• Dependency Scanning compared to Container Scanning
  • Requirements
  • Supported languages and package managers
  • Contribute your scanner
  • Configuration
  • Interacting with the vulnerabilities
  • Solutions for vulnerabilities
  • Security Dashboard
  • Vulnerabilities database update
  • Dependency List
  • Reports JSON format
  • Versioning and release process
  • Contributing to the vulnerability database
  • Running dependency scanning in an offline environment
  • Hosting a copy of the gemnasium_db advisory database
  • Warnings
  • Troubleshooting
  • Dependency Scanning

    The Dependency Scanning feature can automatically find security vulnerabilities in your software dependencies while you’re developing and testing your applications. For example, dependency scanning lets you know if your application uses an external (open source) library that is known to be vulnerable. You can then take action to protect your application.

    Dependency Scanning is often considered part of Software Composition Analysis (SCA). SCA can contain aspects of inspecting the items your code uses. These items typically include application and system dependencies that are almost always imported from external sources, rather than sourced from items you wrote yourself.

    If you’re using GitLab CI/CD , you can use dependency scanning to analyze your dependencies for known vulnerabilities. GitLab scans all dependencies, including transitive dependencies (also known as nested dependencies). You can take advantage of dependency scanning by either:

    GitLab checks the dependency scanning report, compares the found vulnerabilities between the source and target branches, and shows the information on the merge request. The results are sorted by the severity of the vulnerability.

    Dependency scanning Widget

    Feature Dependency Scanning Container Scanning
    Identify the manifest, lock file, or static file that introduced the dependency
    Development dependencies
    Dependencies in a lock file committed to your repository 1 Binaries built by Go 2 3 Dynamically-linked language-specific dependencies installed by the Operating System 3 Operating system dependencies
    Language-specific dependencies installed on the operating system (not built by your project)

  • Language Language Versions Package Manager Supported files Processes multiple files?
    .NET All versions NuGet packages.lock.json Y
    C All versions Conan conan.lock Y
    Go All versions Go
  • go.mod
  • go.sum
  • Y
    Java and Kotlin (not Android) 1 8 LTS, 11 LTS, 13 2 , 14 2 , 15 2 , 16 2 , or 17 LTS Gradle 3
  • build.gradle
  • build.gradle.kts
  • N
    Maven pom.xml N
    JavaScript and TypeScript All versions npm
  • package-lock.json
  • npm-shrinkwrap.json
  • Y
    yarn yarn.lock Y
    pnpm-lock.yaml Y
    PHP All versions Composer composer.lock Y
    Python 3.9 setuptools setup.py N
    N
    Pipenv
  • Pipfile
  • Pipfile.lock 5 Poetry 6
  • poetry.lock N
    Ruby All versions Bundler
  • Gemfile.lock
  • gems.locked
  • Y
    Scala All versions sbt 7 build.sbt N

    Package Manager Supported File Format Versions Tested Versions
    Bundler Not applicable 1.17.3 , 2.1.4 Composer Not applicable 1.x
    Conan 0.4 1.x
    Go Not applicable 1.x 1 NuGet v1 4.9
    npm v1, v2, v3 2 6.x , 7.x , 9.x pnpm v5.3, v5.4, v6 7.x , 8.x yarn v1, v2 3 , v3 3 1.x , 2.x , 3.x Poetry v1 1.x

    Package Manager Pre-installed Versions Tested Versions
    sbt 1.6.1 1.0.4 , 1.1.6 , 1.2.8 , 1.3.12 , 1.4.6 , 1.5.8 , 1.6.1 Maven 3.6.3 3.6.3 1 Gradle 6.7.1 2 , 7.3.3 2 5.6.4 , 6.7 , 6.9 , 7.3 setuptools 58.1.0 >= 65.6.3
    pip 22.0.4 20.x
    Pipenv 2022.1.8 2022.1.8 3 , 2022.1.8 Go 1.18 1.18 4 Different versions of Java require different versions of Gradle. The versions of Gradle listed in the above table are pre-installed in the analyzer image. The version of Gradle used by the analyzer depends on whether your project uses a gradlew (Gradle wrapper) file or not: If your project does not use a gradlew file, then the analyzer automatically switches to one of the pre-installed Gradle versions, based on the version of Java specified by the DS_JAVA_VERSION variable. By default, the analyzer uses Java 17 and Gradle 7.3.3. For Java versions 8 and 11 , Gradle 6.7.1 is automatically selected, and for Java versions 13 to 17 , Gradle 7.3.3 is automatically selected. If your project does use a gradlew file, then the version of Gradle pre-installed in the analyzer image is ignored, and the version specified in your gradlew file is used instead. This test confirms that if a Pipfile.lock file is found, it is used by Gemnasium to scan the exact package versions listed in this file. Because of the implementation of go build , the Go build process requires network access, a pre-loaded mod cache via go mod download , or vendored dependencies. For more information, refer to the Go documentation on compiling packages and dependencies .

