[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":792},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x":3,"navigation-en-us":37,"banner-en-us":437,"footer-en-us":447,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Andrew Newdigate":689,"blog-related-posts-en-us-how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x":703,"assessment-promotions-en-us":743,"next-steps-en-us":782},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorSlugs":6,"body":8,"categorySlug":9,"config":10,"content":14,"description":8,"extension":25,"isFeatured":12,"meta":26,"navigation":27,"path":28,"publishedDate":20,"seo":29,"stem":33,"tagSlugs":34,"__hash__":36},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x.yml","How A Fix In Go 19 Sped Up Our Gitaly Service By 30x",[7],"andrew-newdigate",null,"engineering",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x",false,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9,"tags":22},"How a fix in Go 1.9 sped up our Gitaly service by 30x","After noticing a worrying pattern in Gitaly's performance, we uncovered an issue with fork locking affecting virtual memory size. Here's how we figured out the problem and how to fix it.",[18],"Andrew Newdigate","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749666775/Blog/Hero%20Images/cover.jpg","2018-01-23","\n\n[Gitaly](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly) is a Git RPC service that we are currently rolling out\nacross GitLab.com, to replace our legacy NFS-based file-sharing solution. We expect it to be faster, more stable\nand the basis for amazing new features in the future.\n\nWe're still in the process of porting Git operations to Gitaly, but the service has been\nrunning in production on GitLab.com for about nine months, and currently peaks at about 1,000\n[gRPC](https://grpc.io/) requests per second. We expect the migration effort to be completed\nby the beginning of April at which point all Git operations in the GitLab application will\nuse the service and we'll be able to decommission NFS infrastructure.\n\n\u003C!-- more -->\n\n## Worrying performance improvements\n\nThe first time we realized that something might be wrong was shortly after we'd finished deploying a new release.\n\nWe were monitoring the performance of one of the gRPC endpoints for the Gitaly service and noticed that the\n99th percentile performance of the endpoint had dropped from 400ms down to 100ms.\n\n![400ms to 100ms latency drop](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x/graph-01.png){: .shadow.center}\nLatencies drop from 400ms to 100ms after a deploy, for no good reason\n\n\nThis should have been fantastic news, but it wasn't. There were no changes that should have led to faster\nresponse times. We hadn't optimized anything in that release; we hadn't changed the runtime and the new\nrelease was using the same version of Git.\n\nEverything _should have_ been exactly the same.\n\nWe started digging into the data a little more and quickly realised that 400ms is a very high latency for\nan operation that simply confirms the existence of a [Git reference](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Internals-Git-References).\n\nHow long had it been this way? Well it started about 24 hours after the previous deployment.\n\n![100ms to 400ms latency hike](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x/graph-02.png){: .shadow.center}\nLatencies rising over a 24 hour period following a deployment, for no good reason\n\n\nWhen browsing our Prometheus performance data, it quickly became apparent that this pattern was being repeated with each\ndeployment: things would start fast and gradually slow down. This was occurring across all endpoints. It had been this way for a while.\n\nThe first assumption was that there was some sort of resource leak in the application, causing the host to slow\ndown over time. Unfortunately the data didn't back this up. CPU usage of the Gitaly service did increase, but the\nhosts still had lots of capacity.\n\n![Gitaly CPU charts](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x/graph-03.png){: .shadow.center}\nGitaly CPU increasing with process age, but not enough to explain the problem\n\n\nAt this point, we still didn't have any good leads as to the cause of the problem, so we decided to further\nimprove the observability of the application by adding [pprof profiling support](https://golang.org/pkg/net/http/pprof/)\nand [cAdvisor](https://github.com/google/cadvisor) metrics.\n\n## Profiling\n\nAdding pprof support to a Go process is [very easy](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/merge_requests/442).\nThe process already has a Prometheus listener and we added a pprof handler on the same listener.\n\nSince production teams would need to be able to perform the profiling without our assistance, we\nalso [added a runbook](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/runbooks/blob/master/howto/gitaly-profiling.md).\n\nGo's pprof support is easy to use and in our testing, we found that the overhead it\nadded to production workloads was negligible, meaning we could use it in production without concern\nabout the impact it would have on site performance.\n\n## cAdvisor\n\nThe Gitaly service spawns Git child processes for many of its endpoints. Unfortunately these Git\nchild processes don't have the same instrumentation as the parent process so it was\ndifficult to tell if they were contributing to the problem. (Note: we record [`getrlimit(2)`](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/getrlimit.2.html) metrics for Git processes but cannot observe grandchild processes spawned by Git, which often do much of the heavy lifting)\n\nOn GitLab.com, Gitaly is managed through systemd, which will automatically create a cgroup for\neach service it manages.\n\nThis means that Gitaly and its child processes are contained within a single cgroup, which we\ncould monitor with [cAdvisor](https://github.com/google/cadvisor), a Google monitoring tool\nwhich supports cgroups and is compatible with Prometheus.\n\nAlthough we didn't have direct metrics to determine the behavior of the Git processes, we could\ninfer it using the cgroup metrics and the Gitaly process metrics: the difference between the\ntwo would tell us the resources (CPU, memory, etc) being consumed by the Git child processes.\n\nAt our request, the production team [added cAdvisor to the Gitaly servers](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/infrastructure/issues/3307).\n\nHaving cAdvisor gives us the ability to know what the Gitaly service, including all its child\nprocesses, is doing.