Static Application Security Testing with GitLab CI/CD [ULTIMATE]

These examples show how to run Static Application Security Testing (SAST) on your project's source code by using GitLab CI/CD.

Prerequisites

To run a SAST job, you need GitLab Runner with docker-in-docker executor.

Configuring with templates

Since GitLab 11.9, a CI/CD template with the default SAST job definition is provided as a part of your GitLab installation. This section describes how to use it and customize its execution.

Using job definition template

CAUTION: Caution: The CI/CD template for job definition is supported on GitLab 11.9 and later versions. For earlier versions, use the manual job definition.

Once you set up the Runner, add a new job to .gitlab-ci.yml using the CI/CD template for SAST:

include:
  template: SAST.gitlab-ci.yml

Scanning results

The above example will create a sast job in your CI/CD pipeline and scan your project's source code for possible vulnerabilities. The report will be saved as a SAST report artifact that you can later download and analyze. Due to implementation limitations we always take the latest SAST artifact available.

The results are sorted by the priority of the vulnerability:

Critical
High
Medium
Low
Unknown
Everything else

Behind the scenes, the GitLab SAST Docker image is used to detect the languages/frameworks and in turn runs the matching scan tools.

TIP: Tip: For GitLab Ultimate users, this information will be automatically extracted and shown right in the merge request widget. Learn more on SAST in merge requests.

Customizing the template

You can customize SAST job execution in various ways of different granularity.

Scanning tool settings

SAST tool settings can be changed through environment variables. These variables are documented in the:

Job definition template.
SAST README.

The customization itself is performed by using the variables parameter in the project's pipeline configuration file (.gitlab-ci.yml):

include:
  template: SAST.gitlab-ci.yml

variables:
  SAST_GOSEC_LEVEL: 2

Because template is evaluated before the pipeline configuration, the last mention of the variable will take precedence.

Overriding job definition

If you want to override the job definition (for example, change properties like variables or dependencies), you need to declare its definition after the template inclusion and specify any additional keys under it. For example:

include:
  template: SAST.gitlab-ci.yml

sast:
  variables:
    CI_DEBUG_TRACE: "true"

Manual job definition

CAUTION: Caution: The job definition shown below is supported on GitLab 11.5 and later versions (although it's preferred to use the job definition template since 11.9). It also requires the GitLab Runner 11.5 or later. For earlier versions, use the previous job definitions.

If you are using GitLab prior to 11.9, you can define it manually using the following snippet:

sast:
  stage: test
  image: docker:stable
  variables:
    DOCKER_DRIVER: overlay2
  allow_failure: true
  services:
    - docker:stable-dind
  script:
    - export SAST_VERSION=${SP_VERSION:-$(echo "$CI_SERVER_VERSION" | sed 's/^\([0-9]*\)\.\([0-9]*\).*/\1-\2-stable/')}
    - |
      docker run \
        --env SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGES \
        --env SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGE_PREFIX \
        --env SAST_ANALYZER_IMAGE_TAG \
        --env SAST_DEFAULT_ANALYZERS \
        --env SAST_BRAKEMAN_LEVEL \
        --env SAST_GOSEC_LEVEL \
        --env SAST_FLAWFINDER_LEVEL \
        --env SAST_DOCKER_CLIENT_NEGOTIATION_TIMEOUT \
        --env SAST_PULL_ANALYZER_IMAGE_TIMEOUT \
        --env SAST_RUN_ANALYZER_TIMEOUT \
        --volume "$PWD:/code" \
        --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
        "registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/sast:$SAST_VERSION" /app/bin/run /code
  dependencies: []
  artifacts:
    reports:
      sast: gl-sast-report.json

You can supply many other settings variables via docker run --env to customize your job execution.

Previous job definitions

CAUTION: Caution: Before GitLab 11.5, SAST job and artifact had to be named specifically to automatically extract report data and show it in the merge request widget. While these old job definitions are still maintained they have been deprecated and may be removed in next major release, GitLab 12.0. You are advised to update your current .gitlab-ci.yml configuration to reflect that change.

For GitLab 11.4 and earlier, the job should look like:

sast:
  image: docker:stable
  variables:
    DOCKER_DRIVER: overlay2
  allow_failure: true
  services:
    - docker:stable-dind
  script:
    - export SAST_VERSION=${SP_VERSION:-$(echo "$CI_SERVER_VERSION" | sed 's/^\([0-9]*\)\.\([0-9]*\).*/\1-\2-stable/')}
    - docker run
        --env SAST_CONFIDENCE_LEVEL="${SAST_CONFIDENCE_LEVEL:-3}"
        --volume "$PWD:/code"
        --volume /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
        "registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/sast:$SAST_VERSION" /app/bin/run /code
  artifacts:
    paths: [gl-sast-report.json]