    How analyzers are triggered

    GitLab relies on rules:exists to start the relevant analyzers for the languages detected by the presence of the Supported files in the repository as shown in the table above .

    The current detection logic limits the maximum search depth to two levels. For example, the gemnasium-dependency_scanning job is enabled if a repository contains either a Gemfile.lock , api/Gemfile.lock , or api/client/Gemfile.lock , but not if the only supported dependency file is api/v1/client/Gemfile.lock .

    When a supported dependency file is detected, all dependencies, including transitive dependencies are analyzed. There is no limit to the depth of nested or transitive dependencies that are analyzed.

    How multiple files are processed note

    Python

    We only execute one installation in the directory where either a requirements file or a lock file has been detected. Dependencies are only analyzed by gemnasium-python for the first file that is detected. Files are searched for in the following order:

      requirements.txt , requirements.pip , or requires.txt for projects using Pip.
    1. Pipfile or Pipfile.lock for projects using Pipenv.
    2. poetry.lock for projects using Poetry.
    3. setup.py for project using Setuptools.

    The search begins with the root directory and then continues with subdirectories if no builds are found in the root directory. Consequently a Poetry lock file in the root directory would be detected before a Pipenv file in a subdirectory.

    Java and Scala

    We only execute one build in the directory where a build file has been detected. For large projects that include multiple Gradle, Maven, or sbt builds, or any combination of these, gemnasium-maven only analyzes dependencies for the first build file that is detected. Build files are searched for in the following order:

      pom.xml for single or multi-module Maven projects.
    1. build.gradle or build.gradle.kts for single or multi-project Gradle builds.
    2. build.sbt for single or multi-project sbt builds.

    The search begins with the root directory and then continues with subdirectories if no builds are found in the root directory. Consequently an sbt build file in the root directory would be detected before a Gradle build file in a subdirectory.

    JavaScript

    The following analyzers are executed, each of which have different behavior when processing multiple files:

      Gemnasium

      Supports multiple lockfiles

    • Retire.js

      Does not support multiple lockfiles. When multiple lockfiles exist, Retire.js analyzes the first lockfile discovered while traversing the directory tree in alphabetical order.

    From GitLab 14.8 the gemnasium analyzer scans supported JavaScript projects for vendored libraries (that is, those checked into the project but not managed by the package manager).

    Go

    Multiple files are supported. When a go.mod file is detected, the analyzer attempts to generate a build list using Minimal Version Selection . If a non-fatal error is encountered, the analyzer falls back to parsing the available go.sum file. The process is repeated for every detected go.mod and go.sum file.

    PHP, C, C++, .NET, C#, Ruby, JavaScript

    The analyzer for these languages supports multiple lockfiles.

    Support for additional languages

    Support for additional languages, dependency managers, and dependency files are tracked in the following issues:

    Package Managers Languages Supported files Scan tools Issue
    Poetry Python pyproject.toml Gemnasium GitLab#32774

    Contribute your scanner

    The Security Scanner Integration documentation explains how to integrate other security scanners into GitLab.

    Configuration

    To enable dependency scanning for GitLab 11.9 and later, you must include the Dependency-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml template that is provided as a part of your GitLab installation. For GitLab versions earlier than 11.9, you can copy and use the job as defined that template.

    Add the following to your .gitlab-ci.yml file:

    include:
      - template: Jobs/Dependency-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml
    

    The included template creates dependency scanning jobs in your CI/CD pipeline and scans your project’s source code for possible vulnerabilities. The results are saved as a dependency scanning report artifact that you can later download and analyze. Due to implementation limitations, we always take the latest dependency scanning artifact available.

    Enable Dependency Scanning via an automatic merge request

    Version history Introduced in GitLab 14.1 with a flag named sec_dependency_scanning_ui_enable . Enabled by default.
  • Enabled on self-managed in GitLab 14.1.
  • Feature flag sec_dependency_scanning_ui_enable removed in GitLab 14.2.
  • To enable Dependency Scanning in a project, you can create a merge request:

    1. On the top bar, select Main menu > Projects and find your project.
    2. On the left sidebar, select Security and Compliance > Security configuration .
    3. In the Dependency Scanning row, select Configure with a merge request .
    4. Review and merge the merge request to enable Dependency Scanning.

    Pipelines now include a dependency scanning job.