\n\n![cAdvisor graphs for the Gitaly cgroup](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x/graph-04.png){: .shadow.center}\ncAdvisor graphs of the Gitaly cgroup\n\n\n## From bad to worse. Much, much worse...\n\nIn the meantime, **[the situation had got far worse](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/issues/823)**.\n Instead of only seeing gradual latency increases over time, we were now seeing far more serious lockups.\n\nIndividual Gitaly server instances would grind to a halt, to the point where all new incoming TCP connections\nwere not being accepted. This proved to be a problem to using pprof: during the lockup the connection\nwould time out when attempting to profile the process. Since the reason we added pprof was to observe the\nprocess under duress, that approach was a bust.\n\nInterestingly, during a lock-up, CPU would actually decrease – the system was not overloaded, but actually\n _idled_. Iops, iowait and CPU would all drop way down.\n\nEventually, after a few minutes the service would recover and there would be a surge in backlogged\nrequests. Usually though, as soon as the state was detected, the production team would restart the\nservice manually.\n\nThe team spent a significant amount of time trying to recreate the problem locally, with little success.\n\n## Forking locks\n\nWithout pprof, we fell back to [SIGABRT thread dumps](http://pro-tips-dot-com.tumblr.com/post/47677612115/kill-a-hung-go-process-and-print-stack-traces)\nof hung processes. Using these, we determined that the process had a large amount of contention around [`syscall.ForkLock`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/issues/823#note_50951140)\nduring the lockups. In one dump, 1,400 goroutines were blocked waiting on `ForkLock` – most for several minutes.\n\n`syscall.ForkLock` has [the following documentation](https://github.com/golang/go/blob/release-branch.go1.8/src/syscall/exec_unix.go#L17):\n\n> Lock synchronizing creation of new file descriptors with fork.\n\nEach Gitaly server instance was `fork/exec`'ing Git processes about 20 times per second so we seemed to finally have a very promising lead.\n\n## Serendipity\n\n[Researching ForkLock](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/9365#note_54342481) led us to an issue on the Go repository,\nopened in 2013, about switching from `fork/exec` to [`clone(2)`](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/clone.2.html) with `CLONE_VFORK` and `CLONE_VM`\non systems that support it: [golang/go#5838](https://github.com/golang/go/issues/5838)\n\nThe `clone(2)` syscall with `CLONE_VFORK` and `CLONE_VM` is the same as\nthe [`posix_spawn(3)`](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/posix_spawn.3.html) c function, but the latter is easier to\nrefer to, so let's use that.\n\nWhen using `fork`, the child process will start with a copy of the parent processes' memory.\nUnfortunately this process takes longer the larger the virtual memory footprint the process has.\nEven with copy-on-write, it can take several hundred milliseconds in a memory-intensive process.\n`posix_spawn` doesn't copy the parent processes' memory space and has a roughly constant time.\n\nSome good benchmarks of `fork/exec` vs. `posix_spawn` can be found here: [https://github.com/rtomayko/posix-spawn#benchmarks](https://github.com/rtomayko/posix-spawn#benchmarks)\n\nThis seemed like a possible explanation. Over time, the virtual memory size (VMM) of the Gitaly process would increase. As VMM\nincreased, each [`fork(2)`](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/fork.2.html) syscall would take longer. As fork latency increased, `syscall.ForkLock` contention would increase.\nIf `fork` time exceeded the frequency of `fork` requests, the system could temporarily lock up entirely.\n\n(Interestingly, [`TCPListener.Accept`](https://golang.org/pkg/net/#TCPListener.Accept)\n[also interacts](https://github.com/golang/go/blob/2ea7d3461bb41d0ae12b56ee52d43314bcdb97f9/src/net/sock_cloexec.go#L20) with `syscall.ForkLock`,\nalthough only on older versions of Linux. Could this be the cause of our failure to connect to the pprof listener during a lockup?)\n\nBy some incredibly good luck, [golang/go#5838](https://github.com/golang/go/issues/5838), the switch from `fork` to `posix_spawn`, had,\nafter several years' delay, recently landed in Go 1.9, just in time for us. Gitaly had been compiled with Go 1.8.\n We quickly built and tested a new binary with Go 1.9 and manually deployed this\non one of our production servers.\n\n### Spectacular results\n\nHere's the CPU usage of Gitaly processes across the fleet:\n\n![CPU after Go 1.9](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x/graph-05.png){: .shadow.center}\nCPU after recompiling with Go 1.9\n\n\nHere's the 99th percentile latency figures. This chart is using a logarithmic scale, so we're talking about two orders of\nmagnitude faster!\n\n![30x latency drops with Go 1.9](https://about.gitlab.com/images/blogimages/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x/graph-06.png){: .shadow.center}\nEndpoint latency after recompiling with Go 1.9 (log scale)\n\n\n## Conclusion\n\nRecompiling with Go 1.9 solved the problem, thanks to the switch to `posix_spawn`. We learned several other lessons\nin the process too:\n\n1. Having solid application monitoring in place allowed us to detect this issue, and start investigating it, far\n   earlier than we otherwise would have been able to.\n1. [pprof](https://blog.golang.org/profiling-go-programs) can be really helpful, but may not help when a process\n   has locked up and won't accept new connections. pprof is lightweight enough that you should consider adding it to your application _before_ you need it.\n1. When all else fails, [`SIGABRT thread dumps`](http://pro-tips-dot-com.tumblr.com/post/47677612115/kill-a-hung-go-process-and-print-stack-traces) might help.\n1. [`cAdvisor`](https://github.com/google/cadvisor) is great for monitoring cgroups. Systemd services each run in\n   their own cgroup, so `cAdvisor` is an easy way of monitoring a service and all its child processes, together.\n\n[Photo](https://unsplash.com/photos/jJbQBP_yh68?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) by Javier García on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/search/photos/slow?