CIS GitLab Benchmark Scanner - gitlabcis
Background
On April 17th 2024, GitLab™ published a blog post introducing its Center for Internet Security® (CIS) GitLab Benchmark. With the goal to improve the security of the product and offer hardening recommendations to GitLab's customers. You can download a copy of the benchmarks which are published on the Center for Internet Security® website.
"The CIS GitLab Benchmark stemmed from a collaboration between CIS and GitLab's Field Security and Product Management teams. After numerous conversations with customers, we understood the need for a specific benchmark that would guide their hardening efforts. We conducted an in-depth review of GitLab’s product and documentation to understand how our offering mapped to CIS's Software Supply Chain Security Benchmark. After the initial draft was ready, it entered into the CIS consensus process, where the broader CIS Benchmark Community was able to review it and suggest edits prior to publication."
Ref: Creating the CIS GitLab Benchmark
Overview
gitlabcis
is a Python® package which audits a GitLab project against the Center for Internet Security® (CIS) GitLab Benchmark. It includes recommendations-as-code formatted in YAML™.
GitLab Product Enhancement
Compliance Adherence Report
There is a larger effort to add the CIS Benchmark as a compliance standard to the Compliance Adherence Report.
- Once implemented, this will enable customers to automatically have visibility into whether there are additional measures they need to take in order to comply with the measures recommended in the CIS Benchmark.
Contributing back to GitLab
Through the course of developing this tool, the authors contributed 2 features to the GitLab product (#39):
Table of Contents
[[TOC]]
Disclaimers
Disclaimer | Comment |
---|
This tool assumes that one is using GitLab for everything | - For example, the first recommendation (1.1.1 - version_control):
- "Ensure any changes to code are tracked in a version control platform."
- Using GitLab automatically passes this control.
|
This tool cannot audit every recommendation | - We have kept a record of every recommendation that we cannot automate. Review our limitations doc (docs/limitations.md), which highlights automation gaps in which a condition cannot confidently be automated.
|
This tool does not execute any write operations on your GitLab instance, group or project. No write actions are performed. | - This tool is expressly designed to refrain from performing any write operations that may:
- modify, alter, change, or otherwise impact the configuration, data, or integrity of your GitLab project
- ensuring that no alterations or unauthorized adjustments are made to its state or contents.
|
This is not an official GitLab product | - This repository was created by GitLab engineers and is not officially supported by GitLab.
|
Getting started
Tokens
gitlabcis
requires one of the following tokens:
Personal Access Token (PAT)
You can either pass the token as an option or store it as an environment variable:
GITLAB_TOKEN
- (optional) Environment Variable--token
/ -t
- (optional) gitlabcis token option
OAuth Token
You can either pass the token as an option or store it as an environment variable:
GITLAB_OAUTH_TOKEN
- (optional) Environment Variable--oauth-token
/ -ot
- (optional) gitlabcis token option
Token Scope
- Required: Your token needs to have at least the
read_api
scope. - (optional) Providing your token more scope will unlock more controls that require higher levels of permission.
Install
There's a number of ways to download the scanner. Please see them below:
Pypi
Install gitlabcis
from pypi.org:
pip install gitlabcis
GitLab
Install gitlabcis
from the package registry:
pip install gitlabcis --index-url https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/57279821/packages/pypi/simple
If you haven't already done so, you will need to add the below to your .pypirc
file.
[gitlab]
repository = https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/57279821/packages/pypi
username = __token__
password = <your personal access token>
Install gitlabcis
from source via clone, or our releases page
git clone git@gitlab.com:gitlab-security-oss/cis/gitlabcis.git
cd gitlabcis
make install
Usage
The following syntax is expected:
gitlabcis URL OPTIONS
Screenshot

Generate a report
To generate a report from the shell:
gitlabcis https://gitlab.example.com/path/to/project --token $TOKEN
Generate a json report: (Using the $GITLAB_TOKEN
variable, you do not need to specify --token
option)
gitlabcis \
https://gitlab.example.com/path/to/project \
-o results.json \
-f json
To execute a single control:
gitlabcis \
https://gitlab.example.com/path/to/project \
-ids 1.2.3
Documentation
Review the gitlabcis
documentation (./docs) directory - Something missing? Feel free to create contribute with a new issue.
License
gitlabcis
was published using the MIT license, it can be reviewed in the ./LICENSE file.
Changelog
See the ./CHANGELOG.md for more information.
Developers
Code of Conduct
Review the heading section of contributing doc (CONTRIBUTING.md) for the code of conduct.
Security
Review our security policy (docs/SECURITY.md) document which outlines how to disclose a vulnerability.
Contributing
Do you want to contribute? - Fantastic! Check out the contributing doc (CONTRIBUTING.md) for more information.