    Customizing the dependency scanning settings

    The Dependency Scanning settings can be changed through CI/CD variables by using the variables parameter in .gitlab-ci.yml . For example:

    include:
      - template: Security/Dependency-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml
    variables:
      SECURE_LOG_LEVEL: error
    

    Because template is evaluated before the pipeline configuration, the last mention of the variable takes precedence.

    Overriding dependency scanning jobs caution
    Beginning in GitLab 13.0, the use of only and except is no longer supported. When overriding the template, you must use rules instead.

    To override a job definition (for example, to change properties like variables or dependencies ), declare a new job with the same name as the one to override. Place this new job after the template inclusion and specify any additional keys under it. For example, this disables DS_REMEDIATE for the gemnasium analyzer:

    include:
      - template: Security/Dependency-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml
    gemnasium-dependency_scanning:
      variables:
        DS_REMEDIATE: "false"
    

    To override the dependencies: [] attribute, add an override job as above, targeting this attribute:

    include:
      - template: Security/Dependency-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml
    
    
    
    
        
    
    gemnasium-dependency_scanning:
      dependencies: ["build"]
    

    Available CI/CD variables

    Dependency scanning can be configured using environment variables.

    caution
    All customization of GitLab security scanning tools should be tested in a merge request before merging these changes to the default branch. Failure to do so can give unexpected results, including a large number of false positives.

    Configuring dependency scanning

    The following variables allow configuration of global dependency scanning settings.

    CI/CD variables Description
    ADDITIONAL_CA_CERT_BUNDLE Bundle of CA certs to trust. The bundle of certificates provided here is also used by other tools during the scanning process, such as git , yarn , or npm . See Using a custom SSL CA certificate authority for more details.
    DS_EXCLUDED_ANALYZERS Specify the analyzers (by name) to exclude from Dependency Scanning. For more information, see Dependency Scanning Analyzers .
    DS_EXCLUDED_PATHS Exclude files and directories from the scan based on the paths. A comma-separated list of patterns. Patterns can be globs (see doublestar.Match for supported patterns), or file or folder paths (for example, doc,spec ). Parent directories also match patterns. Default: "spec, test, tests, tmp" .
    DS_IMAGE_SUFFIX Suffix added to the image name. ( Introduced in GitLab 14.10.) Automatically set to "-fips" when FIPS mode is enabled. ( Introduced in GitLab 15.0.)
    DS_MAX_DEPTH Defines how many directory levels deep that the analyzer should search for supported files to scan. A value of -1 scans all directories regardless of depth. Default: 2 .
    SECURE_ANALYZERS_PREFIX Override the name of the Docker registry providing the official default images (proxy). Read more about customizing analyzers .
    SECURE_LOG_LEVEL Set the minimum logging level. Messages of this logging level or higher are output. From highest to lowest severity, the logging levels are: fatal , error , warn , info , debug . Introduced in GitLab 13.1. Default: info .

    Configuring specific analyzers used by dependency scanning

    The following variables are used for configuring specific analyzers (used for a specific language/framework).

    CI/CD variable Analyzer Default Description
    GEMNASIUM_DB_LOCAL_PATH gemnasium /gemnasium-db Path to local Gemnasium database.
    GEMNASIUM_DB_UPDATE_DISABLED gemnasium "false" Disable automatic updates for the gemnasium-db advisory database (For usage see: examples )
    GEMNASIUM_DB_REMOTE_URL gemnasium https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/gemnasium-db.git Repository URL for fetching the Gemnasium database.
    GEMNASIUM_DB_REF_NAME gemnasium master Branch name for remote repository database. GEMNASIUM_DB_REMOTE_URL is required.
    DS_REMEDIATE gemnasium "true" , "false" in FIPS mode Enable automatic remediation of vulnerable dependencies. Not supported in FIPS mode.
    DS_REMEDIATE_TIMEOUT gemnasium 5m Timeout for auto-remediation.
    GEMNASIUM_LIBRARY_SCAN_ENABLED gemnasium "true" Enable detecting vulnerabilities in vendored JavaScript libraries. For now, gemnasium leverages Retire.js to do this job. Introduced in GitLab 14.8.
    DS_JAVA_VERSION gemnasium-maven 17 Version of Java. Available versions: 8 , 11 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 . Available versions in FIPS-enabled image: 8 , 11 , 17 .
    MAVEN_CLI_OPTS gemnasium-maven "-DskipTests --batch-mode" List of command line arguments that are passed to maven by the analyzer. See an example for using private repositories .
    GRADLE_CLI_OPTS gemnasium-maven List of command line arguments that are passed to gradle by the analyzer.
    SBT_CLI_OPTS gemnasium-maven List of command-line arguments that the analyzer passes to sbt .
    PIP_INDEX_URL gemnasium-python https://pypi.org/simple Base URL of Python Package Index.
    PIP_EXTRA_INDEX_URL gemnasium-python Array of extra URLs of package indexes to use in addition to PIP_INDEX_URL . Comma-separated. Warning: Read the following security consideration when using this environment variable.
    PIP_REQUIREMENTS_FILE gemnasium-python Pip requirements file to be scanned.
    DS_PIP_VERSION gemnasium-python Force the install of a specific pip version (example: "19.3" ), otherwise the pip installed in the Docker image is used. ( Introduced in GitLab 12.7)
    DS_PIP_DEPENDENCY_PATH gemnasium-python Path to load Python pip dependencies from. ( Introduced in GitLab 12.2)
    DS_INCLUDE_DEV_DEPENDENCIES gemnasium "true" When set to "false" , development dependencies and their vulnerabilities are not reported. Only NPM and Poetry projects are supported. Introduced in GitLab 15.1.
    GOOS gemnasium "linux" The operating system for which to compile Go code.
    GOARCH gemnasium "amd64" The architecture of the processor for which to compile Go code.
    GOFLAGS gemnasium The flags passed to the go build tool.
    GOPRIVATE gemnasium A list of glob patterns and prefixes to be fetched from source. Read the Go private modules documentation for more information.

