GitLab 15.0 is coming to GitLab.com. Along with the exciting new features, it also includes planned deprecations because it is our major version release for 2022. We try to minimize breaking changes, but some changes are needed to improve workflows, performance, scalability, and more.

These changes will go live on GitLab.com sometime between April 23 – May 22, through our daily deployments, leading up to the official release of 15.0 on May 22. Keep reading to learn more about these important changes.

GitLab 15.0 for self-managed users will also be released on May 22.

Jump to the list of breaking changes in each stage by clicking below:

Manage

Audit events for repository push events

Announced in 14.3

Audit events for repository events are now deprecated and will be removed in GitLab 15.0.

These events have always been disabled by default and had to be manually enabled with a
feature flag. Enabling them can cause too many events to be generated which can
dramatically slow down GitLab instances. For this reason, they are being removed.

External status check API breaking changes

Announced in 14.8

The external status check API was originally implemented to
support pass-by-default requests to mark a status check as passing. Pass-by-default requests are now deprecated.
Specifically, the following are deprecated:

• Requests that do not contain the status field.
• Requests that have the status field set to approved.

Beginning in GitLab 15.0, status checks will only be updated to a passing state if the status field is both present
and set to passed. Requests that:

• Do not contain the status field will be rejected with a 422 error. For more information, see the relevant issue.
• Contain any value other than passed will cause the status check to fail. For more information, see the relevant issue.

To align with this change, API calls to list external status checks will also return the value of passed rather than
approved for status checks that have passed.

OAuth implicit grant

Announced in 14.0

The OAuth implicit grant authorization flow will be removed in our next major release, GitLab 15.0. Any applications that use OAuth implicit grant should switch to alternative supported OAuth flows.

OAuth tokens without expiration

Announced in 14.8

By default, all new applications expire access tokens after 2 hours. In GitLab 14.2 and earlier, OAuth access tokens
had no expiration. In GitLab 15.0, an expiry will be automatically generated for any existing token that does not
already have one.

You should opt in to expiring
tokens before GitLab 15.0 is released:

1. Edit the application.
2. Select Expire access tokens to enable them. Tokens must be revoked or they don’t expire.

OmniAuth Kerberos gem

Announced in 14.3

The omniauth-kerberos gem will be removed in our next major release, GitLab 15.0.

This gem has not been maintained and has very little usage. We therefore plan to remove support for this authentication method and recommend using the Kerberos SPNEGO integration instead. You can follow the upgrade instructions to upgrade from the omniauth-kerberos integration to the supported one.

Note that we are not deprecating the Kerberos SPNEGO integration, only the old password-based Kerberos integration.

Optional enforcement of PAT expiration

Announced in 14.8

The feature to disable enforcement of PAT expiration is unusual from a security perspective.
We have become concerned that this unusual feature could create unexpected behavior for users.
Unexpected behavior in a security feature is dangerous, so we have decided to remove this feature.

Optional enforcement of SSH expiration

Announced in 14.8

The feature to disable enforcement of SSH expiration is unusual from a security perspective.
We have become concerned that this unusual feature could create unexpected behavior for users.
Unexpected behavior in a security feature is dangerous, so we have decided to remove this feature.

Querying Usage Trends via the instanceStatisticsMeasurements GraphQL node

Announced in 14.8

The instanceStatisticsMeasurements GraphQL node has been renamed to usageTrendsMeasurements in 13.10 and the old field name has been marked as deprecated. To fix the existing GraphQL queries, replace instanceStatisticsMeasurements with usageTrendsMeasurements.

Required pipeline configurations in Premium tier

Announced in 14.8

The required pipeline configuration feature is deprecated in GitLab 14.8 for Premium customers and is scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0. This feature is not deprecated for GitLab Ultimate customers.

This change to move the feature to GitLab’s Ultimate tier is intended to help our features better align with our pricing philosophy as we see demand for this feature originating primarily from executives.

This change will also help GitLab remain consistent in its tiering strategy with the other related Ultimate-tier features of:
Security policies and compliance framework pipelines.

Value Stream Analytics filtering calculation change

Announced in 14.5

We are changing how the date filter works in Value Stream Analytics. Instead of filtering by the time that the issue or merge request was created, the date filter will filter by the end event time of the given stage. This will result in completely different figures after this change has rolled out.

