Chainguard Container for gitlab-workhorse-ce-fips

FIPS-compliant GitLab images providing a complete DevOps platform that meets Federal Information Processing Standards for cryptographic operations, source code management, CI/CD automation, and collaboration tools.

Chainguard Containers are regularly-updated, secure-by-default container images.

Download this Container Image

For those with access, this container image is available on cgr.dev:

docker pull cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-workhorse-ce-fips:latest

Be sure to replace the ORGANIZATION placeholder with the name used for your organization's private repository within the Chainguard Registry.

Compatibility Notes

The gitlab-fips images are FIPS-compliant versions based on the upstream GitLab components and are compatible with the official GitLab Helm chart. These images provide all the GitLab components in minimal, secure container images built on Wolfi with FIPS-validated cryptographic modules.

This FIPS-compliant image group includes the following components:

• gitaly-fips - Git repository storage service
• gitlab-agent-fips - GitLab Kubernetes Agent
• gitlab-base-fips - Base image with common GitLab functionality
• gitlab-certificates-fips - Certificate management for GitLab
• gitlab-container-registry-fips - GitLab's container registry
• gitlab-exporter-fips - Prometheus metrics exporter
• gitlab-kas-fips - GitLab Agent Server
• gitlab-pages-fips - GitLab Pages static site hosting
• gitlab-runner-fips - GitLab CI/CD runner
• gitlab-runner-helper-fips - Helper image for GitLab Runner
• gitlab-shell-fips - SSH access to Git repositories
• gitlab-sidekiq-ce-fips - Background job processing (Community Edition)
• gitlab-toolbox-ce-fips - Administrative toolbox (Community Edition)
• gitlab-webservice-ce-fips - Main GitLab web application (Community Edition)
• gitlab-workhorse-ce-fips - HTTP reverse proxy for GitLab (Community Edition)

These images maintain compatibility with the upstream GitLab components while providing enhanced security through minimal design, regular updates, and FIPS 140-3 Level 1 validated cryptographic modules.

FIPS Compliance

These FIPS-compliant images include OpenSSL FIPS provider and are built with FIPS-validated cryptographic modules. Key FIPS features include:

• FIPS-validated OpenSSL provider - Uses OpenSSL FIPS provider for cryptographic operations
• Approved algorithms only - Restricted to FIPS-approved cryptographic algorithms
• FIPS mode enforcement - Cryptographic operations automatically use FIPS-validated modules
• Enhanced SSH security - SSH configurations restricted to FIPS-approved ciphers and algorithms

Some images may include GnuPG, gpgme, and libgcrypt cryptographic modules in unapproved mode. The majority of Git repositories use SHA-1 for commit and tag identification, which can optionally be signed with GPG, SSH or S/MIME. SHA-1 is deprecated and will be unapproved after 2030. Please consider using SSH & S/MIME signing options with SHA256 repositories.

Getting Started

The gitlab-fips images are designed to work together as a complete FIPS-compliant GitLab deployment using the official GitLab Helm chart. Here's how to configure your GitLab installation to use Chainguard FIPS Images:

cat > gitlab-fips-values.yaml <<EOF
# Chainguard FIPS Images configuration for GitLab
global:
  gitlabBase:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-base-fips
      tag: latest
  certificates:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-certificates-fips
      tag: latest
gitlab:
  gitlab-exporter:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-exporter-fips
      tag: latest
  gitlab-shell:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-shell-fips
      tag: latest
    # FIPS-approved SSH configuration
    config:
      ciphers: ["aes128-ctr", "aes192-ctr", "aes256-ctr"]
      kexAlgorithms: ["ecdh-sha2-nistp384", "ecdh-sha2-nistp521"]
      macs: ["hmac-sha2-256", "hmac-sha2-512"]
      publicKeyAlgorithms: ["ecdsa-sha2-nistp256", "ecdsa-sha2-nistp384", "ecdsa-sha2-nistp521"]
  gitaly:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitaly-fips
      tag: latest
  gitlab-pages:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-pages-fips
      tag: latest
  kas:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-kas-fips
      tag: latest
  sidekiq:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-sidekiq-ce-fips
      tag: latest
  toolbox:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-toolbox-ce-fips
      tag: latest
  webservice:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-webservice-ce-fips
      tag: latest
  workhorse:
    image:
      repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-workhorse-ce-fips
      tag: latest
registry:
  image:
    repository: cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-container-registry-fips
    tag: latest
gitlab-runner:
  runners:
    config: |
      [[runners]]
        [runners.kubernetes]
          helper_image = "cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-runner-helper-fips:latest"
  image:
    registry: cgr.dev
    image: ORGANIZATION/gitlab-runner-fips
    tag: latest
EOF

Install GitLab using the Helm chart with your FIPS values:

helm repo add gitlab https://charts.gitlab.io/
helm repo update
helm upgrade --install gitlab gitlab/gitlab \
  --namespace gitlab-system \
  --create-namespace \
  --values gitlab-fips-values.yaml

Replace ORGANIZATION with your actual organization name in the Chainguard registry. The values above provide the minimal configuration for using Chainguard FIPS Images and should be combined with your additional GitLab configuration requirements.

