GitLab Token overview

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This document lists tokens used in GitLab, their purpose and, where applicable, security guidance.

Personal access tokens

You can create Personal access tokens to authenticate with:

• The GitLab API.
• GitLab repositories.
• The GitLab registry.

You can limit the scope and expiration date of your personal access tokens. By default, they inherit permissions from the user who created them.

You can use the personal access tokens API to programmatically take action, such as rotating a personal access token.

You will receive an email when personal access tokens are 7 days or less from expiration.

OAuth2 tokens

GitLab can serve as an OAuth2 provider to allow other services to access the GitLab API on a user's behalf.

You can limit the scope and lifetime of your OAuth2 tokens.

Impersonation tokens

An Impersonation token is a special type of personal access token. It can be created only by an administrator for a specific user. Impersonation tokens can help you build applications or scripts that authenticate with the GitLab API, repositories, and the GitLab registry as a specific user.

You can limit the scope and set an expiration date for an impersonation token.

Project access tokens

Project access tokens are scoped to a project. As with Personal access tokens, you can use them to authenticate with:

• The GitLab API.
• GitLab repositories.
• The GitLab registry.

You can limit the scope and expiration date of project access tokens. When you create a project access token, GitLab creates a bot user for projects. Bot users for projects are service accounts and do not count as licensed seats.

You can use the project access tokens API to programmatically take action, such as rotating a project access token.

Project Owners and Maintainers with a direct membership receive an email when project access tokens are seven days or less from expiration. Inherited members do not receive an email.

Group access tokens

Group access tokens are scoped to a group. As with Personal access tokens, you can use them to authenticate with:

• The GitLab API.
• GitLab repositories.
• The GitLab registry.

You can limit the scope and expiration date of group access tokens. When you create a group access token, GitLab creates a bot user for groups. Bot users for groups are service accounts and do not count as licensed seats.

You can use the group access tokens API to programmatically take action, such as rotating a group access token.

All group owners with a direct membership receive an email when group access tokens are 7 days or less from expiration. Inherited members do not receive an email.

Deploy tokens

Deploy tokens allow you to download (git clone) or push and pull packages and container registry images of a project without having a user and a password. Deploy tokens cannot be used with the GitLab API.

Deploy tokens can be managed by project maintainers and owners.

Deploy keys

Deploy keys allow read-only or read-write access to your repositories by importing an SSH public key into your GitLab instance. Deploy keys cannot be used with the GitLab API or the registry.

This is useful, for example, for cloning repositories to your Continuous Integration (CI) server. By using deploy keys, you don't have to set up a fake user account.

Project maintainers and owners can add or enable a deploy key for a project repository

Runner authentication tokens

In GitLab 16.0 and later, to register a runner, you can use a runner authentication token instead of a runner registration token. Runner registration tokens have been deprecated.

After you create a runner and its configuration, you receive a runner authentication token that you use to register the runner. The runner authentication token is stored locally in the config.toml file, which you use to configure the runner.

The runner uses the runner authentication token to authenticate with GitLab when it picks up jobs from the job queue. After the runner authenticates with GitLab, the runner receives a job token, which it uses to execute the job.

The runner authentication token stays on the runner machine. The execution environments for the following executors only have access to the job token and not the runner authentication token:

• Docker Machine
• Kubernetes
• VirtualBox
• Parallels
• SSH

Malicious access to a runner's file system may expose the config.toml file and the runner authentication token. The attacker could use the runner authentication token to clone the runner.

You can use the runners API to programmatically rotate or revoke a runner authentication token.

Runner registration tokens (deprecated)

WARNING: The ability to pass a runner registration token has been deprecated and is planned for removal in GitLab 18.0, along with support for certain configuration arguments. This change is a breaking change. GitLab has implemented a new GitLab Runner token architecture, which introduces a new method for registering runners and eliminates the runner registration token.

Runner registration tokens are used to register a runner with GitLab. Group or project owners or instance administrators can obtain them through the GitLab user interface. The registration token is limited to runner registration and has no further scope.

