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Administrative Setup For The Pillars of Creation Pipeline Repository

Introduction​

This guide will walk you through the administrative tasks for setting up the Pillars of Creation pipeline in your GitLab instance.

Organization Administrators and Privileged only

Prerequisites​

Before you begin, ensure you have the following items ready:

tip

It is recommended to create variables at the Group level in GitLab. This will make them accessible to all projects within that group.

Required Tools and Access​

  • GitLab Account: Access to the target project's GitLab repository.
  • NIST API Key: Obtain from the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) Portal (found at https://nvd.nist.gov/developers/request-an-api-key) for vulnerability assessments.
  • NeuVector API Key: Needed for container security scans.
  • CI/CD Tokens: Configured for accessing the container registry.

Terminology​

  • CI/CD: Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment. A strategy for automating code integration, testing, and deployment.
  • NIST: National Institute of Standards and Technology. Manages the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) used for security vulnerability assessments.
  • NeuVector: A security platform for container vulnerability scanning.

Initial Setup​

1. Configure CI/CD Tokens​

The container image requires access via CI tokens for registry authentication:

  1. Navigate to your project in GitLab.
  2. Go to Settings > CI/CD > Token Access.
  3. Verify that the necessary tokens are properly set up for registry access.

2. Set Up NIST API Key​

The pipeline utilizes the NVD_API_KEY for dependency vulnerability checks (required if you are building the dependency-check container image):

  1. Register at the NIST NVD Portal (found at https://nvd.nist.gov/developers/request-an-api-key) to obtain an API key.
  2. In your GitLab project, navigate to Settings > CI/CD > Variables.
  3. Add a new variable:
    • Key: NVD_API_KEY
    • Value: Your NIST API Key
    • Protect variable: Enable (optional)
    • Mask variable: Enable

3. Configure NeuVector API Key​

For container vulnerability scanning:

  1. Obtain the NV_X_AUTH_APIKEY with the image-scanner role to initiate scans.
  2. In your GitLab project, go to Settings > CI/CD > Variables and add a new variable:
    • Key: NV_X_AUTH_APIKEY
    • Value: Your NeuVector API Key
    • Protect variable: Enable (optional)
    • Mask variable: Enable