[FF] `allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects` - Rollout

Summary

This issue is to roll out Allow CI_JOB_TOKEN to push to allowlisted repositories on production, that is currently behind the allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects feature flag.

This feature adds the ability for CI/CD job tokens to push to repositories in other projects, when the source project is on the target project's inbound job token allowlist with the admin_repositories policy. It is gated behind four independent security checks:

  1. Feature flag allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects (gitlab_com_derisk, default off)
  2. Target project setting cross_project_push_for_job_token_allowed (new boolean, default false)
  3. Target project inbound scope must be enabled
  4. Allowlist entry from target → source with the admin_repositories fine-grained policy

Owners

  • Most appropriate Slack channel to reach out to: #g_authentication, #g_pipeline_security
  • Best individual to reach out to: @dbiryukov @mmishaev

References

Expectations

What are we expecting to happen?

CI/CD job tokens will be able to push to repositories in other projects when:

  • The source project is on the target project's inbound job token allowlist with the admin_repositories policy
  • The target project has cross_project_push_for_job_token_allowed enabled
  • The target project has inbound scope enabled
  • The top-level push_repository_for_job_token_allowed setting is enabled on the target project

What can go wrong and how would we detect it?

  • Unauthorized cross-project pushes if any of the four security gates has a bug — monitor for unexpected 2xx responses on git push endpoints from job tokens
  • Performance degradation due to additional allowlist lookups on every push — monitor error rates and latency on git push operations
  • Regression in existing same-project job token pushes — monitor for increased 403 errors on existing pipelines

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

  • Verify the MR with the feature flag is merged to master and has been deployed to non-production environments with /chatops gitlab run auto_deploy status <merge-commit-of-your-feature>

  • Deploy the feature flag at a percentage (recommended percentage: 50%) with /chatops gitlab run feature set allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects 50 --actors --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref

  • Monitor that the error rates did not increase (repeat with a different percentage as necessary).

  • Enable the feature globally on non-production environments with /chatops gitlab run feature set allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects true --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref

  • Verify that the feature works as expected. The best environment to validate the feature in is staging-canary as this is the first environment deployed to. Make sure you are configured to use canary.

  • If the feature flag causes end-to-end tests to fail, disable the feature flag on staging to avoid blocking deployments.

    • See #e2e-run-staging Slack channel and look for the following messages:
      • test kicked off: Feature flag allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects has been set to true on **gstg**
      • test result: This pipeline was triggered due to toggling of allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects feature flag

If you encounter end-to-end test failures and are unable to diagnose them, you may reach out to the #s_developer_experience Slack channel for assistance. Note that end-to-end test failures on staging-ref don't block deployments.

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 gitlab run auto_deploy status <merge-commit-of-your-feature>
  • Enable for internal GitLab projects first (project-actor):
    • /chatops gitlab run feature set --project=gitlab-org/gitlab,gitlab-org/gitlab-foss,gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects true
  • Verify that the feature works for the specific actors.

Preparation before global rollout

  • Set a milestone to this rollout issue to signal for enabling and removing the feature flag when it is stable.
  • Check if the feature flag change needs to be accompanied with a change management issue. Cross link the issue here if it does.
  • Ensure that you or a representative in development can be available for at least 2 hours after feature flag updates in production. If a different developer will be covering, or an exception is needed, please inform the oncall SRE by using the @sre-oncall Slack alias.
  • Ensure that documentation exists for the feature, and the version history text has been updated.
  • Ensure that any breaking changes have been announced following the release post process to ensure GitLab customers are aware.
  • Notify the #support_gitlab-com Slack channel and your team channel (more guidance when this is necessary in the dev docs).

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.

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 allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects 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 gitlab 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 gitlab run feature delete allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects --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 gitlab run feature set allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects false
  • Disable the feature flag on non-production environments:
/chatops gitlab run feature set allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects false --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref
  • Delete feature flag from all environments:
/chatops gitlab run feature delete allow_push_to_allowlisted_projects --dev --pre --staging --staging-ref --production
Edited by Dmytro Biryukov