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)\n",[23,24],"inside GitLab","performance","yml",{},true,"/en-us/blog/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x",{"title":15,"description":16,"ogTitle":15,"ogDescription":16,"noIndex":12,"ogImage":19,"ogUrl":30,"ogSiteName":31,"ogType":32,"canonicalUrls":30},"https://about.gitlab.com/blog/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x","https://about.gitlab.com","article","en-us/blog/how-a-fix-in-go-19-sped-up-our-gitaly-service-by-30x",[35,24],"inside-gitlab","-Bj_B32qyNhGEOj3Jo-idv3TqmM3RXiXr7_ju2ryLUY",{"data":38},{"logo":39,"freeTrial":44,"sales":49,"login":54,"items":59,"search":367,"minimal":398,"duo":417,"pricingDeployment":427},{"config":40},{"href":41,"dataGaName":42,"dataGaLocation":43},"/","gitlab logo","header",{"text":45,"config":46},"Get free trial",{"href":47,"dataGaName":48,"dataGaLocation":43},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_source=about.gitlab.com&glm_content=default-saas-trial/","free trial",{"text":50,"config":51},"Talk to sales",{"href":52,"dataGaName":53,"dataGaLocation":43},"/sales/","sales",{"text":55,"config":56},"Sign in",{"href":57,"dataGaName":58,"dataGaLocation":43},"https://gitlab.com/users/sign_in/","sign in",[60,87,182,187,288,348],{"text":61,"config":62,"cards":64},"Platform",{"dataNavLevelOne":63},"platform",[65,71,79],{"title":61,"description":66,"link":67},"The intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps",{"text":68,"config":69},"Explore our Platform",{"href":70,"dataGaName":63,"dataGaLocation":43},"/platform/",{"title":72,"description":73,"link":74},"GitLab Duo Agent Platform","Agentic AI for the entire software lifecycle",{"text":75,"config":76},"Meet GitLab Duo",{"href":77,"dataGaName":78,"dataGaLocation":43},"/gitlab-duo-agent-platform/","gitlab duo agent platform",{"title":80,"description":81,"link":82},"Why GitLab","See the top reasons enterprises choose GitLab",{"text":83,"config":84},"Learn more",{"href":85,"dataGaName":86,"dataGaLocation":43},"/why-gitlab/","why gitlab",{"text":88,"left":27,"config":89,"link":91,"lists":95,"footer":164},"Product",{"dataNavLevelOne":90},"solutions",{"text":92,"config":93},"View all Solutions",{"href":94,"dataGaName":90,"dataGaLocation":43},"/solutions/",[96,120,143],{"title":97,"description":98,"link":99,"items":104},"Automation","CI/CD and automation to accelerate deployment",{"config":100},{"icon":101,"href":102,"dataGaName":103,"dataGaLocation":43},"AutomatedCodeAlt","/solutions/delivery-automation/","automated software delivery",[105,109,112,116],{"text":106,"config":107},"CI/CD",{"href":108,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":106},"/solutions/continuous-integration/",{"text":72,"config":110},{"href":77,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":111},"gitlab duo agent platform - product menu",{"text":113,"config":114},"Source Code Management",{"href":115,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":113},"/solutions/source-code-management/",{"text":117,"config":118},"Automated Software Delivery",{"href":102,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":119},"Automated software delivery",{"title":121,"description":122,"link":123,"items":128},"Security","Deliver code faster without compromising security",{"config":124},{"href":125,"dataGaName":126,"dataGaLocation":43,"icon":127},"/solutions/application-security-testing/","security and compliance","ShieldCheckLight",[129,133,138],{"text":130,"config":131},"Application Security Testing",{"href":125,"dataGaName":132,"dataGaLocation":43},"Application security testing",{"text":134,"config":135},"Software Supply Chain Security",{"href":136,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":137},"/solutions/supply-chain/","Software supply chain security",{"text":139,"config":140},"Software Compliance",{"href":141,"dataGaName":142,"dataGaLocation":43},"/solutions/software-compliance/","software compliance",{"title":144,"link":145,"items":150},"Measurement",{"config":146},{"icon":147,"href":148,"dataGaName":149,"dataGaLocation":43},"DigitalTransformation","/solutions/visibility-measurement/","visibility and measurement",[151,155,159],{"text":152,"config":153},"Visibility & Measurement",{"href":148,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":154},"Visibility and Measurement",{"text":156,"config":157},"Value Stream Management",{"href":158,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":156},"/solutions/value-stream-management/",{"text":160,"config":161},"Analytics & Insights",{"href":162,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":163},"/solutions/analytics-and-insights/","Analytics and insights",{"title":165,"items":166},"GitLab for",[167,172,177],{"text":168,"config":169},"Enterprise",{"href":170,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":171},"/enterprise/","enterprise",{"text":173,"config":174},"Small Business",{"href":175,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":176},"/small-business/","small business",{"text":178,"config":179},"Public Sector",{"href":180,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":181},"/solutions/public-sector/","public sector",{"text":183,"config":184},"Pricing",{"href":185,"dataGaName":186,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataNavLevelOne":186},"/pricing/","pricing",{"text":188,"config":189,"link":191,"lists":195,"feature":275},"Resources",{"dataNavLevelOne":190},"resources",{"text":192,"config":193},"View all resources",{"href":194,"dataGaName":190,"dataGaLocation":43},"/resources/",[196,229,247],{"title":197,"items":198},"Getting started",[199,204,209,214,219,224],{"text":200,"config":201},"Install",{"href":202,"dataGaName":203,"dataGaLocation":43},"/install/","install",{"text":205,"config":206},"Quick start guides",{"href":207,"dataGaName":208,"dataGaLocation":43},"/get-started/","quick setup checklists",{"text":210,"config":211},"Learn",{"href":212,"dataGaLocation":43,"dataGaName":213},"https://university.gitlab.com/","learn",{"text":215,"config":216},"Product documentation",{"href":217,"dataGaName":218,"dataGaLocation":43},"https://docs.gitlab.com/","product documentation",{"text":220,"config":221},"Best practice videos",{"href":222,"dataGaName":223,"dataGaLocation":43},"/getting-started-videos/","best practice videos",{"text":225,"config":226},"Integrations",{"href":227,"dataGaName":228,"dataGaLocation":43},"/integrations/","integrations",{"title":230,"items":231},"Discover",[232,237,242],{"text":233,"config":234},"Customer success stories",{"href":235,"dataGaName":236,"dataGaLocation":43},"/customers/","customer success