If you monitor Value Stream Analytics metrics and rely on the date filter, to avoid losing data, you must save the data prior to this change.

Plan

started iterations API field

Announced in 14.8

The started field in the iterations API is being deprecated and will be removed in GitLab 15.0. This field is being replaced with the current field (already available) which aligns with the naming for other time-based entities, such as milestones.

Create

Deprecate feature flag PUSH_RULES_SUPERSEDE_CODE_OWNERS

Announced in 14.8

The feature flag PUSH_RULES_SUPERSEDE_CODE_OWNERS is being removed in GitLab 15.0. Upon its removal, push rules will supersede CODEOWNERS. The CODEOWNERS feature will no longer be available for access control.

Deprecate legacy Gitaly configuration methods

Announced in 14.8

Using environment variables GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM and GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL to configure Gitaly is deprecated.
These variables are being replaced with standard config.toml Gitaly configuration.

GitLab instances that use GIT_CONFIG_SYSTEM and GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL to configure Gitaly should switch to configuring using
config.toml.

defaultMergeCommitMessageWithDescription GraphQL API field

Announced in 14.5

The GraphQL API field defaultMergeCommitMessageWithDescription has been deprecated and will be removed in GitLab 15.0. For projects with a commit message template set, it will ignore the template.

merged_by API field

Announced in 14.7

The merged_by field in the merge request API is being deprecated and will be removed in GitLab 15.0. This field is being replaced with the merge_user field (already present in GraphQL) which more correctly identifies who merged a merge request when performing actions (merge when pipeline succeeds, add to merge train) other than a simple merge.

Verify

API: stale status returned instead of offline or not_connected

Announced in 14.6

A breaking change will occur for the Runner API endpoints in 15.0.

Instead of the GitLab Runner API endpoints returning offline and not_connected for runners that have not contacted the GitLab instance in the past three months, the API endpoints will return the stale value, which was introduced in 14.6.

CI/CD job name length limit

Announced in 14.6

In GitLab 15.0 we are going to limit the number of characters in CI/CD job names to 255. Any pipeline with job names that exceed the 255 character limit will stop working after the 15.0 release.

Changes to the CI_JOB_JWT

Announced in 14.8

The CI_JOB_JWT will be updated to support a wider variety of cloud providers. It will be changed to match CI_JOB_JWT_V2, but this change may not be backwards compatible for all users, including Hashicorp Vault users. To maintain the current behavior, users can switch to using CI_JOB_JWT_V1, or update their configuration in GitLab 15.0 to use the improved CI_JOB_JWT.

Converting an instance (shared) runner to a project (specific) runner

Announced in 14.5

In GitLab 15.0, we will remove the feature that enables you to convert an instance (shared) runner to a project (specific) runner. Users who need to add a runner to only a particular project can register a runner to the project directly.

Known host required for GitLab Runner SSH executor

Announced in 14.5

In GitLab 14.3, we added a configuration setting in the GitLab Runner config.toml file. This setting, [runners.ssh.disable_strict_host_key_checking], controls whether or not to use strict host key checking with the SSH executor.

In GitLab 15.0 and later, the default value for this configuration option will change from true to false. This means that strict host key checking will be enforced when using the GitLab Runner SSH executor.

Must explicitly assign AuthenticationType for [runners.cache.s3]

Announced in 14.5

In GitLab 15.0 and later, to access the AWS S3 cache, you must specify the AuthenticationType for [runners.cache.s3]. The AuthenticationType must be IAM or credentials.

Prior to 14.5, if you did not define the AuthenticationType, GitLab Runner chose a type for you.

Runner status not_connected API value

Announced in 14.6

The GitLab Runner REST and GraphQL API endpoints
will return never_contacted instead of not_connected as the status values in 15.0.

Runners that have never contacted the GitLab instance will also return stale if created more than 3 months ago.

Test coverage project CI/CD setting

Announced in 14.8

To simplify setting a test coverage pattern, in GitLab 15.0 the
project setting for test coverage parsing
is being removed.

Instead, using the project’s .gitlab-ci.yml, provide a regular expression with the coverage keyword to set
testing coverage results in merge requests.

type and types keyword in CI/CD configuration

Announced in 14.6

The type and types CI/CD keywords will be removed in GitLab 15.0. Pipelines that use these keywords will stop working, so you must switch to stage and stages, which have the same behavior.

