Static Application Security Testing for Docker containers

Introduced in GitLab Ultimate 10.4.

Overview

If you are using GitLab CI/CD, you can analyze your Docker images for known vulnerabilities using Clair, a Vulnerability Static Analysis tool for containers.

Going a step further, GitLab can show the vulnerability list right in the merge request widget area.

Use cases

If you distribute your application with Docker, then there's a great chance that your image is based on other Docker images that may in turn contain some known vulnerabilities that could be exploited.

Having an extra job in your pipeline that checks for those vulnerabilities, and the fact that they are displayed inside a merge request, makes it very easy to perform audits for your Docker-based apps.

How it works

In order for the report to show in the merge request, you need to specify a sast:container job (exact name) that will analyze the code and upload the resulting gl-sast-container-report.json file as an artifact (exact filename). GitLab will then check this file and show the information inside the merge request.

For more information on how the sast:container job should look like, check the example on analyzing a Docker image for vulnerabilities.