stories",{"text":238,"config":239},"Blog",{"href":240,"dataGaName":241,"dataGaLocation":43},"/blog/","blog",{"text":243,"config":244},"Remote",{"href":245,"dataGaName":246,"dataGaLocation":43},"https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/all-remote/","remote",{"title":248,"items":249},"Connect",[250,255,260,265,270],{"text":251,"config":252},"GitLab Services",{"href":253,"dataGaName":254,"dataGaLocation":43},"/services/","services",{"text":256,"config":257},"Community",{"href":258,"dataGaName":259,"dataGaLocation":43},"/community/","community",{"text":261,"config":262},"Forum",{"href":263,"dataGaName":264,"dataGaLocation":43},"https://forum.gitlab.com/","forum",{"text":266,"config":267},"Events",{"href":268,"dataGaName":269,"dataGaLocation":43},"/events/","events",{"text":271,"config":272},"Partners",{"href":273,"dataGaName":274,"dataGaLocation":43},"/partners/","partners",{"backgroundColor":276,"textColor":277,"text":278,"image":279,"link":283},"#2f2a6b","#fff","Insights for the future of software development",{"altText":280,"config":281},"the source promo card",{"src":282},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1758208064/dzl0dbift9xdizyelkk4.svg",{"text":284,"config":285},"Read the latest",{"href":286,"dataGaName":287,"dataGaLocation":43},"/the-source/","the source",{"text":289,"config":290,"lists":292},"Company",{"dataNavLevelOne":291},"company",[293],{"items":294},[295,300,306,308,313,318,323,328,333,338,343],{"text":296,"config":297},"About",{"href":298,"dataGaName":299,"dataGaLocation":43},"/company/","about",{"text":301,"config":302,"footerGa":305},"Jobs",{"href":303,"dataGaName":304,"dataGaLocation":43},"/jobs/","jobs",{"dataGaName":304},{"text":266,"config":307},{"href":268,"dataGaName":269,"dataGaLocation":43},{"text":309,"config":310},"Leadership",{"href":311,"dataGaName":312,"dataGaLocation":43},"/company/team/e-group/","leadership",{"text":314,"config":315},"Team",{"href":316,"dataGaName":317,"dataGaLocation":43},"/company/team/","team",{"text":319,"config":320},"Handbook",{"href":321,"dataGaName":322,"dataGaLocation":43},"https://handbook.gitlab.com/","handbook",{"text":324,"config":325},"Investor relations",{"href":326,"dataGaName":327,"dataGaLocation":43},"https://ir.gitlab.com/","investor relations",{"text":329,"config":330},"Trust Center",{"href":331,"dataGaName":332,"dataGaLocation":43},"/security/","trust center",{"text":334,"config":335},"AI Transparency Center",{"href":336,"dataGaName":337,"dataGaLocation":43},"/ai-transparency-center/","ai transparency center",{"text":339,"config":340},"Newsletter",{"href":341,"dataGaName":342,"dataGaLocation":43},"/company/contact/#contact-forms","newsletter",{"text":344,"config":345},"Press",{"href":346,"dataGaName":347,"dataGaLocation":43},"/press/","press",{"text":349,"config":350,"lists":351},"Contact us",{"dataNavLevelOne":291},[352],{"items":353},[354,357,362],{"text":50,"config":355},{"href":52,"dataGaName":356,"dataGaLocation":43},"talk to sales",{"text":358,"config":359},"Support portal",{"href":360,"dataGaName":361,"dataGaLocation":43},"https://support.gitlab.com","support portal",{"text":363,"config":364},"Customer portal",{"href":365,"dataGaName":366,"dataGaLocation":43},"https://customers.gitlab.com/customers/sign_in/","customer portal",{"close":368,"login":369,"suggestions":376},"Close",{"text":370,"link":371},"To search repositories and projects, login to",{"text":372,"config":373},"gitlab.com",{"href":57,"dataGaName":374,"dataGaLocation":375},"search login","search",{"text":377,"default":378},"Suggestions",[379,381,385,387,391,395],{"text":72,"config":380},{"href":77,"dataGaName":72,"dataGaLocation":375},{"text":382,"config":383},"Code Suggestions (AI)",{"href":384,"dataGaName":382,"dataGaLocation":375},"/solutions/code-suggestions/",{"text":106,"config":386},{"href":108,"dataGaName":106,"dataGaLocation":375},{"text":388,"config":389},"GitLab on AWS",{"href":390,"dataGaName":388,"dataGaLocation":375},"/partners/technology-partners/aws/",{"text":392,"config":393},"GitLab on Google Cloud",{"href":394,"dataGaName":392,"dataGaLocation":375},"/partners/technology-partners/google-cloud-platform/",{"text":396,"config":397},"Why GitLab?",{"href":85,"dataGaName":396,"dataGaLocation":375},{"freeTrial":399,"mobileIcon":404,"desktopIcon":409,"secondaryButton":412},{"text":400,"config":401},"Start free trial",{"href":402,"dataGaName":48,"dataGaLocation":403},"https://gitlab.com/-/trials/new/","nav",{"altText":405,"config":406},"Gitlab Icon",{"src":407,"dataGaName":408,"dataGaLocation":403},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1758203874/jypbw1jx72aexsoohd7x.svg","gitlab icon",{"altText":405,"config":410},{"src":411,"dataGaName":408,"dataGaLocation":403},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1758203875/gs4c8p8opsgvflgkswz9.svg",{"text":413,"config":414},"Get Started",{"href":415,"dataGaName":416,"dataGaLocation":403},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_source=about.gitlab.com/get-started/","get started",{"freeTrial":418,"mobileIcon":423,"desktopIcon":425},{"text":419,"config":420},"Learn more about GitLab Duo",{"href":421,"dataGaName":422,"dataGaLocation":403},"/gitlab-duo/","gitlab duo",{"altText":405,"config":424},{"src":407,"dataGaName":408,"dataGaLocation":403},{"altText":405,"config":426},{"src":411,"dataGaName":408,"dataGaLocation":403},{"freeTrial":428,"mobileIcon":433,"desktopIcon":435},{"text":429,"config":430},"Back to pricing",{"href":185,"dataGaName":431,"dataGaLocation":403,"icon":432},"back to pricing","GoBack",{"altText":405,"config":434},{"src":407,"dataGaName":408,"dataGaLocation":403},{"altText":405,"config":436},{"src":411,"dataGaName":408,"dataGaLocation":403},{"title":438,"button":439,"config":444},"See how agentic AI transforms software delivery",{"text":440,"config":441},"Watch GitLab Transcend now",{"href":442,"dataGaName":443,"dataGaLocation":43},"/events/transcend/virtual/","transcend event",{"layout":445,"icon":446},"release","AiStar",{"data":448},{"text":449,"source":450,"edit":456,"contribute":461,"config":466,"items":471,"minimal":678},"Git is a trademark of Software Freedom Conservancy and our use of 'GitLab' is under license",{"text":451,"config":452},"View page source",{"href":453,"dataGaName":454,"dataGaLocation":455},"https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/digital-experience/about-gitlab-com/","page source","footer",{"text":457,"config":458},"Edit this page",{"href":459,"dataGaName":460,"dataGaLocation":455},"https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/digital-experience/about-gitlab-com/-/blob/main/content/","web ide",{"text":462,"config":463},"Please