Package

GraphQL permissions change for Package settings

Announced in 14.9

The GitLab Package stage offers a Package Registry, Container Registry, and Dependency Proxy to help you manage all of your dependencies using GitLab. Each of these product categories has a variety of settings that can be adjusted using the API.

The permissions model for GraphQL is being updated. After 15.0, users with the Guest, Reporter, and Developer role can no longer update these settings:

Permissions change for downloading Composer dependencies

Announced in 14.9

The GitLab Composer repository can be used to push, search, fetch metadata about, and download PHP dependencies. All these actions require authentication, except for downloading dependencies.

Downloading Composer dependencies without authentication is deprecated in GitLab 14.9, and will be removed in GitLab 15.0. Starting with GitLab 15.0, you must authenticate to download Composer dependencies.

Update to the Container Registry group-level API

Announced in 14.5

In milestone 15.0, support for the tags and tags_count parameters will be removed from the Container Registry API that gets registry repositories from a group.

The GET /groups/:id/registry/repositories endpoint will remain, but won’t return any info about tags. To get the info about tags, you can use the existing GET /registry/repositories/:id endpoint, which will continue to support the tags and tag_count options as it does today. The latter must be called once per image repository.

Versions on base PackageType

Announced in 14.5

As part of the work to create a Package Registry GraphQL API, the Package group deprecated the Version type for the basic PackageType type and moved it to PackageDetailsType.

In milestone 15.0, we will completely remove Version from PackageType.

dependency_proxy_for_private_groups feature flag

Announced in 14.5

We added a feature flag because GitLab-#11582 changed how public groups use the Dependency Proxy. Prior to this change, you could use the Dependency Proxy without authentication. The change requires authentication to use the Dependency Proxy.

In milestone 15.0, we will remove the feature flag entirely. Moving forward, you must authenticate when using the Dependency Proxy.

pipelines field from the version field

Announced in 14.5

In GraphQL, there are two pipelines fields that you can use in a PackageDetailsType to get the pipelines for package versions:

• The versions field’s pipelines field. This returns all the pipelines associated with all the package’s versions, which can pull an unbounded number of objects in memory and create performance concerns.
• The pipelines field of a specific version. This returns only the pipelines associated with that single package version.

To mitigate possible performance problems, we will remove the versions field’s pipelines field in milestone 15.0. Although you will no longer be able to get all pipelines for all versions of a package, you can still get the pipelines of a single version through the remaining pipelines field for that version.

pipelines fields in the Package GraphQL types

Announced in 14.6

As part of the work to create a Package Registry GraphQL API, the Package group deprecated the pipelines fields in all Package-related GraphQL types. As of GitLab 14.6, the pipelines field is deprecated in Package and PackageDetailsType due to scalability and performance concerns.

In milestone 15.0, we will completely remove pipelines from Package and PackageDetailsType. You can follow and contribute to work on a replacement in the epic GitLab-#7214.

htpasswd Authentication for the Container Registry

Announced in 14.9

The Container Registry supports authentication with htpasswd. It relies on an Apache htpasswd file, with passwords hashed using bcrypt.

Since it isn’t used in the context of GitLab (the product), htpasswd authentication will be deprecated in GitLab 14.9 and removed in GitLab 15.0.

Secure

Dependency Scanning Python 3.9 and 3.6 image deprecation

Announced in 14.8

For those using Dependency Scanning for Python projects, we are deprecating the default gemnasium-python:2 image which uses Python 3.6 as well as the custom gemnasium-python:2-python-3.9 image which uses Python 3.9. The new default image as of GitLab 15.0 will be for Python 3.9 as it is a supported version and 3.6 is no longer supported.

For users using Python 3.9 or 3.9-compatible projects, you should not need to take action and dependency scanning should begin to work in GitLab 15.0. If you wish to test the new container now please run a test pipeline in your project with this container (which will be removed in 15.0). Use the Python 3.9 image:

gemnasium-python-dependency_scanning:
image:
name: registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/analyzers/gemnasium-python:2-python-3.9

For users using Python 3.6, as of GitLab 15.0 you will no longer be able to use the default template for dependency scanning. You will need to switch to use the deprecated gemnasium-python:2 analyzer image. If you are impacted by this please comment in this issue so we can extend the removal if needed.