You can use the runner registration token to add runners that execute jobs in a project or group. The runner has access to the project's code, so be careful when assigning project and group-level permissions.

CI/CD job tokens

The CI/CD job token is a short lived token only valid for the duration of a job. It gives a CI/CD job access to a limited amount of API endpoints. API authentication uses the job token, by using the authorization of the user triggering the job.

The job token is secured by its short life-time and limited scope. It could possibly be leaked if multiple jobs run on the same machine (like with the shell runner). On Docker Machine runners, configuring MaxBuilds=1 is recommended to make sure runner machines only ever run one build and are destroyed afterwards. This may impact performance, as provisioning machines takes some time.

GitLab cluster agent tokens

When registering a GitLab agent for Kubernetes, GitLab generates an access token to authenticate the cluster agent with GitLab.

To revoke this cluster agent token, you can use either the:

• Agents API to revoke the token.
• UI to reset the token.

For both methods, you must know the token, agent, and project IDs. To find this information, use the Rails console

# Find token ID
Clusters::AgentToken.find_by_token('glagent-xxx').id

# Find agent ID
Clusters::AgentToken.find_by_token('glagent-xxx').agent.id
=> 1234

# Find project ID
Clusters::AgentToken.find_by_token('glagent-xxx').agent.project_id
=> 12345

You can also revoke a token directly in the Rails console:

# Revoke token with RevokeService, including generating an audit event
Clusters::AgentTokens::RevokeService.new(token: Clusters::AgentToken.find_by_token('glagent-xxx'), current_user: User.find_by_username('admin-user')).execute

# Revoke token manually, which does not generate an audit event
Clusters::AgentToken.find_by_token('glagent-xxx').revoke!

Other tokens

Feed token

Each user has a long-lived feed token that does not expire. This token allows authentication for:

• RSS readers to load a personalized RSS feed.
• Calendar applications to load a personalized calendar.

You cannot use this token to access any other data.

The user-scoped feed token can be used for all feeds, however feed and calendar URLs are generated with a different token that is only valid for one feed.

Anyone who has your token can read activity and issue RSS feeds or your calendar feed as if they were you, including confidential issues. If that happens, reset the token.

Disable a feed token

Prerequisites:

• You must be an administrator.

1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin Area.
2. Select Settings > General.
3. Expand Visibility and access controls.
4. Under Feed token, select the Disable feed token checkbox, then select Save changes.

Incoming email token

Each user has a long-lived incoming email token that does not expire. This token allows a user to create a new issue by email, and is included in that user's personal project-specific email addresses. You cannot use this token to access any other data. Anyone who has your token can create issues and merge requests as if they were you. If that happens, reset the token.

Available scopes

This table shows available scopes per token. Scopes can be limited further on token creation.

1. Limited to the one project.
2. Limited to the one group.
3. Runner registration and authentication token don't provide direct access to repositories, but can be used to register and authenticate a new runner that may execute jobs which do have access to the repository
4. Limited to certain endpoints.

Token prefixes

The following table shows the prefixes for each type of token.

Security considerations

1. Treat access tokens like passwords and keep them secure.

2. When creating a scoped token, consider using the most limited scope possible to reduce the impact of accidentally leaking the token.

3. When creating a token, consider setting a token that expires when your task is complete. For example, if performing a one-off import, set the token to expire after a few hours or a day. This reduces the impact of a token that is accidentally leaked because it is useless when it expires.

4. If you have set up a demo environment to showcase a project you have been working on and you are recording a video or writing a blog post describing that project, make sure you are not leaking sensitive secrets (for example a personal access token (PAT), feed token or trigger token) during that process. If you have finished the demo, you must revoke all the secrets created during that demo. For more information, see revoking a PAT.

5. Adding access tokens to URLs is a security risk, especially when cloning or adding a remote because Git then writes the URL to its .git/config file in plain text. URLs are also generally logged by proxies and application servers, which makes those credentials visible to system administrators. Instead, pass API calls an access token using headers like the Private-Token header.