    Other variables

    The previous tables are not an exhaustive list of all variables that can be used. They contain all specific GitLab and analyzer variables we support and test. There are many variables, such as environment variables, that you can pass in and they do work. This is a large list, many of which we may be unaware of, and as such is not documented.

    For example, to pass the non-GitLab environment variable HTTPS_PROXY to all Dependency Scanning jobs, set it as a CI/CD variable in your .gitlab-ci.yml file like this:

    variables:
      HTTPS_PROXY: "https://squid-proxy:3128"
    

    Alternatively we may use it in specific jobs, like Dependency Scanning:

    dependency_scanning:
      variables:
        HTTPS_PROXY: $HTTPS_PROXY
    

    As we have not tested all variables you may find some do work and others do not. If one does not work and you need it we suggest submitting a feature request or contributing to the code to enable it to be used.

    Using a custom SSL CA certificate authority

    You can use the ADDITIONAL_CA_CERT_BUNDLE CI/CD variable to configure a custom SSL CA certificate authority. The ADDITIONAL_CA_CERT_BUNDLE value should contain the text representation of the X.509 PEM public-key certificate . For example, to configure this value in the .gitlab-ci.yml file, use the following:

    variables:
      ADDITIONAL_CA_CERT_BUNDLE: |
          -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
          MIIGqTCCBJGgAwIBAgIQI7AVxxVwg2kch4d56XNdDjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFADCB
          jWgmPqF3vUbZE0EyScetPJquRFRKIesyJuBFMAs=
          -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    

    The ADDITIONAL_CA_CERT_BUNDLE value can also be configured as a custom variable in the UI , either as a file , which requires the path to the certificate, or as a variable, which requires the text representation of the certificate.

    Using private Maven repositories

    If your private Maven repository requires login credentials, you can use the MAVEN_CLI_OPTS CI/CD variable.

    Read more on how to use private Maven repositories .

    FIPS-enabled images

    Introduced in GitLab 14.10.

    GitLab also offers FIPS-enabled Red Hat UBI versions of the Gemnasium images. You can therefore replace standard images with FIPS-enabled images.

    Gemnasium scanning jobs automatically use FIPS-enabled image when FIPS mode is enabled in the GitLab instance. ( Introduced in GitLab 15.0.)

    To manually switch to FIPS-enabled images, set the variable DS_IMAGE_SUFFIX to "-fips" .

    To ensure compliance with FIPS, the FIPS-enabled image of gemnasium-maven uses the OpenJDK packages for RedHat UBI. As a result, it only supports Java 8, 11, and 17.

    Dependency scanning for Gradle projects and auto-remediation for Yarn projects are not supported in FIPS mode.

    Interacting with the vulnerabilities

    Once a vulnerability is found, you can interact with it. Read more on how to address the vulnerabilities .

    Solutions for vulnerabilities

    Some vulnerabilities can be fixed by applying the solution that GitLab automatically generates. Read more about the solutions for vulnerabilities .

    Security Dashboard

    The Security Dashboard is a good place to get an overview of all the security vulnerabilities in your groups, projects and pipelines. Read more about the Security Dashboard .

    Vulnerabilities database update

    For more information about the vulnerabilities database update, see the maintenance table .

    Dependency List

    An additional benefit of dependency scanning is the ability to view your project’s dependencies and their known vulnerabilities. Read more about the Dependency List .