For users using the 3.9 special exception image, you must instead use the default value and no longer override your container. To verify if you are using the 3.9 special exception image, check your .gitlab-ci.yml file for the following reference:

gemnasium-python-dependency_scanning:
image:
name: registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/analyzers/gemnasium-python:2-python-3.9

Legacy approval status names from License Compliance API

Announced in 14.6

We deprecated legacy names for approval status of license policy (blacklisted, approved) in the managed_licenses API but they are still used in our API queries and responses. They will be removed in 15.0.

If you are using our License Compliance API you should stop using the approved and blacklisted query parameters, they are now allowed and denied. In 15.0 the responses will also stop using approved and blacklisted so you need to adjust any of your custom tools to use the old and new values so they do not break with the 15.0 release.

Out-of-the-box SAST support for Java 8

Announced in 14.8

The GitLab SAST SpotBugs analyzer scans Java, Scala, Groovy, and Kotlin code for security vulnerabilities.
For technical reasons, the analyzer must first compile the code before scanning.
Unless you use the pre-compilation strategy, the analyzer attempts to automatically compile your project’s code.

In GitLab versions prior to 15.0, the analyzer image includes Java 8 and Java 11 runtimes to facilitate compilation.

In GitLab 15.0, we will:

• Remove Java 8 from the analyzer image to reduce the size of the image.
• Add Java 17 to the analyzer image to make it easier to compile with Java 17.

If you rely on Java 8 being present in the analyzer environment, you must take action as detailed in the deprecation issue for this change.

Retire-JS Dependency Scanning tool

Announced in 14.8

As of 14.8 the retire.js job is being deprecated from Dependency Scanning. It will continue to be included in our CI/CD template while deprecated. We are removing retire.js from Dependency Scanning on May 22, 2022 in GitLab 15.0. JavaScript scanning functionality will not be affected as it is still being covered by Gemnasium.

If you have explicitly excluded retire.js using DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS you will need to clean up (remove the reference) in 15.0. If you have customized your pipeline’s Dependency Scanning configuration related to the retire-js-dependency_scanning job you will want to switch to gemnasium-dependency_scanning before the removal in 15.0, to prevent your pipeline from failing. If you have not used the DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS to reference retire.js, or customized your template specifically for retire.js, you will not need to take action.

SAST analyzer consolidation and CI/CD template changes

Announced in 14.8

GitLab SAST uses various analyzers to scan code for vulnerabilities.

We are reducing the number of analyzers used in GitLab SAST as part of our long-term strategy to deliver a better and more consistent user experience.
Streamlining the set of analyzers will also enable faster iteration, better results, and greater efficiency (including a reduction in CI runner usage in most cases).

In GitLab 15.0, GitLab SAST will no longer use the following analyzers:

These analyzers will be removed from the GitLab-managed SAST CI/CD template and replaced with the Semgrep-based analyzer.
They will no longer receive routine updates, except for security issues.
We will not delete container images previously published for these analyzers; any such change would be announced as a deprecation, removal, or breaking change announcement.

We will also remove Java from the scope of the SpotBugs analyzer and replace it with the Semgrep-based analyzer.
This change will make it simpler to scan Java code; compilation will no longer be required.
This change will be reflected in the automatic language detection portion of the GitLab-managed SAST CI/CD template.

If you applied customizations to any of the affected analyzers, you must take action as detailed in the deprecation issue for this change.

SAST support for .NET 2.1

Announced in 14.8

The GitLab SAST Security Code Scan analyzer scans .NET code for security vulnerabilities.
For technical reasons, the analyzer must first build the code to scan it.

In GitLab versions prior to 15.0, the default analyzer image (version 2) includes support for:

• .NET 2.1
• .NET 3.0 and .NET Core 3.0
• .NET Core 3.1
• .NET 5.0

In GitLab 15.0, we will change the default major version for this analyzer from version 2 to version 3. This change:

Version 3 was announced in GitLab 14.6 and made available as an optional upgrade.

If you rely on .NET 2.1 support being present in the analyzer image by default, you must take action as detailed in the deprecation issue for this change.