6. You can also store token using a Git credential storage.

7. Do not:

   • Store tokens in plain text in your projects.
   • Include tokens when pasting code, console commands, or log outputs into an issue, MR description, or comment.

   Consider an approach such as using external secrets in CI.

8. Do not log credentials in the console logs or artifacts. Consider protecting and masking your credentials.

9. Review all active access tokens of all types on a regular basis and revoke any that are no longer needed. This includes:

   • Personal, project, and group access tokens.
   • Feed tokens.
   • Trigger tokens.
   • Runner registration tokens.
   • Any other sensitive secrets etc.

Expired access tokens

If an existing access token is in use and reaches the expires_at value, the token expires and:

• Can no longer be used for authentication.
• Is not visible in the UI.

Requests made using this token return a 401 Unauthorized response. Too many unauthorized requests in a short period of time from the same IP address result in 403 Forbidden responses from GitLab.com.

For more information on authentication request limits, see Git and container registry failed authentication ban.

To replace the token:

1. Check where this token may have been used previously, and remove it from any automation might still use the token.
   • For personal access tokens, use the API to list tokens that have expired recently. For example, go to https://gitlab.com/api/v4/personal_access_tokens, and locate tokens with a specific expires_at date.
   • For project access tokens, use the project access tokens API to list recently expired tokens.
   • For group access tokens, use the group access tokens API to list recently expired tokens.
2. Create a new access token:
   • For personal access tokens, use the UI or Users API.
   • For a project access token, use the UI or project access tokens API.
   • For a group access token, use the UI or group access tokens API.
3. Replace the old access token with the new access token. This process varies depending on how you use the token, for example if configured as a secret or embedded within an application. Requests made from this token should no longer return 401 responses.

Troubleshooting

Identify personal, project and group access tokens expiring on a certain date using the Rails console

Use either of these scripts in self-managed instances to identify tokens affected by incident 18003. Run the script from your terminal window in either:

• A Rails console session.
• Using the Rails Runner.

Both scripts return results in this format:

Expired Group Access Token in Group ID 25, Token ID: 8, Name: Example Token, Scopes: ["read_api", "create_runner"], Last used:
Expired Project Access Token in Project ID 2, Token ID: 9, Name: Test Token, Scopes: ["api", "read_registry", "write_registry"], Last used: 2022-02-11 13:22:14 UTC

expired_tokens.rb

This script finds tokens that expire on a specific date.

Prerequisites:

• You must know the exact date your instance was upgraded to GitLab 16.0.

To use it:

::Tabs

:::TabTitle Rails console session

1. In your terminal window, connect to your instance.
2. Start a Rails console session with sudo gitlab-rails console.
3. Paste in the entire script. Change the expires_at_date to the date one year after your instance was upgraded to GitLab 16.0.
4. Press Enter.

:::TabTitle Rails Runner

1. In your terminal window, connect to your instance.

2. Copy this entire script, and save it as a file on your instance:

   • Name it expired_tokens.rb.
   • Change the expires_at_date to the date one year after your instance was upgraded to GitLab 16.0.
   • The file must be accessible to git:git.

3. Run this command, changing the path to the full path to your expired_tokens.rb file:

   sudo gitlab-rails runner /path/to/expired_tokens.rb

For more information, see the Rails Runner troubleshooting section.

::EndTabs

# This script requires you to know the exact date your GitLab instance
# was upgraded to GitLab 16.0. Change this value to the date one year after
# your GitLab instance was upgraded.

expires_at_date = "2024-05-22"

# Check for expiring personal access tokens
PersonalAccessToken.owner_is_human.where(expires_at: expires_at_date).find_each do |token|
  puts "Expired Personal Access Token ID: #{token.id}, User Email: #{token.user.email}, Name: #{token.name}, Scopes: #{token.scopes}, Last used: #{token.last_used_at}"
end