    Reports JSON format

    The dependency scanning tool emits a JSON report file. For more information, see the schema for this report .

    Here’s an example dependency scanning report:

    {
      "version": "2.0",
      "vulnerabilities": [
          "id": "51e83874-0ff6-4677-a4c5-249060554eae",
          "category": "dependency_scanning",
          "name": "Regular Expression Denial of Service",
          "message": "Regular Expression Denial of Service in debug",
          "description": "The debug module is vulnerable to regular expression denial of service when untrusted user input is passed into the `o` formatter. It takes around 50k characters to block for 2 seconds making this a low severity issue.",
          "severity": "Unknown",
          "solution": "Upgrade to latest versions.",
          "scanner": {
            "id": "gemnasium",
            "name": "Gemnasium"
          "location": {
            "file": "yarn.lock",
            "dependency": {
              "package": {
                "name": "debug"
              "version": "1.0.5"
          "identifiers": [
              "type": "gemnasium",
              "name": "Gemnasium-37283ed4-0380-40d7-ada7-2d994afcc62a",
              "value": "37283ed4-0380-40d7-ada7-2d994afcc62a",
              "url": "https://deps.sec.gitlab.com/packages/npm/debug/versions/1.0.5/advisories"
          "links": [
              "url": "https://nodesecurity.io/advisories/534"
              "url": "https://github.com/visionmedia/debug/issues/501"
              "url": "https://github.com/visionmedia/debug/pull/504"
          "id": "5d681b13-e8fa-4668-957e-8d88f932ddc7",
          "category": "dependency_scanning",
          "name": "Authentication bypass via incorrect DOM traversal and canonicalization",
          "message": "Authentication bypass via incorrect DOM traversal and canonicalization in saml2-js",
          "description": "Some XML DOM traversal and canonicalization APIs may be inconsistent in handling of comments within XML nodes. Incorrect use of these APIs by some SAML libraries results in incorrect parsing of the inner text of XML nodes such that any inner text after the comment is lost prior to cryptographically signing the SAML message. Text after the comment, therefore, has no impact on the signature on the SAML message.\r\n\r\nA remote attacker can modify SAML content for a SAML service provider without invalidating the cryptographic signature, which may allow attackers to bypass primary authentication for the affected SAML service provider.",
          "severity": "Unknown",
          "solution": "Upgrade to fixed version.\r\n"
    
    
    
    
        
    ,
          "scanner": {
            "id": "gemnasium",
            "name": "Gemnasium"
          "location": {
            "file": "yarn.lock",
            "dependency": {
              "package": {
                "name": "saml2-js"
              "version": "1.5.0"
          "identifiers": [
              "type": "gemnasium",
              "name": "Gemnasium-9952e574-7b5b-46fa-a270-aeb694198a98",
              "value": "9952e574-7b5b-46fa-a270-aeb694198a98",
              "url": "https://deps.sec.gitlab.com/packages/npm/saml2-js/versions/1.5.0/advisories"
              "type": "cve",
              "name": "CVE-2017-11429",
              "value": "CVE-2017-11429",
              "url": "https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2017-11429"
          "links": [
              "url": "https://github.com/Clever/saml2/commit/3546cb61fd541f219abda364c5b919633609ef3d#diff-af730f9f738de1c9ad87596df3f6de84R279"
              "url": "https://github.com/Clever/saml2/issues/127"
              "url": "https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/475445"
      "remediations": [
          "fixes": [
              "id": "5d681b13-e8fa-4668-957e-8d88f932ddc7",
          "summary": "Upgrade saml2-js",
          "diff": "ZGlmZiAtLWdpdCBhL...OR0d1ZUc2THh3UT09Cg==" // some content is omitted for brevity
    

    CycloneDX Software Bill of Materials

    Version history Introduced in GitLab 14.8 in Beta .
  • Generally available in GitLab 15.7.
  • In addition to the JSON report file , the Gemnasium Dependency Scanning tool outputs a CycloneDX Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for each supported lock or build file it detects. These CycloneDX SBOMs are named gl-sbom-<package-type>-<package-manager>.cdx.json , and are saved in the same directory as the detected lock or build files.

    For example, if your project has the following structure:

    .
    ├── ruby-project/
    │   └── Gemfile.lock
    ├── ruby-project-2/
    │   └── Gemfile.lock
    ├── php-project/
    │   └── composer.lock
    └── go-project/
        └── go.sum
    

    Then the Gemnasium scanner generates the following CycloneDX SBOMs:

    .
    ├── ruby-project/
    │   ├── Gemfile.lock
    │   └── gl-sbom-gem-bundler.cdx.json
    ├── ruby-project-2/
    │   ├── Gemfile.lock
    │   └── gl-sbom-gem-bundler.cdx.json
    ├── php-project/
    │   ├── composer.lock
    │   └── gl-sbom-packagist-composer.cdx.json
    └── go-project/
        ├── go.sum
        └── gl-sbom-go-go.cdx.json
    

    You can download CycloneDX SBOMs the same way as other job artifacts .