Secure and Protect analyzer images published in new location

Announced in 14.8

GitLab uses various analyzers to scan for security vulnerabilities.
Each analyzer is distributed as a container image.

Starting in GitLab 14.8, new versions of GitLab Secure and Protect analyzers are published to a new registry location under registry.gitlab.com/security-products.

We will update the default value of GitLab-managed CI/CD templates to reflect this change:

• For all analyzers except Container Scanning, we will update the variable SECURE_ANALYZERS_PREFIX to the new image registry location.
• For Container Scanning, the default image address is already updated. There is no SECURE_ANALYZERS_PREFIX variable for Container Scanning.

In a future release, we will stop publishing images to registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/analyzers.
Once this happens, you must take action if you manually pull images and push them into a separate registry. This is commonly the case for offline deployments.
Otherwise, you won’t receive further updates.

See the deprecation issue for more details.

projectFingerprint in PipelineSecurityReportFinding GraphQL

Announced in 14.8

The projectFingerprint field in the PipelineSecurityReportFinding
GraphQL object is being deprecated. This field contains a “fingerprint” of security findings used to determine uniqueness.
The method for calculating fingerprints has changed, resulting in different values. Going forward, the new values will be
exposed in the UUID field. Data previously available in the projectFingerprint field will eventually be removed entirely.

apiFuzzingCiConfigurationCreate GraphQL mutation

Announced in 14.6

The API Fuzzing configuration snippet is now being generated client-side and does not require an
API request anymore. We are therefore deprecating the apiFuzzingCiConfigurationCreate mutation
which isn’t being used in GitLab anymore.

bundler-audit Dependency Scanning tool

Announced in 14.6

As of 14.6 bundler-audit is being deprecated from Dependency Scanning. It will continue to be in our CI/CD template while deprecated. We are removing bundler-audit from Dependency Scanning on May 22, 2022 in 15.0. After this removal Ruby scanning functionality will not be affected as it is still being covered by Gemnasium.

If you have explicitly excluded bundler-audit using DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS you will need to clean up (remove the reference) in 15.0. If you have customized your pipeline’s Dependency Scanning configuration, for example to edit the bundler-audit-dependency_scanning job, you will want to switch to gemnasium-dependency_scanning before removal in 15.0, to prevent your pipeline from failing. If you have not used the DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS to reference bundler-audit, or customized your template specifically for bundler-audit, you will not need to take action.

Dependency Scanning default Java version changed to 17

Announced in 14.10

In GitLab 15.0, for Dependency Scanning, the default version of Java will be updated to 17. This is the same as the most up-to-date Long Term Support (LTS) version. GitLab still supports the same versions as it does today (8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17). Only the enabled default is changing. To change the default, set the DS_Java_Version variable.

Secure and Protect analyzer major version update

Announced in 14.8

The Secure and Protect stages will be bumping the major versions of their analyzers in tandem with the GitLab 15.0 release. This major bump will enable a clear delineation for analyzers, between:

• Those released prior to May 22, 2022, which generate reports that are not subject to stringent schema validation.
• Those released after May 22, 2022, which generate reports that are subject to stringent schema validation.

If you are not using the default inclusion templates, or have pinned your analyzer version(s) you will need to update your CI/CD job definition to either remove the pinned version or to update the latest major version.
Users of GitLab 12.0-14.10 will continue to experience analyzer updates as normal until the release of GitLab 15.0, following which all newly fixed bugs and newly released features in the new major versions of the analyzers will not be available in the deprecated versions because we do not backport bugs and new features as per our maintenance policy. As required security patches will be backported within the latest 3 minor releases.
Specifically, the following are being deprecated and will no longer be updated after 15.0 GitLab release:

• API Security: version 1
• Container Scanning: version 4
• Coverage-guided fuzz testing: version 2
• Dependency Scanning: version 2
• Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): version 2
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Scanning: version 1
• License Scanning: version 3
• Secret Detection: version 3
• Static Application Security Testing (SAST): version 2 of all analyzers, except gosec which is currently at version 3
• bandit: version 2
• brakeman: version 2
• eslint: version 2
• flawfinder: version 2
• gosec: version 3
• kubesec: version 2
• mobsf: version 2
• nodejs-scan: version 2
• phpcs-security-audit: version 2
• pmd-apex: version 2
• security-code-scan: version 2
• semgrep: version 2
• sobelow: version 2

• spotbugs: version 2

• Issue

Configure

GitLab Serverless

Announced in 14.3

GitLab Serverless is a feature set to support Knative-based serverless development with automatic deployments and monitoring.