# Check for expiring project and group access tokens
PersonalAccessToken.project_access_token.where(expires_at: expires_at_date).find_each do |token|
  token.user.members.each do |member|
    type = member.is_a?(GroupMember) ? 'Group' : 'Project'

    puts "Expired #{type} access token in #{type} ID #{member.source_id}, Token ID: #{token.id}, Name: #{token.name}, Scopes: #{token.scopes}, Last used: #{token.last_used_at}"
  end
end

expired_tokens_date_range.rb

This script finds tokens that expire in a particular month. You don't need to know the exact date your instance was upgraded to GitLab 16.0. To use it:

::Tabs

:::TabTitle Rails console session

1. In your terminal window, start a Rails console session with sudo gitlab-rails console.
2. Paste in the entire script. If desired, change the date_range to a different range.
3. Press Enter.

:::TabTitle Rails Runner

1. In your terminal window, connect to your instance.

2. Copy this entire script, and save it as a file on your instance:

   • Name it expired_tokens_date_range.rb.
   • If desired, change the date_range to a different range.
   • The file must be accessible to git:git.

3. Run this command, changing /path/to/expired_tokens_date_range.rb to the full path to your expired_tokens_date_range.rb file:

   sudo gitlab-rails runner /path/to/expired_tokens_date_range.rb

For more information, see the Rails Runner troubleshooting section.

::EndTabs

# This script enables you to search for tokens that expire within a
# certain date range (like 1.month) from the current date. Use it if
# you're unsure when exactly your GitLab 16.0 upgrade completed.

date_range = 1.month

# Check for personal access tokens
PersonalAccessToken.owner_is_human.where(expires_at: Date.today .. Date.today + date_range).find_each do |token|
  puts "Expired Personal Access Token ID: #{token.id}, User Email: #{token.user.email}, Name: #{token.name}, Scopes: #{token.scopes}, Last used: #{token.last_used_at}"
end

# Check for expiring project and group access tokens
PersonalAccessToken.project_access_token.where(expires_at: Date.today .. Date.today + date_range).find_each do |token|
  token.user.members.each do |member|
    type = member.is_a?(GroupMember) ? 'Group' : 'Project'

    puts "Expired #{type} access token in #{type} ID #{member.source_id}, Token ID: #{token.id}, Name: #{token.name}, Scopes: #{token.scopes}, Last used: #{token.last_used_at}"
  end
end

Extend token lifetime

Delay the expiration of certain tokens with this script.

From GitLab 16.0, all access tokens have an expiration date. After you deploy at least GitLab 16.0, any non-expiring access tokens expire one year from the date of deployment.

If this date is approaching and there are tokens that have not yet been rotated, you can use this script to delay expiration and give users more time to rotate their tokens.

extend_expiring_tokens.rb

This script extends the lifetime of all tokens which expire on a specified date, including:

• Personal access tokens
• Group access tokens
• Project access tokens

Users that have intentionally set a token to expire on the specified date will have their token lifetimes extended as well.

To use the script:

::Tabs

:::TabTitle Rails console session

1. In your terminal window, start a Rails console session with sudo gitlab-rails console.
2. Paste in the entire script. If desired, change the expiring_date to a different date.
3. Press Enter.

:::TabTitle Rails Runner

1. In your terminal window, connect to your instance.

2. Copy this entire script, and save it as a file on your instance:

   • Name it extend_expiring_tokens.rb.
   • If desired, change the expiring_date to a different date.
   • The file must be accessible to git:git.

3. Run this command, changing /path/to/extend_expiring_tokens.rb to the full path to your extend_expiring_tokens.rb file:

   sudo gitlab-rails runner /path/to/extend_expiring_tokens.rb

For more information, see the Rails Runner troubleshooting section.

::EndTabs

expiring_date = Date.new(2024, 5, 30)
new_expires_at = 6.months.from_now

total_updated = PersonalAccessToken
                  .not_revoked
                  .without_impersonation
                  .where(expires_at: expiring_date.to_date)
                  .update_all(expires_at: new_expires_at.to_date)

puts "Updated #{total_updated} tokens with new expiry date #{new_expires_at}"