[FF] email_based_mfa -- Email-based one time passwords feature

Summary

This issue is to roll out the feature on production, that is currently behind the email_based_mfa feature flag.

Owners

  • Most appropriate Slack channel to reach out to: #mfa_default_planning
  • Best individual to reach out to: @nmalcolm
    • Alternatively, anyone from @gitlab-com/gl-security/product-security/product-security-engineering, @kimwaters, or @estrike

Expectations

What are we expecting to happen?

  • Users who use a password to sign in can opt-in to the Email-based OTP feature
  • Users who are enrolled in Email-based OTP:
    • cannot complete their sign in unless they enter a code sent via email
    • cannot use passwords to authenticate to APIs; consistent with existing 2FA restrictions (Git over HTTPs, Container Registry / docker login)

What can go wrong and how would we detect it?

Enabling the FF does not enrol users in Email MFA in and of itself; that will happen via Change Requests updating production data.

This change is being rolled out with a lot of eyes on it, using https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/566615+s.

Because of this, it is expected that nothing will go wrong due to enabling the FF.

Rollout Steps

Note: Please make sure to run the chatops commands in the Slack channel that gets impacted by the command.

Rollout on non-production environments

See dedicated issue: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/582228+s

Before production rollout

  • If the change is significant and you wanted to announce in #whats-happening-at-gitlab, it best to do it before rollout to gitlab-org/gitlab-com.

Specific rollout on production

For visibility, all /chatops commands that target production must be executed in the #production Slack channel and cross-posted (with the command results) to the responsible team's Slack channel.

  • Ensure that the feature MRs have been deployed to both production and canary with /chatops run auto_deploy status <merge-commit-of-your-feature>
  • Depending on the type of actor you are using, pick one of these options:
    • For user-actor: /chatops run feature set --user=<gitlab-username-of-dri> email_based_mfa true
    • For all internal users: /chatops run feature set --feature-group=gitlab_team_members email_based_mfa true
  • Verify that the feature works for the specific actors.

Preparation before global rollout

Global rollout on production

For visibility, all /chatops commands that target production must be executed in the #production Slack channel and cross-posted (with the command results) to the responsible team's Slack channel.

(Optional) Release the feature with the feature flag

WARNING: This approach has the downside that it makes it difficult for us to clean up the flag. For example, on-premise users could disable the feature on their GitLab instance. But when you remove the flag at some point, they suddenly see the feature as enabled and they can't roll it back to the previous behavior. To avoid this potential breaking change, use this approach only for urgent matters.

See instructions if you're sure about enabling the feature globally through the feature flag definition

If you're still unsure whether the feature is deemed stable but want to release it in the current milestone, you can change the default state of the feature flag to be enabled. To do so, follow these steps:

  • Create a merge request with the following changes.
    • If feature was enabled for various actors, ensure the feature has been enabled globally on production /chatops run feature get email_based_mfa. If the feature has not been globally enabled then enable the feature globally using: /chatops run feature set email_based_mfa true
    • Set the default_enabled attribute in the feature flag definition to true.
    • Decide which changelog entry is needed.
  • Ensure that the default-enabling MR has been included in the release package. If the merge request was deployed before the monthly release was tagged, the feature can be officially announced in a release blog post: /chatops run release check <merge-request-url> <milestone>
  • After the default-enabling MR has been deployed, clean up the feature flag from all environments by running these chatops command in the #production channel: /chatops run feature delete email_based_mfa --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref --production
  • Close the feature issue to indicate the feature will be released in the current milestone.
  • Set the next milestone to this rollout issue for scheduling the flag removal.
  • (Optional) You can create a separate issue for scheduling the steps below to Release the feature.
    • Set the title to "[FF] email_based_mfa - Cleanup".
    • Execute the /copy_metadata <this-rollout-issue-link> quick action to copy the labels from this rollout issue.
    • Link this rollout issue as a related issue.
    • Close this rollout issue.

Release the feature

After the feature has been deemed stable, the clean up should be done as soon as possible to permanently enable the feature and reduce complexity in the codebase.

You can either create a follow-up issue for Feature Flag Cleanup or use the checklist below in this same issue.

  • Create a merge request to remove the email_based_mfa feature flag. Ask for review/approval/merge as usual. The MR should include the following changes:
    • Remove all references to the feature flag from the codebase.
    • Remove the YAML definitions for the feature from the repository.
  • Ensure that the cleanup MR has been included in the release package. If the merge request was deployed before the monthly release was tagged, the feature can be officially announced in a release blog post: /chatops run release check <merge-request-url> <milestone>
  • Close the feature issue to indicate the feature will be released in the current milestone.
  • Once the cleanup MR has been deployed to production, clean up the feature flag from all environments by running these chatops command in #production channel: /chatops run feature delete email_based_mfa --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref --production
  • Close this rollout issue.

Rollback Steps

  • This feature can be disabled on production by running the following Chatops command:
/chatops run feature set email_based_mfa false
  • Disable the feature flag on non-production environments:
/chatops run feature set email_based_mfa false --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref
  • Delete feature flag from all environments:
/chatops run feature delete email_based_mfa --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref --production
Edited by Nick Malcolm