We decided to remove the GitLab Serverless features as they never really resonated with our users. Besides, given the continuous development of Kubernetes and Knative, our current implementations do not even work with recent versions.

SaaS certificate-based integration with Kubernetes

Announced in 14.5

The certificate-based integration with Kubernetes will be deprecated and removed. As a GitLab SaaS customer, you will no longer be able to integrate GitLab and your cluster using the certificate-based approach as of GitLab 15.0.

For a more robust, secure, forthcoming, and reliable integration with Kubernetes, we recommend you use the
agent for Kubernetes to connect Kubernetes clusters with GitLab. How do I migrate?

For updates and details about this deprecation, follow this epic.

Monitor

Logging in GitLab

Announced in 14.7

The logging features in GitLab allow users to install the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana) to aggregate and manage application logs. Users can search for relevant logs in GitLab. However, since deprecating certificate-based integration with Kubernetes clusters and GitLab Managed Apps, we don’t have a recommended solution for logging within GitLab. For more information, you can follow the issue for integrating Opstrace with GitLab.

Request profiling

Announced in 14.8

Request profiling is deprecated in GitLab 14.8 and scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0.

We’re working on consolidating our profiling tools and making them more easily accessible.
We evaluated the use of this feature and we found that it is not widely used.
It also depends on a few third-party gems that are not actively maintained anymore, have not been updated for the latest version of Ruby, or crash frequently when profiling heavy page loads.

For more information, check the summary section of the deprecation issue.

Tracing in GitLab

Announced in 14.7

Tracing in GitLab is an integration with Jaeger, an open-source end-to-end distributed tracing system. GitLab users can navigate to their Jaeger instance to gain insight into the performance of a deployed application, tracking each function or microservice that handles a given request. Tracing in GitLab is deprecated in GitLab 14.7, and scheduled for removal in 15.0. To track work on a possible replacement, see the issue for Opstrace integration with GitLab.

Protect

Container Network and Host Security

Announced in 14.8

All functionality related to GitLab’s Container Network Security and Container Host Security categories is deprecated in GitLab 14.8 and scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0. Users who need a replacement for this functionality are encouraged to evaluate the following open source projects as potential solutions that can be installed and managed outside of GitLab: AppArmor, Cilium, Falco, FluentD, Pod Security Admission. To integrate these technologies into GitLab, add the desired Helm charts into your copy of the Cluster Management Project Template. Deploy these Helm charts in production by calling commands through the GitLab Secure CI/CD Tunnel.

As part of this change, the following specific capabilities within GitLab are now deprecated, and are scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0:

• The Security & Compliance > Threat Monitoring page.
• The Network Policy security policy type, as found on the Security & Compliance > Policies page.
• The ability to manage integrations with the following technologies through GitLab: AppArmor, Cilium, Falco, FluentD, and Pod Security Policies.
• All APIs related to the above functionality.

For additional context, or to provide feedback regarding this change, please reference our open deprecation issue.

Vulnerability Check

Announced in 14.8

The vulnerability check feature is deprecated in GitLab 14.8 and scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0. We encourage you to migrate to the new security approvals feature instead. You can do so by navigating to Security & Compliance > Policies and creating a new Scan Result Policy.

The new security approvals feature is similar to vulnerability check. For example, both can require approvals for MRs that contain security vulnerabilities. However, security approvals improve the previous experience in several ways:

• Users can choose who is allowed to edit security approval rules. An independent security or compliance team can therefore manage rules in a way that prevents development project maintainers from modifying the rules.
• Multiple rules can be created and chained together to allow for filtering on different severity thresholds for each scanner type.
• A two-step approval process can be enforced for any desired changes to security approval rules.
• A single set of security policies can be applied to multiple development projects to allow for ease in maintaining a single, centralized ruleset.

