Docker – How to make GitLab Runner in Docker see a custom CA Root certificate

dockergitlabgitlab-cigitlab-ci-runnerroot-certificate

I have installed and configured:

  1. an on-premises GitLab Omnibus on ServerA running on HTTPS
  2. an on-premises GitLab-Runner installed as Docker Service in ServerB

ServerA certificate is generated by a custom CA Root

The Configuration

I've have put the CA Root Certificate on ServerB:

/srv/gitlab-runner/config/certs/ca.crt

Installed the Runner on ServerB as described in Run GitLab Runner in a container – Docker image installation and configuration:

docker run -d --name gitlab-runner --restart always \
           -v /srv/gitlab-runner/config:/etc/gitlab-runner \
           -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
           gitlab/gitlab-runner:latest

Registered the Runner as described in Registering Runners – One-line registration command:

docker run --rm -t -i 
            -v /srv/gitlab-runner/config:/etc/gitlab-runner 
           --name gitlab-docker-runner gitlab/gitlab-runner register \
           --non-interactive \
           --executor "docker" \
           --docker-image alpine:latest \
           --url "https://MY_PRIVATE_REPO_URL_HERE/" \
           --registration-token "MY_PRIVATE_TOKEN_HERE" \
           --description "MyDockerServer-Runner" \
           --tag-list "TAG_1,TAG_2,TAG_3" \
           --run-untagged \
           --locked="false"

This command gave the following output:

Updating CA certificates…

Runtime platform arch=amd64 os=linux pid=5 revision=cf91d5e1 version=11.4.2

Running in system-mode.

Registering runner… succeeded runner=8UtcUXCY

Runner registered successfully. Feel free to start it, but if it's running already the config should be automatically reloaded!

I checked with

$ docker exec -it gitlab-runner bash

and once in the container with

$ awk -v cmd='openssl x509 -noout -subject' '
/BEGIN/{close(cmd)};{print | cmd}' < /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

and the custom CA root is correctly there.

The Problem

When running Gitlab-Runner from GitLab-CI, the pipeline fails miserably telling me that:

$ git clone https://gitlab-ci-token:${CI_BUILD_TOKEN}@ServerA/foo/bar/My-Project.wiki.git

Cloning into 'My-Project.wiki'…

fatal: unable to access 'https://gitlab-ci-token:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@ServerA/foo/bar/My-Project.wiki.git/': server certificate verification failed. CAfile: /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt CRLfile: none

ERROR: Job failed: exit code 1

It does not recognize the Issuer (my custom CA Root), but according to The self-signed certificates or custom Certification Authorities, point n.1, it should out-of-the-box:

Default: GitLab Runner reads system certificate store and verifies the GitLab server against the CA’s stored in system.

I've then tried the solution from point n.3, editing 

/srv/gitlab-runner/config/config.toml:

and adding: 

[[runners]]
tls-ca-file = "/srv/gitlab-runner/config/certs/ca.crt"

But it still doesn't work.

How can I make Gitlab Runner read the CA Root certificate?

Best Answer

You have two options:

Ignore SSL verification

Put this at the top of your .gitlab-ci.yml:

variables:
  GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY: "1"

Point GitLab-Runner to the proper certificate

As outlined in the official documentation, you can use the tls-*-file options to setup your certificate, e.g.:

[[runners]]
  ...
  tls-ca-file = "/etc/gitlab-runner/ssl/ca-bundle.crt"
  [runners.docker]
  ...

As the documentation states, "this file will be read every time when runner tries to access the GitLab server."

Other options include tls-cert-file to define the certificate to be used if needed.

Related Topic