template stages
In GitLab 14.0, the stages defined in the current DAST.gitlab-ci.yml template will be removed to avoid the situation where the template overrides manual changes made by DAST users. This change is being made in response to customer issues where the stages in the template cause problems when used with customized DAST configurations. Because of this removal, gitlab-ci.yml configurations that do not specify a dast stage must be updated to include this stage.
In GitLab 13.8, the stages are deprecated and the changes to remove them from the template are included in the DAST.latest.gitlab-ci.yml template. Anyone can test and see if any changes are needed in their configuration files.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Remove FF_SHELL_EXECUTOR_USE_LEGACY_PROCESS_KILL feature flag
In GitLab Runner 13.1, issue #3376, we introduced sigterm and then sigkill to a process in the Shell executor. We also introduced a new feature flag, FF_SHELL_EXECUTOR_USE_LEGACY_PROCESS_KILL, so you can use the previous process termination sequence. In GitLab Runner 14.0, issue #6413, we will remove the feature flag.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Remove FF_USE_GO_CLOUD_WITH_CACHE_ARCHIVER feature flag
In GitLab Runner 14.0, we will remove the FF_USE_GO_CLOUD_WITH_CACHE_ARCHIVER feature flag. Refer to issue #27175 for details.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Remove GLOBAL_DEFAULT_BRANCH_NAME feature flag
In GitLab release 13.12 we will remove the GLOBAL_DEFAULT_BRANCH_NAME
feature flag. Refer to issue #325163
for details.
Deprecation date:
May 22, 2021
Remove PUSH_RULES_SUPERSEDE_CODE_OWNERS feature flag
In GitLab release 14.0 we will remove the PUSH_RULES_SUPERSEDE_CODE_OWNERS
feature flag. Refer to issue #262019
for details.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Remove SAST analyzer SAST_GOSEC_CONFIG variable in favor of custom rulesets
With the release of SAST Custom Rulesets in GitLab 13.5 we allow greater flexibility in configuration options for our Go analyzer (GoSec). As a result we no longer plan to support our less flexible SAST_GOSEC_CONFIG analyzer setting. This variable was deprecated in GitLab 13.10.
If you override or leverage SAST_GOSEC_CONFIG in your CI file, you will need to update your SAST CI configuration or pin to an older version of the GoSec analyzer. We strongly encourage inheriting and overriding our managed CI templates to future proof your CI templates. We will remove the old SAST_GOSEC_CONFIG variable in GitLab 14.0, releasing June 22, 2021.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Remove Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine) package
Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine) reached end of life on Friday, July 17, 2020. In GitLab Runner 14.0, we will remove the Ubuntu 19.10 (Eoan Ermine) from our package distribution. Refer to issue #26036 for details.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Remove legacy DAST domain validation
Starting with GitLab 13.8, the current method of DAST Domain Validation for CI/CD scans is deprecated. In GitLab 14.0, the legacy DAST validation method will be removed. This method of domain validation only disallows scans if the DAST_FULL_SCAN_DOMAIN_VALIDATION_REQUIRED environment variable is set to true in the gitlab-ci.yml file, and a Gitlab-DAST-Permission header on the site is not set to allow. This two-step method created a situation in which users had to opt in to using the variable before they could opt out from using the header. For users concerned about protecting a site against a full, active scan, permission for a GitLab DAST scan can still be revoked by adding to any website a Gitlab-DAST-Permission header with a value of deny. This continues to block GitLab DAST scans attempted against any website that includes this HTTP header.
For more information, see the removal issue.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Remove off peak time mode configuration for Docker Machine autoscaling
In GitLab Runner 13.0, issue #5069, we introduced new timing options for the GitLab Docker Machine executor. In GitLab Runner 14.0, we plan to remove the old configuration option, off peak time mode.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Remove redundant key/value pair from the payload of DORA metrics API
The deployment frequency project level API endpoint has been deprecated in favor of the DORA 4 API, which consolidates all the metrics under one API with the specific metric as a required field. As a result, the timestamp field, which doesn’t allow adding future extensions and causes performance issues, will be removed. An example response would be { "2021-03-01": 3, "date": "2021-03-01", "value": 3 }. The first key/value ("2021-03-01": 3) will be removed and replaced by the last two ("date": "2021-03-01", "value": 3).
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Remove secret_detection_default_branch job
To ensure Secret Detection was scanning both default branches and feature branches we introduced two separate secret detection CI jobs in our managed Secret-Detection.gitlab-ci.yml template. These two CI jobs, secret_detection_default_branch and secret_detection, created confusion and complexity in the CI rules logic. As part of this deprecation, we are moving the rule logic into the script section which will determine how the secret_detection job is run (historic, on a branch, commits, etc).
If you override or maintain custom versions of SAST.gitlab-ci.yml or Secret-Detection.gitlab-ci.yml, you must update your CI templates. We strongly encourage inheriting and overriding our managed CI templates to futureproof your CI templates. We will stop supporting the old secret_detection_default_branch job with GitLab 14.0, releasing June 22, 2021.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Remove success and failure for finished build metric conversion
In GitLab Runner 13.5, we introduced failed and success states for a job. To support Prometheus rules, we chose to convert success/failure to finished for the metric. In 14.0, we will remove the conversion. Refer to issue #26900 for details.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Remove translation from step_script to build_script in custom executor
In GitLab Runner 13.2 a translation for step_script to build_script was added to the custom executor. In 14.0 the ‘build_script’ stage will be replaced with ‘step_script`. Refer to issue #26426 for details.
Deprecation date:
Jun 22, 2021
Ubuntu 16.04 support
Ubuntu 16.04 will reach end-of-life in April 2021, and no longer receive maintenance updates. We strongly recommend users to upgrade to a newer release, such as 20.04.
GitLab 13.12 will be the last release with Ubuntu 16.04 support.
Deprecation date:
June 22, 2021
Web Application Firewall (WAF)
GitLab’s Web Application Firewall (WAF) is deprecated in GitLab 13.6. As this is a breaking change, the WAF will be removed from the product on June 22, 2021 in GitLab 14.0. GitLab’s WAF had limitations inherent in the architectural design that made it difficult to meet the requirements traditionally expected of a WAF. By deprecating and removing the WAF, GitLab will be able to focus its efforts on furthering other areas in the product where more value can be provided to users. Users who currently rely on GitLab’s WAF can continue to use the free and open source modsecurity project which is independent from GitLab. Additional details are available in the deprecation issue.
Deprecation date:
June 22nd, 2021