Secure and Protect analyzer major version update

Announced in 14.8

The Secure and Protect stages will be bumping the major versions of their analyzers in tandem with the GitLab 15.0 release. This major bump will enable a clear delineation for analyzers, between:

• Those released prior to May 22, 2022, which generate reports that are not subject to stringent schema validation.
• Those released after May 22, 2022, which generate reports that are subject to stringent schema validation.

If you are not using the default inclusion templates, or have pinned your analyzer version(s) you will need to update your CI/CD job definition to either remove the pinned version or to update the latest major version.
Users of GitLab 12.0-14.10 will continue to experience analyzer updates as normal until the release of GitLab 15.0, following which all newly fixed bugs and newly released features in the new major versions of the analyzers will not be available in the deprecated versions because we do not backport bugs and new features as per our maintenance policy. As required security patches will be backported within the latest 3 minor releases.
Specifically, the following are being deprecated and will no longer be updated after 15.0 GitLab release:

• API Security: version 1
• Container Scanning: version 4
• Coverage-guided fuzz testing: version 2
• Dependency Scanning: version 2
• Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): version 2
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Scanning: version 1
• License Scanning: version 3
• Secret Detection: version 3
• Static Application Security Testing (SAST): version 2 of all analyzers, except gosec which is currently at version 3
• bandit: version 2
• brakeman: version 2
• eslint: version 2
• flawfinder: version 2
• gosec: version 3
• kubesec: version 2
• mobsf: version 2
• nodejs-scan: version 2
• phpcs-security-audit: version 2
• pmd-apex: version 2
• security-code-scan: version 2
• semgrep: version 2
• sobelow: version 2

• spotbugs: version 2

• Issue

Enablement

user_email_lookup_limit API field

Announced in 14.9

The user_email_lookup_limit API field is deprecated and will be removed in GitLab 15.0. Until GitLab 15.0, user_email_lookup_limit is aliased to search_rate_limit and existing workflows will continue to work.

Any API calls attempting to change the rate limits for user_email_lookup_limit should use search_rate_limit instead.

Background upload for object storage

Announced in 14.9

To reduce the overall complexity and maintenance burden of GitLab’s object storage feature, support for using background_upload to upload files is deprecated and will be fully removed in GitLab 15.0.

This impacts a small subset of object storage providers:

• OpenStack Customers using OpenStack need to change their configuration to use the S3 API instead of Swift.
• RackSpace Customers using RackSpace-based object storage need to migrate data to a different provider.

GitLab will publish additional guidance to assist affected customers in migrating.

Elasticsearch 6.8

Announced in 14.8

Elasticsearch 6.8 is deprecated in GitLab 14.8 and scheduled for removal in GitLab 15.0.
Customers using Elasticsearch 6.8 need to upgrade their Elasticsearch version to 7.x prior to upgrading to GitLab 15.0.
We recommend using the latest version of Elasticsearch 7 to benefit from all Elasticsearch improvements.

Elasticsearch 6.8 is also incompatible with Amazon OpenSearch, which we plan to support in GitLab 15.0.

Legacy database configuration

Announced in 14.3

The syntax of GitLabs database
configuration located in database.yml is changing and the legacy format is deprecated. The legacy format
supported using a single PostgreSQL adapter, whereas the new format is changing to support multiple databases. The main: database needs to be defined as a first configuration item.

This deprecation mainly impacts users compiling GitLab from source because Omnibus will handle this configuration automatically.

Sidekiq metrics and health checks configuration

Announced in 14.7

Exporting Sidekiq metrics and health checks using a single process and port is deprecated.
Support will be removed in 15.0.

We have updated Sidekiq to export metrics and health checks from two separate processes
to improve stability and availability and prevent data loss in edge cases.
As those are two separate servers, a configuration change will be required in 15.0
to explicitly set separate ports for metrics and health-checks.
The newly introduced settings for sidekiq['health_checks_*']
should always be set in gitlab.rb.
For more information, check the documentation for configuring Sidekiq.

These changes also require updates in either Prometheus to scrape the new endpoint or k8s health-checks to target the new
health-check port to work properly, otherwise either metrics or health-checks will disappear.

For the deprecation period those settings are optional
and GitLab will default the Sidekiq health-checks port to the same port as sidekiq_exporter
and only run one server (not changing the current behaviour).
Only if they are both set and a different port is provided, a separate metrics server will spin up
to serve the Sidekiq metrics, similar to the way Sidekiq will behave in 15.0.