contribute",{"href":464,"dataGaName":465,"dataGaLocation":455},"https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/marketing/digital-experience/about-gitlab-com/-/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md/","please contribute",{"twitter":467,"facebook":468,"youtube":469,"linkedin":470},"https://twitter.com/gitlab","https://www.facebook.com/gitlab","https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnMGQ8QHMAnVIsI3xJrihhg","https://www.linkedin.com/company/gitlab-com",[472,519,573,617,644],{"title":183,"links":473,"subMenu":488},[474,478,483],{"text":475,"config":476},"View plans",{"href":185,"dataGaName":477,"dataGaLocation":455},"view plans",{"text":479,"config":480},"Why Premium?",{"href":481,"dataGaName":482,"dataGaLocation":455},"/pricing/premium/","why premium",{"text":484,"config":485},"Why Ultimate?",{"href":486,"dataGaName":487,"dataGaLocation":455},"/pricing/ultimate/","why ultimate",[489],{"title":490,"links":491},"Contact Us",[492,495,497,499,504,509,514],{"text":493,"config":494},"Contact sales",{"href":52,"dataGaName":53,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":358,"config":496},{"href":360,"dataGaName":361,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":363,"config":498},{"href":365,"dataGaName":366,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":500,"config":501},"Status",{"href":502,"dataGaName":503,"dataGaLocation":455},"https://status.gitlab.com/","status",{"text":505,"config":506},"Terms of use",{"href":507,"dataGaName":508,"dataGaLocation":455},"/terms/","terms of use",{"text":510,"config":511},"Privacy statement",{"href":512,"dataGaName":513,"dataGaLocation":455},"/privacy/","privacy statement",{"text":515,"config":516},"Cookie preferences",{"dataGaName":517,"dataGaLocation":455,"id":518,"isOneTrustButton":27},"cookie preferences","ot-sdk-btn",{"title":88,"links":520,"subMenu":529},[521,525],{"text":522,"config":523},"DevSecOps platform",{"href":70,"dataGaName":524,"dataGaLocation":455},"devsecops platform",{"text":526,"config":527},"AI-Assisted Development",{"href":421,"dataGaName":528,"dataGaLocation":455},"ai-assisted development",[530],{"title":531,"links":532},"Topics",[533,538,543,548,553,558,563,568],{"text":534,"config":535},"CICD",{"href":536,"dataGaName":537,"dataGaLocation":455},"/topics/ci-cd/","cicd",{"text":539,"config":540},"GitOps",{"href":541,"dataGaName":542,"dataGaLocation":455},"/topics/gitops/","gitops",{"text":544,"config":545},"DevOps",{"href":546,"dataGaName":547,"dataGaLocation":455},"/topics/devops/","devops",{"text":549,"config":550},"Version Control",{"href":551,"dataGaName":552,"dataGaLocation":455},"/topics/version-control/","version control",{"text":554,"config":555},"DevSecOps",{"href":556,"dataGaName":557,"dataGaLocation":455},"/topics/devsecops/","devsecops",{"text":559,"config":560},"Cloud Native",{"href":561,"dataGaName":562,"dataGaLocation":455},"/topics/cloud-native/","cloud native",{"text":564,"config":565},"AI for Coding",{"href":566,"dataGaName":567,"dataGaLocation":455},"/topics/devops/ai-for-coding/","ai for coding",{"text":569,"config":570},"Agentic AI",{"href":571,"dataGaName":572,"dataGaLocation":455},"/topics/agentic-ai/","agentic ai",{"title":574,"links":575},"Solutions",[576,578,580,585,589,592,596,599,601,604,607,612],{"text":130,"config":577},{"href":125,"dataGaName":130,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":119,"config":579},{"href":102,"dataGaName":103,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":581,"config":582},"Agile development",{"href":583,"dataGaName":584,"dataGaLocation":455},"/solutions/agile-delivery/","agile delivery",{"text":586,"config":587},"SCM",{"href":115,"dataGaName":588,"dataGaLocation":455},"source code management",{"text":534,"config":590},{"href":108,"dataGaName":591,"dataGaLocation":455},"continuous integration & delivery",{"text":593,"config":594},"Value stream management",{"href":158,"dataGaName":595,"dataGaLocation":455},"value stream management",{"text":539,"config":597},{"href":598,"dataGaName":542,"dataGaLocation":455},"/solutions/gitops/",{"text":168,"config":600},{"href":170,"dataGaName":171,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":602,"config":603},"Small business",{"href":175,"dataGaName":176,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":605,"config":606},"Public sector",{"href":180,"dataGaName":181,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":608,"config":609},"Education",{"href":610,"dataGaName":611,"dataGaLocation":455},"/solutions/education/","education",{"text":613,"config":614},"Financial services",{"href":615,"dataGaName":616,"dataGaLocation":455},"/solutions/finance/","financial services",{"title":188,"links":618},[619,621,623,625,628,630,632,634,636,638,640,642],{"text":200,"config":620},{"href":202,"dataGaName":203,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":205,"config":622},{"href":207,"dataGaName":208,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":210,"config":624},{"href":212,"dataGaName":213,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":215,"config":626},{"href":217,"dataGaName":627,"dataGaLocation":455},"docs",{"text":238,"config":629},{"href":240,"dataGaName":241,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":233,"config":631},{"href":235,"dataGaName":236,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":243,"config":633},{"href":245,"dataGaName":246,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":251,"config":635},{"href":253,"dataGaName":254,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":256,"config":637},{"href":258,"dataGaName":259,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":261,"config":639},{"href":263,"dataGaName":264,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":266,"config":641},{"href":268,"dataGaName":269,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":271,"config":643},{"href":273,"dataGaName":274,"dataGaLocation":455},{"title":289,"links":645},[646,648,650,652,654,656,658,662,667,669,671,673],{"text":296,"config":647},{"href":298,"dataGaName":291,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":301,"config":649},{"href":303,"dataGaName":304,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":309,"config":651},{"href":311,"dataGaName":312,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":314,"config":653},{"href":316,"dataGaName":317,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":319,"config":655},{"href":321,"dataGaName":322,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":324,"config":657},{"href":326,"dataGaName":327,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":659,"config":660},"Sustainability",{"href":661,"dataGaName":659,"dataGaLocation":455},"/sustainability/",{"text":663,"config":664},"Diversity, inclusion