    Merging multiple CycloneDX SBOMs

    You can use a CI/CD job to merge multiple CycloneDX SBOMs into a single SBOM. For example:

    GitLab uses CycloneDX Properties to store implementation-specific details in the metadata of each CycloneDX SBOM, such as the location of build and lock files. If multiple CycloneDX SBOMs are merged together, this information is removed from the resulting merged file.

    Versioning and release process

    Check the Release Process documentation .

    Contributing to the vulnerability database

    To find a vulnerability, you can search the GitLab Advisory Database . You can also submit new vulnerabilities .

    Running dependency scanning in an offline environment

    For self-managed GitLab instances in an environment with limited, restricted, or intermittent access to external resources through the internet, some adjustments are required for dependency scanning jobs to run successfully. For more information, see Offline environments .

    Requirements for offline dependency scanning

    Here are the requirements for using dependency scanning in an offline environment:

    • GitLab Runner with the docker or kubernetes executor .
    • Docker Container Registry with locally available copies of dependency scanning analyzer images.
    • If you have a limited access environment you need to allow access, such as using a proxy, to the advisory database: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/gemnasium-db.git . If you are unable to permit access to https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/gemnasium-db.git you must host an offline copy of this git repository and set the GEMNASIUM_DB_REMOTE_URL CI/CD variable to the URL of this repository. For more information on configuration variables, see Dependency Scanning .

      This advisory database is constantly being updated, so you must periodically sync your local copy with GitLab.

    GitLab Runner has a default pull policy of always , meaning the runner tries to pull Docker images from the GitLab container registry even if a local copy is available. The GitLab Runner pull_policy can be set to if-not-present in an offline environment if you prefer using only locally available Docker images. However, we recommend keeping the pull policy setting to always if not in an offline environment, as this enables the use of updated scanners in your CI/CD pipelines.

    Make GitLab dependency scanning analyzer images available inside your Docker registry

    For dependency scanning with all supported languages and frameworks , import the following default dependency scanning analyzer images from registry.gitlab.com into your local Docker container registry :

    registry.gitlab.com/security-products/gemnasium:3
    registry.gitlab.com/security-products/gemnasium-maven:3
    registry.gitlab.com/security-products/gemnasium-python:3
    

    The process for importing Docker images into a local offline Docker registry depends on your network security policy . Consult your IT staff to find an accepted and approved process by which external resources can be imported or temporarily accessed. These scanners are periodically updated with new definitions, and you may be able to make occasional updates on your own.

    For details on saving and transporting Docker images as a file, see the Docker documentation on docker save , docker load , docker export , and docker import .

    Support for Custom Certificate Authorities

    Support for custom certificate authorities was introduced in the following versions.

    Analyzer Version
    gemnasium v2.8.0
    gemnasium-maven v2.9.0
    gemnasium-python v2.7.0

    Set dependency scanning CI/CD job variables to use local dependency scanning analyzers

    Add the following configuration to your .gitlab-ci.yml file. You must change the value of SECURE_ANALYZERS_PREFIX to refer to your local Docker container registry. You must also change the value of GEMNASIUM_DB_REMOTE_URL to the location of your offline Git copy of the gemnasium-db advisory database :

    include:
      - template: Security/Dependency-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml
    variables:
      SECURE_ANALYZERS_PREFIX: "docker-registry.example.com/analyzers"
      GEMNASIUM_DB_REMOTE_URL: "gitlab.example.com/gemnasium-db.git"
    

    See explanations of the variables above in the configuration section .

    Specific settings for languages and package managers

    See the following sections for configuring specific languages and package managers.

    JavaScript (npm and yarn) projects

    Add the following to the variables section of .gitlab-ci.yml :

    Ruby (gem) projects

    Add the following to the variables section of .gitlab-ci.yml :

    Python (pip)

    If you need to install Python packages before the analyzer runs, you should use pip install --user in the before_script of the scanning job. The --user flag causes project dependencies to be installed in the user directory. If you do not pass the --user option, packages are installed globally, and they are not scanned and don’t show up when listing project dependencies.

    Python (setuptools)

    If you need to install Python packages before the analyzer runs, you should use python setup.py install --user in the before_script of the scanning job. The --user flag causes project dependencies to be installed in the user directory. If you do not pass the --user option, packages are installed globally, and they are not scanned and don’t show up when listing project dependencies.