Support for SLES 12 SP2

Announced in 14.5

Long term service and support (LTSS) for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 SP2 ended on March 31, 2021. The CA certificates on SP2 include the expired DST root certificate, and it’s not getting new CA certificate package updates. We have implemented some workarounds, but we will not be able to continue to keep the build running properly.

promote-db command from gitlab-ctl

Announced in 14.5

In GitLab 14.5, we introduced the command gitlab-ctl promote to promote any Geo secondary node to a primary during a failover. This command replaces gitlab-ctl promote-db which is used to promote database nodes in multi-node Geo secondary sites. gitlab-ctl promote-db will continue to function as-is and be available until GitLab 15.0. We recommend that Geo customers begin testing the new gitlab-ctl promote command in their staging environments and incorporating the new command in their failover procedures.

promote-to-primary-node command from gitlab-ctl

Announced in 14.5

In GitLab 14.5, we introduced the command gitlab-ctl promote to promote any Geo secondary node to a primary during a failover. This command replaces gitlab-ctl promote-to-primary-node which was only usable for single-node Geo sites. gitlab-ctl promote-to-primary-node will continue to function as-is and be available until GitLab 15.0. We recommend that Geo customers begin testing the new gitlab-ctl promote command in their staging environments and incorporating the new command in their failover procedures.

Ecosystem

GraphQL ID and GlobalID compatibility

Announced in 14.8

We are removing a non-standard extension to our GraphQL processor, which we added for backwards compatibility. This extension modifies the validation of GraphQL queries, allowing the use of the ID type for arguments where it would normally be rejected.
Some arguments originally had the type ID. These were changed to specific
kinds of ID. This change may be a breaking change if you:

• Use GraphQL.
• Use the ID type for any argument in your query signatures.

Some field arguments still have the ID type. These are typically for
IID values, or namespace paths. An example is Query.project(fullPath: ID!).

For a list of affected and unaffected field arguments,
see the deprecation issue.

You can test if this change affects you by validating
your queries locally, using schema data fetched from a GitLab server.
You can do this by using the GraphQL explorer tool for the relevant GitLab
instance. For example: https://gitlab.com/-/graphql-explorer.

For example, the following query illustrates the breaking change:

# a query using the deprecated type of Query.issue(id:)
# WARNING: This will not work after GitLab 15.0
query($id: ID!) {
deprecated: issue(id: $id) {
title, description
}
}

The query above will not work after GitLab 15.0 is released, because the type
of Query.issue(id:) is actually IssueID!.

Instead, you should use one of the following two forms:

# This will continue to work
query($id: IssueID!) {
a: issue(id: $id) {
title, description
}
b: issue(id: "gid://gitlab/Issue/12345") {
title, description
}
}

This query works now, and will continue to work after GitLab 15.0.
You should convert any queries in the first form (using ID as a named type in the signature)
to one of the other two forms (using the correct appropriate type in the signature, or using
an inline argument expression).

Platform

Support for gRPC-aware proxy deployed between Gitaly and rest of GitLab

Announced in 14.8

Although not recommended or documented, it was possible to deploy a gRPC-aware proxy between Gitaly and
the rest of GitLab. For example, NGINX and Envoy. The ability to deploy a gRPC-aware proxy is
deprecated. If you currently use a gRPC-aware proxy for
Gitaly connections, you should change your proxy configuration to use TCP or TLS proxying (OSI layer 4) instead.

Gitaly Cluster became incompatible with gRPC-aware proxies in GitLab 13.12. Now all GitLab installations will be incompatible with
gRPC-aware proxies, even without Gitaly Cluster.

By sending some of our internal RPC traffic through a custom protocol (instead of gRPC) we
increase throughput and reduce Go garbage collection latency. For more information, see
the relevant epic.

This blog post and linked pages contain information related to upcoming products, features, and functionality. It is important to note that the information presented is for informational purposes only. Please do not rely on this information for purchasing or planning purposes. As with all projects, the items mentioned in this blog post and linked pages are subject to change or delay. The development, release, and timing of any products, features, or functionality remain at the sole discretion of GitLab Inc.