and belonging (DIB)",{"href":665,"dataGaName":666,"dataGaLocation":455},"/diversity-inclusion-belonging/","Diversity, inclusion and belonging",{"text":329,"config":668},{"href":331,"dataGaName":332,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":339,"config":670},{"href":341,"dataGaName":342,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":344,"config":672},{"href":346,"dataGaName":347,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":674,"config":675},"Modern Slavery Transparency Statement",{"href":676,"dataGaName":677,"dataGaLocation":455},"https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/legal/modern-slavery-act-transparency-statement/","modern slavery transparency statement",{"items":679},[680,683,686],{"text":681,"config":682},"Terms",{"href":507,"dataGaName":508,"dataGaLocation":455},{"text":684,"config":685},"Cookies",{"dataGaName":517,"dataGaLocation":455,"id":518,"isOneTrustButton":27},{"text":687,"config":688},"Privacy",{"href":512,"dataGaName":513,"dataGaLocation":455},[690],{"id":691,"title":18,"body":8,"config":692,"content":694,"description":8,"extension":25,"meta":698,"navigation":27,"path":699,"seo":700,"stem":701,"__hash__":702},"blogAuthors/en-us/blog/authors/andrew-newdigate.yml",{"template":693},"BlogAuthor",{"name":18,"config":695},{"headshot":696,"ctfId":697},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749670199/Blog/Author%20Headshots/andrewn-headshot.jpg","andrewn",{},"/en-us/blog/authors/andrew-newdigate",{},"en-us/blog/authors/andrew-newdigate","T_TbXElfi2h-0oHIT5B0iOQQVcjp2x-eIuiKLfhbDBQ",[704,719,732],{"content":705,"config":717},{"title":706,"description":707,"authors":708,"heroImage":710,"date":711,"body":712,"category":9,"tags":713},"How to use GitLab Container Virtual Registry with Docker Hardened Images","Learn how to simplify container image management with this step-by-step guide.",[709],"Tim Rizzi","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772111172/mwhgbjawn62kymfwrhle.png","2026-03-12","If you're a platform engineer, you've probably had this conversation:\n  \n*\"Security says we need to use hardened base images.\"*\n\n*\"Great, where do I configure credentials for yet another registry?\"*\n\n*\"Also, how do we make sure everyone actually uses them?\"*\n\nOr this one:\n\n*\"Why are our builds so slow?\"*\n\n*\"We're pulling the same 500MB image from Docker Hub in every single job.\"*\n\n*\"Can't we just cache these somewhere?\"*\n\nI've been working on [Container Virtual Registry](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/packages/virtual_registry/container/) at GitLab specifically to solve these problems. It's a pull-through cache that sits in front of your upstream registries — Docker Hub, dhi.io (Docker Hardened Images), MCR, and Quay — and gives your teams a single endpoint to pull from. Images get cached on the first pull. Subsequent pulls come from the cache. Your developers don't need to know or care which upstream a particular image came from.\n\nThis article shows you how to set up Container Virtual Registry, specifically with Docker Hardened Images in mind, since that's a combination that makes a lot of sense for teams concerned about security and not making their developers' lives harder.\n\n## What problem are we actually solving?\n\nThe Platform teams I usually talk to manage container images across three to five registries:\n\n* **Docker Hub** for most base images\n* **dhi.io** for Docker Hardened Images (security-conscious workloads)\n* **MCR** for .NET and Azure tooling\n* **Quay.io** for Red Hat ecosystem stuff\n* **Internal registries** for proprietary images\n\nEach one has its own:\n\n* Authentication mechanism\n* Network latency characteristics\n* Way of organizing image paths\n\nYour CI/CD configs end up littered with registry-specific logic. Credential management becomes a project unto itself. And every pipeline job pulls the same base images over the network, even though they haven't changed in weeks.\n\nContainer Virtual Registry consolidates this. One registry URL. One authentication flow (GitLab's). Cached images are served from GitLab's infrastructure rather than traversing the internet each time.\n\n## How it works\n\nThe model is straightforward:\n\n```text\nYour pipeline pulls:\n  gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/1000016/python:3.13\n\nVirtual registry checks:\n  1. Do I have this cached? → Return it\n  2. No? → Fetch from upstream, cache it, return it\n\n```\n\nYou configure upstreams in priority order. When a pull request comes in, the virtual registry checks each upstream until it finds the image. The result gets cached for a configurable period (default 24 hours).\n\n```text\n┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐\n│                    CI/CD Pipeline                       │\n│                          │                              │\n│                          ▼                              │\n│   gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/\u003Cid>/image   │\n└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘\n                           │\n                           ▼\n┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐\n│            Container Virtual Registry                   │\n│                                                         │\n│  Upstream 1: Docker Hub ────────────────┐               │\n│  Upstream 2: dhi.io (Hardened) ────────┐│               │\n│  Upstream 3: MCR ─────────────────────┐││               │\n│  Upstream 4: Quay.io ────────────────┐│││               │\n│                                      ││││               │\n│                    ┌─────────────────┴┴┴┴──┐            │\n│                    │        Cache          │            │\n│                    │  (manifests + layers) │            │\n│                    └───────────────────────┘            │\n└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘\n```\n\n## Why this matters for Docker Hardened Images\n\n[Docker Hardened Images](https://docs.docker.com/dhi/) are great because of the minimal attack surface, near-zero CVEs, proper software bills of materials (SBOMs), and SLSA provenance. If you're evaluating base images for security-sensitive workloads, they should be on your list.\n\nBut adopting them creates the same operational friction as any new registry:\n\n* **Credential distribution**: You need to get Docker credentials to every system that pulls images from dhi.io.