    When using self-signed certificates for your private PyPi repository, no extra job configuration (aside from the template .gitlab-ci.yml above) is needed. However, you must update your setup.py to ensure that it can reach your private repository. Here is an example configuration:

      Update setup.py to create a dependency_links attribute pointing at your private repository for each dependency in the install_requires list:

    Hosting a copy of the gemnasium_db advisory database

    The gemnasium_db Git repository is used by gemnasium , gemnasium-maven , and gemnasium-python as the source of vulnerability data. This repository updates at scan time to fetch the latest advisories. However, due to a restricted networking environment, running this update is sometimes not possible. In this case, a user can do one of the following:

    Host a copy of the advisory database

    If gemnasium-db is not reachable from within the environment, the user can host their own Git copy. Then the analyzer can be instructed to update the database from the user’s copy by using GEMNASIUM_DB_REMOTE_URL :

    variables:
      GEMNASIUM_DB_REMOTE_URL: https://users-own-copy.example.com/gemnasium-db/.git
    

    Use a local clone

    If a hosted copy is not possible, then the user can clone gemnasium-db or create an archive before the scan and point the analyzer to the directory (using: GEMNASIUM_DB_LOCAL_PATH ). Turn off the analyzer’s self-update mechanism (using: GEMNASIUM_DB_UPDATE_DISABLED ). In this example, the database directory is created in the before_script , before the gemnasium analyzer’s scan job:

    ...
    gemnasium-dependency_scanning:
      variables:
        GEMNASIUM_DB_LOCAL_PATH: ./gemnasium-db-local
        GEMNASIUM_DB_UPDATE_DISABLED: "true"
      before_script:
        - mkdir $GEMNASIUM_DB_LOCAL_PATH
        - tar -xzf gemnasium_db.tar.gz -C $GEMNASIUM_DB_LOCAL_PATH
    

    Warnings

    We recommend that you use the most recent version of all containers, and the most recent supported version of all package managers and languages. Using previous versions carries an increased security risk because unsupported versions may no longer benefit from active security reporting and backporting of security fixes.

    Python projects

    Extra care needs to be taken when using the PIP_EXTRA_INDEX_URL environment variable due to a possible exploit documented by CVE-2018-20225 :

    An issue was discovered in pip (all versions) because it installs the version with the highest version number, even if the user had intended to obtain a private package from a private index. This only affects use of the PIP_EXTRA_INDEX_URL option, and exploitation requires that the package does not already exist in the public index (and thus the attacker can put the package there with an arbitrary version number).

    Troubleshooting

    Increase log verbosity

    When a job log doesn’t contain enough information about a dependency-scanning failure, set SECURE_LOG_LEVEL to debug and check the resulting, more verbose log.

    Working around missing support for certain languages or package managers

    As noted in the “Supported languages” section some dependency definition files are not yet supported. However, Dependency Scanning can be achieved if the language, a package manager, or a third-party tool can convert the definition file into a supported format.

    Generally, the approach is the following:

    1. Define a dedicated converter job in your .gitlab-ci.yml file. Use a suitable Docker image, script, or both to facilitate the conversion.
    2. Let that job upload the converted, supported file as an artifact.
    3. Add dependencies: [<your-converter-job>] to your dependency_scanning job to make use of the converted definitions files.

    For example, Poetry projects that only have a pyproject.toml file can generate the poetry.lock file as follows.

    include:
      - template: Security/Dependency-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml
    stages:
      - test
    gemnasium-python-dependency_scanning:
      # Work around https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/32774
      before_script:
        - pip install "poetry>=1,<2"  # Or via another method: https://python-poetry.org/docs/#installation
        - poetry update --lock # Generates the lock file to be analyzed.
    Error response from daemon: error processing tar file: docker-tar: relocation error
    

    This error occurs when the Docker version that runs the dependency scanning job is 19.03.0. Consider updating to Docker 19.03.1 or greater. Older versions are not affected. Read more in this issue.

    Getting warning message gl-dependency-scanning-report.json: no matching files

    For information on this, see the general Application Security troubleshooting section.

    Limitation when using rules:exists

    The dependency scanning CI template uses the rules:exists syntax. This directive is limited to 10000 checks and always returns true after reaching this number. Because of this, and depending on the number of files in your repository, a dependency scanning job might be triggered even if the scanner doesn’t support your project.

    Error: dependency_scanning is used for configuration only, and its script should not be executed

    For information on this, see the GitLab Secure troubleshooting section.