For a development or testing environment, you can combine the above with these minimal settings:

# Additional minimal configuration for development
global:
  ingress:
    configureCertmanager: false
    tls:
      enabled: false
  gitlab:
    gitlab-shell:
      minReplicas: 1
      maxReplicas: 1
    webservice:
      minReplicas: 1
      maxReplicas: 1
    gitlab-pages:
      resources:
        requests:
          memory: 250M
          cpu: 50m
certmanager:
  install: false
registry:
  hpa:
    minReplicas: 1
    maxReplicas: 1
nginx-ingress:
  controller:
    replicaCount: 1
    minAvailable: 0
prometheus:
  install: false
minio:
  resources:
    requests:
      cpu: 100m
redis:
  resources:
    requests:
      cpu: 100m

The minimal configuration above is not recommended for production environments. Please refer to the GitLab Helm chart documentation for production-ready configurations.

Configuration

GitLab FIPS components can be configured through the Helm chart values or environment variables. Here are some common configuration scenarios for FIPS compliance:

FIPS SSH Configuration

For the gitlab-shell-fips component, SSH is automatically configured with FIPS-approved ciphers and algorithms:

gitlab:
  gitlab-shell:
    config:
      ciphers: ["aes128-ctr", "aes192-ctr", "aes256-ctr"]
      kexAlgorithms: ["ecdh-sha2-nistp384", "ecdh-sha2-nistp521"]
      macs: ["hmac-sha2-256", "hmac-sha2-512"]
      publicKeyAlgorithms: ["ecdsa-sha2-nistp256", "ecdsa-sha2-nistp384", "ecdsa-sha2-nistp521"]

FIPS GitLab Runner Configuration

Configure GitLab Runner with FIPS-compliant helper images:

gitlab-runner:
  runners:
    config: |
      [[runners]]
        name = "chainguard-fips-runner"
        [runners.kubernetes]
          helper_image = "cgr.dev/ORGANIZATION/gitlab-runner-helper-fips:latest"
          privileged = false

Resource Limits

Set appropriate resource limits for production environments:

gitlab:
  webservice:
    resources:
      requests:
        memory: "2Gi"
        cpu: "1000m"
      limits:
        memory: "4Gi"
        cpu: "2000m"

FIPS Verification

To verify FIPS mode is enabled, you can check the OpenSSL FIPS provider status within any container:

kubectl exec -it <gitlab-pod> -- openssl list -providers

For complete configuration options, refer to the GitLab Helm chart values documentation.

Documentation and Resources

For more information about working with GitLab FIPS and Chainguard Images:

• GitLab Helm Chart Documentation
• GitLab Configuration Guide
• GitLab Runner Documentation
• GitLab Agent for Kubernetes
• NIST FIPS 140-3 Information

What are Chainguard Containers?

Chainguard's free tier of Starter container images are built with Wolfi, our minimal Linux undistro.

All other Chainguard Containers are built with Chainguard OS, Chainguard's minimal Linux operating system designed to produce container images that meet the requirements of a more secure software supply chain.

The main features of Chainguard Containers include:

• Minimal design, without unnecessary software bloat
• Daily builds to ensure container images are up-to-date with available security patches
• High quality build-time SBOMs attesting to the provenance of all artifacts within the image
• Verifiable signatures provided by Sigstore
• Reproducible builds with Cosign and apko (read more about reproducibility)

For cases where you need container images with shells and package managers to build or debug, most Chainguard Containers come paired with a development, or -dev, variant.

In all other cases, including Chainguard Containers tagged as :latest or with a specific version number, the container images include only an open-source application and its runtime dependencies. These minimal container images typically do not contain a shell or package manager.

Although the -dev container image variants have similar security features as their more minimal versions, they include additional software that is typically not necessary in production environments. We recommend using multi-stage builds to copy artifacts from the -dev variant into a more minimal production image.

Need additional packages?

To improve security, Chainguard Containers include only essential dependencies. Need more packages? Chainguard customers can use Custom Assembly to add packages, either through the Console, chainctl, or API.

To use Custom Assembly in the Chainguard Console: navigate to the image you'd like to customize in your Organization's list of images, and click on the Customize image button at the top of the page.

Learn More

Refer to our Chainguard Containers documentation on Chainguard Academy. Chainguard also offers VMs and Libraries — contact us for access.

Trademarks

This software listing is packaged by Chainguard. The trademarks set forth in this offering are owned by their respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement by such companies.