Document - Make using GitLab auth with Vault easy

Problem to solve

We want to have a first class integration with Vault. Part of that may include the desire to use GitLab as an authentication method to vault itself and/or documenting how to set this up.

Once configured, this will allow companies to align their usage of Vault to GitLab. As we develop more Vault-integrated features, this will help ensure that the user (running a pipeline for example) can authenticate with Vault to retrieve the appropriate secrets.

Target audience

• Devon, DevOps Engineer, https://design.gitlab.com/research/personas#persona-devon

• Sidney, Systems Administrator, https://design.gitlab.com/research/personas#persona-sidney

Further details

This contributes to our vision of Vault for secrets management. In addition, GitHub already has a similar integration using personal access tokens: https://www.vaultproject.io/docs/auth/github.html.

Proposal

We should document how to configure using GitLab as a vault auth method, for example #9983 (comment 169053587).

Documentation

• ce: https://docs.gitlab.com/ce/integration/vault
• ee: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/integration/vault

What does success look like, and how can we measure that?

• We should see an increase in GitLab + Vault use cases

What is the type of buyer?

(Which leads to: in which enterprise tier should this feature go see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/pricing/#four-tiers )

• CE, EE

Links / references