Automating DevOps with GitLab CI/CD Pipelines

Use GitLab CI/CD pipelines for automating and deploying different steps of your software development lifecycle using best practices and troubleshooting methods.

Key Features

• Reap the power of GitLab CI/CD pipelines at every stage of your software development lifecycle
• Learn how GitLab makes Git easier to use and more powerful when committing and reviewing code
• Cement your understanding using hands-on tutorials and extensive self-assessment exercises

Book Description

Developers and release engineers understand the high stakes involved in building, packaging, and deploying code correctly. Ensuring that your code is functionally correct, fast, and secure is a time-consuming and complex task. Code implementation, development, and deployment can be conducted efficiently using GitLab CI/CD pipelines.

Automating DevOps with GitLab CI/CD Pipelines begins with the basics of Git and GitLab, showing how to commit and review code. You’ll learn to set up GitLab Runners for executing and autoscaling CI/CD pipelines and creating and configuring pipelines for many software development lifecycle steps. You’ll also discover where to find pipeline results in GitLab, and how to interpret those results.

Through the course of the book, you’ll become well-equipped with deploying code to different environments, advancing CI/CD pipeline features such as connecting GitLab to a Kubernetes cluster and using GitLab with Terraform, triggering pipelines and improving pipeline performance and using best practices and troubleshooting tips for uncooperative pipelines. In-text examples, use cases, and self-assessments will reinforce the important CI/CD, GitLab, and Git concepts, and help you prepare for interviews and certification exams related to GitLab.

By the end of this book, you’ll be able to use GitLab to build CI/CD pipelines that automate all the DevOps steps needed to build and deploy high-quality, secure code.

What you will learn

• Gain insights into the essentials of Git, GitLab, and DevOps
• Understand how to create, view, and run GitLab CI/CD pipelines
• Explore how to verify, secure, and deploy code with GitLab CI/CD pipelines
• Configure and use GitLab Runners to execute CI/CD pipelines
• Explore advanced GitLab CI/CD pipeline features like DAGs and conditional logic
• Follow best practices and troubleshooting methods of GitLab CI/CD pipelines
• Implement end-to-end software development lifecycle workflows using examples

Who this book is for

This book is for DevOps/DevSecOps engineers, application developers, release engineers, quality assurance engineers, security engineers, SREs, and sysadmins looking to implement fast, secure and automated software development lifecycle tasks using continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines in GitLab. Basic knowledge of major stages of the software development life cycle and DevOps processes will be helpful.

Table of Contents

1. Exploring the Life Before DevOps
2. Practicing Basic Git Commands
3. Understanding GitLab Components
4. Understanding GitLab CI/CD Pipeline Structure
5. Installing and Configuring GitLab Runners
6. Verifying Your Code
7. Securing Your Code
8. Packaging and Deploying Your Code
9. Enhancing Speed and Maintainability of CI/CD Pipelines
10. Extending the Reach of CI/CD Pipelines
11. End-to-End Example
12. Troubleshooting and Moving Ahead with GitLab
13. Appendix: Self-Assessment Questions and Answers

About the Authors

Christopher Cowell is a former trainer at GitLab, now building educational content at Instabase. He also worked for two decades as a research and development scientist, consultant, and QA Engineer at companies such as Accenture, Oracle, and Puppet. He thinks the software industry undervalues code quality and thoughtful design, and overvalues delivering mediocre code quickly. Slow down, simplify, and get it right! He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Berkeley and a B.A. in Computer Science from Harvard. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Nicholas Lotz is a technical trainer at GitLab, where he teaches organizations how to use GitLab to build and ship better software. He has previously worked as a systems engineer, trainer, and consultant in the software infrastructure space. He is passionate about open source and its capacity to help teams innovate. Nicholas holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his Labrador retriever.

Chris Timberlake is a Senior Solutions Architect at GitLab where he works closely with the Product, Services, and Sales teams. Previously, he has worked with Red Hat as a Senior Consultant, where he owned and managed a Digital Marketing firm, and has a background in Security and Law Enforcement. Chris loves technical engineering problems and does whatever possible to have successful customer outcomes. Chris is passionate about open source software, collaborative development, and education. Chris lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee with his family.