    Import multiple certificates for Java-based projects

    The gemnasium-maven analyzer reads the contents of the ADDITIONAL_CA_CERT_BUNDLE variable using keytool, which imports either a single certificate or a certificate chain. Multiple unrelated certificates are ignored and only the first one is imported by keytool.

    To add multiple unrelated certificates to the analyzer, you can declare a before_script such as this in the definition of the gemnasium-maven-dependency_scanning job:

    Dependency Scanning job fails with message strconv.ParseUint: parsing "0.0": invalid syntax

    Invoking Docker-in-Docker is the likely cause of this error. Docker-in-Docker is:

    To fix this error, disable Docker-in-Docker for dependency scanning. Individual <analyzer-name>-dependency_scanning jobs are created for each analyzer that runs in your CI/CD pipeline.

    Message <file> does not exist in <commit SHA>

    When the Location of a dependency in a file is shown, the path in the link goes to a specific Git SHA.

    If the lock file that our dependency scanning tools reviewed was cached, however, selecting that link redirects you to the repository root, with the message: <file> does not exist in <commit SHA>.

    The lock file is cached during the build phase and passed to the dependency scanning job before the scan occurs. Because the cache is downloaded before the analyzer run occurs, the existence of a lock file in the CI_BUILDS_DIR directory triggers the dependency scanning job.

    We recommend committing the lock files, which prevents this warning.

    You no longer get the latest Docker image after setting DS_MAJOR_VERSION or DS_ANALYZER_IMAGE

    If you have manually set DS_MAJOR_VERSION or DS_ANALYZER_IMAGE for specific reasons, and now must update your configuration to again get the latest patched versions of our analyzers, edit your .gitlab-ci.yml file and either:

    Dependency Scanning of setuptools project fails with use_2to3 is invalid error

    Support for 2to3 was removed in setuptools version v58.0.0. Dependency Scanning (running python 3.9) uses setuptools version 58.1.0+, which doesn’t support 2to3. Therefore, a setuptools dependency relying on lib2to3 fails with this message:

    error in <dependency name> setup command: use_2to3 is invalid
    

    To work around this error, downgrade the analyzer’s version of setuptools (for example, v57.5.0):

    gemnasium-python-dependency_scanning:
      before_script:
        - pip install setuptools==57.5.0
    

    Dependency Scanning of projects using psycopg2 fails with pg_config executable not found error

    Scanning a Python project that depends on psycopg2 can fail with this message:

    psycopg2 depends on the libpq-dev Debian package, which is not installed in the gemnasium-python Docker image. To work around this error, install the libpq-dev package in a before_script:

    gemnasium-python-dependency_scanning:
      before_script:
        - apt-get update && apt-get install -y libpq-dev
    NoSuchOptionException when using poetry config http-basic with CI_JOB_TOKEN
    

    This error can occur when the automatically generated CI_JOB_TOKEN starts with a hyphen (-). To avoid this error, follow Poetry’s configuration advice.

    Error: Project has <number> unresolved dependencies

    The error message Project has <number> unresolved dependencies indicates a dependency resolution problem caused by your gradle.build or gradle.build.kts file. In the current release, gemnasium-maven cannot continue processing when an unresolved dependency is encountered. However, There is an open issue to allow gemnasium-maven to recover from unresolved dependency errors and produce a dependency graph. Until this issue has been resolved, consult the Gradle dependency resolution docs for details on how to fix your gradle.build file.

    Setting build constraints when scanning Go projects

    Dependency scanning runs within a linux/amd64 container. As a result, the build list generated for a Go project contains dependencies that are compatible with this environment. If your deployment environment is not linux/amd64, the final list of dependencies might contain additional incompatible modules. The dependency list might also omit modules that are only compatible with your deployment environment. To prevent this issue, you can configure the build process to target the operating system and architecture of the deployment environment by setting the GOOS and GOARCH environment variables of your .gitlab-ci.yml file.

    For example:

    variables:
      GOOS: "darwin"
      GOARCH: "arm64"
    

    You can also supply build tag constraints by using the GOFLAGS variable:

    variables:
      GOFLAGS: "-tags=test_feature"
    

    Dependency Scanning of Go projects returns false positives

    The go.sum file contains an entry of every module that was considered while generating the project’s build list. Multiple versions of a module are included in the go.sum file, but the MVS algorithm used by go build only selects one. As a result, when dependency scanning uses go.sum, it might report false positives.

    To prevent false positives, gemnasium only uses go.sum if it is unable to generate the build list for the Go project. If go.sum is selected, a warning occurs:

    [WARN] [Gemnasium] [2022-09-14T20:59:38Z] ▶ Selecting "go.sum" parser for "/test-projects/gitlab-shell/go.sum". False positives may occur. See https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/321081.
    

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