Gitlab README.md Variables - gitlab

I would like to receive some help on how I could create some environment variables to be used in README.md within a locally hosted Gitlab instance.
I need two variables to be replaced in README.md when someone accesses the web interface, variables that define the name of the repo and the name of the branch.
Any idea is welcome.
Thanks!

I don't think you can use these variables inside a GitLab readme. There is a feature request for this but it isn't implemented yet.
A way around this is to use the predefined variables that are present in GitLab. However, these variables are accessible to GitLab's CI pipelines, and not to any readme files. But perhaps you can find a solution in this answer. It suggests that you keep a placeholder in your readme file, then have a job run that switches out the readme's placeholder with the required value using the sed command. Since the job will have access to both the readme file and the variables, this should work.

Related

Including Terraform Configuration from Another Gitlab Project

I have a couple apps that use the same GCP project. There are dev, stage, and prod projects, but they're basically the same, apart from project IDs and project numbers. I would like to have a repo in gitlab like config where I keep these IDs, in a dev.tfvars, stage.tfvars, prod.tfvars. Currently each app's repo has a directory of config/{env}.tfvars, which is really repetitive.
Googling for importing or including terraform resources is just getting me results about terraform state, so hasn't been fruitful.
I've considered:
Using a group-level Gitlab variable just as key=val env file and have my gitlab-ci yaml source the correct environment's file, then just include what I need using -var="key=value" in my plan and apply commands.
Creating a terraform module that either uses TF_WORKSPACE or an input prop to return the correct variables. I think this may be possible, but I'm new to TF, so I'm not sure how to return data back from a module, or if this type of "side-effects only" solution is an abusive workaround to something there's a better way to achieve.
Is there any way to include terraform variables from another Gitlab project?

Using Gitlab CI from a submodule

I'm trying to "mutualize" my CI.
I have a lot of project that use basically the same gitlab-ci.yml.
I was thinking about creating a git submodule containing the gitlab-ci.yml that all my project are using, in which I could inject env variable in order to make it generic so I could re-use it in my futur projects.
My problem is that I don't see any documentation about this so I was wondering :
Is it possible ? And if yes, how can I tell gitlab to use the gitlab-ci.yml that is inside of this submodule ?
If it's a bad idea, do you have any idea of the correct way to do this ?
Thanks !
What you're looking for are Gitlab CI template files, that can be include'd in other .gitlab-ci.yml files.
You can check out the documentation for include here.
Example :
# .gitlab.ci.yml
include:
- 'https://gitlab.com/awesome-project/raw/main/.before-script-template.yml'
- '/templates/.after-script-template.yml'
This includes CI files with default variables, stages, workflows that can be overriden anywhere in your other CI files. This brings the genericity you need.

How to create a common pipeline in GitLab for many similar projects

We have hundreds of similar projects in GitLab which have the same structure inside.
To build these projects we use a one common TeamCity build. We trigger and pass project GitLab URL along with other parameters to the build via API, so TeamCity build knows which exact project needs to be fetched/cloned. TeamCity VCS root accepts target URL via parameter.
The question is how to replace existing TeamCity build with a GitLab pipeline.
I see the general approach is to have CI/CD configuration file(.gitlab-ci.yml) directly in project. Since the structure of the projects the same this is not the option to duplicate the same CI/CD config file across all projects.
I'm wondering is it possible to create a common pipeline for several projects which can accept the target project URL via parameter ?
You can store the full CICD config in a repository and put in all your projects a simple .gitlab-ci.yml which includes the shared file.
With thus approach there is no redundant definition of the jobs.
Still, you can add specific other jobs to specific projects (in the regarding .gitlab-ci.yml files or define variables in a problem and use some jobs conditionally) - you can also include multiple other definition files, e.g. if you have multiple similar projects.
cf. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/#include
With latest GitLab (13.9) there are even more referencing methods possible: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/yaml/README.html#reference-tags
As #MrTux already pointed out, you can use includes.
You can either use it to include a whole CI file, or to include just certain steps. in Having Gitlab Projects calling the same gitlab-ci.yml stored in a central location - you can find detailed explanation with examples of both usages

How change the fixed CI/CD variables from repo settings by request?

I'd like to know if is it possible change the CI/CD variables assigned in repo settings by request. I know previously i can pass env variables by curl request to trigger the pipeline.
But now i have another situation which an automatic build and a docker image is pushed to a private registry happen when the master or dev branch suffers a merge. To do this, i use the CI/CD variables already setted.
And oftenly i will create a new registry, which it is done automatically in a bash script. After this what i'd like is setup the new keys accesses to the gitlab repo via request or other automatic way.
If someone could help me with some idea, thanks in advance.
If I am not mistaken this it what you are looking for:
Project-level Variables API
https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/project_level_variables.html

How to access variables in gitlab-ci.yml using gitlab-ci-multi-runner on windows

I can't find out how to access variables in a build-script provided by the gitlab-ci.yml-file.
I have tried to declare variables in two ways:
Private Variables in the Web-Interface of GitLab CI
Variable overrides/apennding in config.toml
I try to access them in my gitlab-ci.yml-files commands like that:
msbuild ci.msbuild [...] /p:Configuration=Release;NuGetOutputDir="$PACKAGE_SOURCE"
where $PACKAGE_SOURCE is the desired variable (PACKAGE_SOURCE) but it does not work (it does not seem to be replaced). Executing the same command manually works just as expected (replacing the variable name with its content)
Is there some other syntax required i am not aware of?
I have tried:
$PACKAGE_SOURCE
$(PACKAGE_SOURCE)
${PACKAGE_SOURCE}
PS: Verifying the runner raises no issues, if this matters.
I presume you are using Windows for your runner? I was having the same issue myself and couldn't even get the following to work:
script:
- echo $MySecret
However, reading the Gitlab documentation it has an entry for the syntax of environment variables in job scripts:
To access environment variables, use the syntax for your Runner’s shell
Which makes sense as most of the examples given are for bash runners. For my windows runner, it uses %variable%.
I changed my script to the following, which worked for me. (Confirmed by watching the build output.)
script:
- echo %MySecret%
If you're using the powershell for your runner, the syntax would be $env:MySecret
In addition to what was said in the answer marked as correct above, you should also check whether your CI variables in the gitlab settings are set as "protected". If so, you may not be able to use them in a branch that's not protected.
"You can protect a project, group or instance CI/CD variable so it is only passed to pipelines running on protected branches or protected tags." -> check it https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/variables/index.html#protect-a-cicd-variable
Be aware that.. in certain cases SOME of the variables Gitlab CI CD offer are not always available..
In my case I wanted to use ${CI_COMMIT_BRANCH} but if you read the doc
https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/variables/predefined_variables.html
The commit branch name. Available in branch pipelines, including pipelines for the default branch. Not available in merge request pipelines or tag pipelines.

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