\n* **CI/CD changes**: Every pipeline needs to be updated to authenticate with dhi.io.\n* **Developer friction**: People need to remember to use the hardened variants.\n* **Visibility gap**: It's difficulat to tell if teams are actually using hardened images vs. regular ones.\n\nVirtual registry addresses each of these:\n\n**Single credential**: Teams authenticate to GitLab. The virtual registry handles upstream authentication. You configure Docker credentials once, at the registry level, and they apply to all pulls.\n\n**No CI/CD changes per-team**: Point pipelines at your virtual registry. Done. The upstream configuration is centralized.\n\n**Gradual adoption**: Since images get cached with their full path, you can see in the cache what's being pulled. If someone's pulling `library/python:3.11` instead of the hardened variant, you'll know.\n\n**Audit trail**: The cache shows you exactly which images are in active use. Useful for compliance, useful for understanding what your fleet actually depends on.\n\n## Setting it up\n\nHere's a real setup using the Python client from this demo project.\n\n### Create the virtual registry\n\n```python\nfrom virtual_registry_client import VirtualRegistryClient\n\nclient = VirtualRegistryClient()\n\nregistry = client.create_virtual_registry(\n    group_id=\"785414\",  # Your top-level group ID\n    name=\"platform-images\",\n    description=\"Cached container images for platform teams\"\n)\n\nprint(f\"Registry ID: {registry['id']}\")\n# You'll need this ID for the pull URL\n```\n\n### Add Docker Hub as an upstream\n\nFor official images like Alpine, Python, etc.:\n\n```python\ndocker_upstream = client.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://registry-1.docker.io\",\n    name=\"Docker Hub\",\n    cache_validity_hours=24\n)\n```\n\n### Add Docker Hardened Images (dhi.io)\n\nDocker Hardened Images are hosted on `dhi.io`, a separate registry that requires authentication:\n\n```python\ndhi_upstream = client.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://dhi.io\",\n    name=\"Docker Hardened Images\",\n    username=\"your-docker-username\",\n    password=\"your-docker-access-token\",\n    cache_validity_hours=24\n)\n```\n\n### Add other upstreams\n\n```python\n# MCR for .NET teams\nclient.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://mcr.microsoft.com\",\n    name=\"Microsoft Container Registry\",\n    cache_validity_hours=48\n)\n\n# Quay for Red Hat stuff\nclient.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://quay.io\",\n    name=\"Quay.io\",\n    cache_validity_hours=24\n)\n```\n\n### Update your CI/CD\n\nHere's a `.gitlab-ci.yml` that pulls through the virtual registry:\n\n```yaml\nvariables:\n  VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID: \u003Cyour_virtual_registry_ID>\n\n  \nbuild:\n  image: docker:24\n  services:\n    - docker:24-dind\n  before_script:\n    # Authenticate to GitLab (which handles upstream auth for you)\n    - echo \"${CI_JOB_TOKEN}\" | docker login -u gitlab-ci-token --password-stdin gitlab.com\n  script:\n    # All of these go through your single virtual registry\n    \n    # Official Docker Hub images (use library/ prefix)\n    - docker pull gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/${VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID}/library/alpine:latest\n    \n    # Docker Hardened Images from dhi.io (no prefix needed)\n    - docker pull gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/${VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID}/python:3.13\n    \n    # .NET from MCR\n    - docker pull gitlab.com/virtual_registries/container/${VIRTUAL_REGISTRY_ID}/dotnet/sdk:8.0\n```\n\n### Image path formats\n\nDifferent registries use different path conventions:\n\n| Registry | Pull URL Example |\n|----------|------------------|\n| Docker Hub (official) | `.../library/python:3.11-slim` |\n| Docker Hardened Images (dhi.io) | `.../python:3.13` |\n| MCR | `.../dotnet/sdk:8.0` |\n| Quay.io | `.../prometheus/prometheus:latest` |\n\n### Verify it's working\n\nAfter some pulls, check your cache:\n\n```python\nupstreams = client.list_registry_upstreams(registry['id'])\nfor upstream in upstreams:\n    entries = client.list_cache_entries(upstream['id'])\n    print(f\"{upstream['name']}: {len(entries)} cached entries\")\n\n```\n\n## What the numbers look like\n\nI ran tests pulling images through the virtual registry:\n\n| Metric | Without Cache | With Warm Cache |\n|--------|---------------|-----------------|\n| Pull time (Alpine) | 10.3s | 4.2s |\n| Pull time (Python 3.13 DHI) | 11.6s | ~4s |\n| Network roundtrips to upstream | Every pull | Cache misses only |\n\n\n\n\nThe first pull is the same speed (it has to fetch from upstream). Every pull after that, for the cache validity period, comes straight from GitLab's storage. No network hop to Docker Hub, dhi.io, MCR, or wherever the image lives.\n\nFor a team running hundreds of pipeline jobs per day, that's hours of cumulative build time saved.\n\n## Practical considerations\nHere are some considerations to keep in mind:\n\n### Cache validity\n\n24 hours is the default. For security-sensitive images where you want patches quickly, consider 12 hours or less:\n\n```python\nclient.create_upstream(\n    registry_id=registry['id'],\n    url=\"https://dhi.io\",\n    name=\"Docker Hardened Images\",\n    username=\"your-username\",\n    password=\"your-token\",\n    cache_validity_hours=12\n)\n```\n\nFor stable, infrequently-updated images (like specific version tags), longer validity is fine.\n\n### Upstream priority\n\nUpstreams are checked in order. If you have images with the same name on different registries, the first matching upstream wins.\n\n### Limits\n\n* Maximum of 20 virtual registries per group\n* Maximum of 20 upstreams per virtual registry\n\n## Configuration via UI\n\nYou can also configure virtual registries and upstreams directly from the GitLab UI—no API calls required. Navigate to your group's **Settings > Packages and registries > Virtual Registry** to:\n\n* Create and manage virtual registries\n* Add, edit, and reorder upstream registries\n* View and manage the cache\n* Monitor which images are being pulled\n\n## What's next\n\nWe're actively developing:\n\n* **Allow/deny lists**: Use regex to control which images can be pulled from specific upstreams.\n\nThis is beta software. It works, people are using it in production, but we're still iterating based on feedback.\n\n## Share your feedback\n\nIf you're a platform engineer dealing with container registry sprawl, I'd like to understand your setup:\n\n* How many upstream registries are you managing?