GitLab pipeline for Microsoft Fabric

Introduction

There are numerous cloud Git platforms that could host your Microsoft Fabric deployment workflows. The two most commonly used on Azure are the first party products, i.e. GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps pipelines, but you have a far greater range of options as OpenID Connect is part of the OAuth2.0 open standard and enjoys wide support. One of those is GitLab, and this page will explore how you integrate GitLab and Microsoft Fabric

In practice most workload identities serve a specific purpose and you will normally see a single federated credential representing a 1:1 relationship between the trusted identity provider (IdP) and the context. However, the platform does support up to ten federated credentials so no problem with adding one.

On this page we will switch the upstream for our Git repo to GitLab. You will see the difference in the federated credential, but in reality the platforms have plenty in common.

I am not a GitLab expert, so please feel free to jump on the source repo for this site and create an enhancement if you see errors, or want to suggest a more common approach for those working with GitLab on a day to day basis.

Pre-reqs

You will need

• a GitLab account
• the GitLab Workflows extension in vscode

After you sign up you should have a group and a default project. Feel free to remove the project as we will push our current repo later on this page.

Add environment variables to GitLab

1. Set the variables

   Set these to your correct values.

   fabric_subscription_id="<subscriptionGuid>"
   backend_subscription_id="<subscriptionGuid>"
   resource_group_name="terraform"
   managed_identity_name="fabric_terraform_provider"
   

   fabric_subscription_id="73568139-5c52-4066-a406-3e8533bb0f15"
   backend_subscription_id="73568139-5c52-4066-a406-3e8533bb0f15"
   resource_group_name="terraform"
   managed_identity_name="fabric_terraform_provider"
   

   ⚠️ If you have used a single subscription then set both subscription_id variables to the same value.

2. Derive additional values then display the suggested GitLab variable names and values

   tenant_id=$(az account show --name $fabric_subscription_id --query tenantId -otsv)
   client_id=$( az identity show --name fabric_terraform_provider --resource-group $resource_group_name --subscription $backend_subscription_id --query clientId -otsv)
   storage_account_name=$(az storage account list --resource-group $resource_group_name --subscription $backend_subscription_id --query "[?starts_with(name,'terraformfabric')]|[0].name" -otsv)
   
   echo
   echo "ARM_TENANT_ID                                   $tenant_id"
   echo "ARM_SUBSCRIPTION_ID                             $fabric_subscription_id"
   echo "ARM_CLIENT_ID                                   $client_id"
   echo "BACKEND_AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID                   $backend_subscription_id"
   echo "BACKEND_AZURE_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME               terraform"
   echo "BACKEND_AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_NAME              $storage_account_name"
   echo "BACKEND_AZURE_STORAGE_ACCOUNT_CONTAINER_NAME    prod"
   echo "TFVARS_FILE                                     prod.tfvars"
   

Add GitLab variables

1. Open GitLab and navigate into your repo

2. Open Settings > CI/CD in the sidebar

3. Expand the Variables section

4. Add project variables for each of the required variables using the information output to screen above

   ℹ️ For this lab I unchecked Protect variable on each as I was not focusing on GitLab branch protections. Note that you can download and configure the glab CLI with a personal access token if you wish to automate this step as well.

Federated credential

Portal

1. Navigate back to your managed identity in the Azure Portal

2. Settings > Federated credentials

3. Add credential

   • federated credential scenario: Other

   • issuer URL

     https://gitlab.com
     

   • subject identifier

     project_path:<group>/<project>:ref_type:branch:ref:main
     

   • name: unique identifier, e.g. gitlab-main-branch

CLI

1. Variables

   rg="terraform"
   identity="fabric_terraform_provider"
   gitlab_group="richeney-group"
   gitlab_project="fabric_terraform_provider"
   branch="main"
   

2. Add the federated credential to your managed identity

   az identity federated-credential create --name gitlab-main-branch \
     --identity-name $identity --resource-group $rg \
     --audiences "api://AzureADTokenExchange" "https://gitlab.com" \
     --issuer "https://gitlab.com" \
     --subject "project_path:$gitlab_group/$gitlab_project:ref_type:branch:ref:$branch"
   

   Example output:

   {
     "audiences": [
       "api://AzureADTokenExchange"
     ],
     "id": "/subscriptions/73568139-5c52-4066-a406-3e8533bb0f15/resourcegroups/terraform/providers/Microsoft.ManagedIdentity/userAssignedIdentities/fabric_terraform_provider/federatedIdentityCredentials/gitlab-main-branch",
     "issuer": "https://gitlab.com",
     "name": "gitlab-main-branch",
     "resourceGroup": "terraform",
     "subject": "project_path:richeney-group/fabric_terraform_provider:ref_type:branch:ref:main",
     "systemData": null,
     "type": "Microsoft.ManagedIdentity/userAssignedIdentities/federatedIdentityCredentials"
   }
   

References

• https://spacelift.io/blog/gitlab-ci-yml
• https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/secrets/id_token_authentication/
• https://gitlab.com/demos/infrastructure/terraform-multi-env/-/blob/main/helper.yml

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