\n* What's your biggest pain point with the current state?\n* Would something like this help, and if not, what's missing?\n\nPlease share your experiences in the [Container Virtual Registry feedback issue](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/work_items/589630).\n## Related resources\n- [New GitLab metrics and registry features help reduce CI/CD bottlenecks](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/new-gitlab-metrics-and-registry-features-help-reduce-ci-cd-bottlenecks/#container-virtual-registry)\n- [Container Virtual Registry documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/packages/virtual_registry/container/)\n- [Container Virtual Registry API](https://docs.gitlab.com/api/container_virtual_registries/)",[714,715,716],"tutorial","product","features",{"featured":12,"template":13,"slug":718},"using-gitlab-container-virtual-registry-with-docker-hardened-images",{"content":720,"config":730},{"title":721,"description":722,"authors":723,"heroImage":725,"date":726,"category":9,"tags":727,"body":729},"How IIT Bombay students are coding the future with GitLab","At GitLab, we often talk about how software accelerates innovation. But sometimes, you have to step away from the Zoom calls and stand in a crowded university hall to remember why we do this.",[724],"Nick Veenhof","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099013/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%2814%29_6VTUA8mUhOZNDaRVNPeKwl_1750099012960.png","2026-01-08",[259,611,728],"open source","The GitLab team recently had the privilege of judging the **iHack Hackathon** at **IIT Bombay's E-Summit**. The energy was electric, the coffee was flowing, and the talent was undeniable. But what struck us most wasn't just the code — it was the sheer determination of students to solve real-world problems, often overcoming significant logistical and financial hurdles to simply be in the room.\n\n\nThrough our [GitLab for Education program](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/), we aim to empower the next generation of developers with tools and opportunity. Here is a look at what the students built, and how they used GitLab to bridge the gap between idea and reality.\n\n## The challenge: Build faster, build securely\n\nThe premise for the GitLab track of the hackathon was simple: Don't just show us a product; show us how you built it. We wanted to see how students utilized GitLab's platform — from Issue Boards to CI/CD pipelines — to accelerate the development lifecycle.\n\nThe results were inspiring.\n\n## The winners\n\n### 1st place: Team Decode — Democratizing Scientific Research\n\n**Project:** FIRE (Fast Integrated Research Environment)\n\nTeam Decode took home the top prize with a solution that warms a developer's heart: a local-first, blazing-fast data processing tool built with [Rust](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/secure-rust-development-with-gitlab/) and Tauri. They identified a massive pain point for data science students: existing tools are fragmented, slow, and expensive.\n\nTheir solution, FIRE, allows researchers to visualize complex formats (like NetCDF) instantly. What impressed the judges most was their \"hacker\" ethos. They didn't just build a tool; they built it to be open and accessible.\n\n**How they used GitLab:** Since the team lived far apart, asynchronous communication was key. They utilized **GitLab Issue Boards** and **Milestones** to track progress and integrated their repo with Telegram to get real-time push notifications. As one team member noted, \"Coordinating all these technologies was really difficult, and what helped us was GitLab... the Issue Board really helped us track who was doing what.\"\n\n![Team Decode](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380253/epqazj1jc5c7zkgqun9h.jpg)\n\n### 2nd place: Team BichdeHueDost — Reuniting to Solve Payments\n\n**Project:** SemiPay (RFID Cashless Payment for Schools)\n\nThe team name, BichdeHueDost, translates to \"Friends who have been set apart.\" It's a fitting name for a group of friends who went to different colleges but reunited to build this project. They tackled a unique problem: handling cash in schools for young children. Their solution used RFID cards backed by a blockchain ledger to ensure secure, cashless transactions for students.\n\n**How they used GitLab:** They utilized [GitLab CI/CD](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/ci-cd/) to automate the build process for their Flutter application (APK), ensuring that every commit resulted in a testable artifact. This allowed them to iterate quickly despite the \"flaky\" nature of cross-platform mobile development.\n\n![Team BichdeHueDost](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380253/pkukrjgx2miukb6nrj5g.jpg)\n\n### 3rd place: Team ZenYukti — Agentic Repository Intelligence\n\n**Project:** RepoInsight AI (AI-powered, GitLab-native intelligence platform)\n\nTeam ZenYukti impressed us with a solution that tackles a universal developer pain point: understanding unfamiliar codebases. What stood out to the judges was the tool's practical approach to onboarding and code comprehension: RepoInsight-AI automatically generates documentation, visualizes repository structure, and even helps identify bugs, all while maintaining context about the entire codebase.\n\n**How they used GitLab:** The team built a comprehensive CI/CD pipeline that showcased GitLab's security and DevOps capabilities. They integrated [GitLab's Security Templates](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/tree/master/lib/gitlab/ci/templates/Security) (SAST, Dependency Scanning, and Secret Detection), and utilized [GitLab Container Registry](https://docs.gitlab.com/user/packages/container_registry/) to manage their Docker images for backend and frontend components. They created an AI auto-review bot that runs on merge requests, demonstrating an \"agentic workflow\" where AI assists in the development process itself.\n\n![Team ZenYukti](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380253/ymlzqoruv5al1secatba.jpg)\n\n## Beyond the code: A lesson in inclusion\n\nWhile the code was impressive, the most powerful moment of the event happened away from the keyboard.\n\nDuring the feedback session, we learned about the journey Team ZenYukti took to get to Mumbai. They traveled over 24 hours, covering nearly 1,800 kilometers. Because flights were too expensive and trains were booked, they traveled in the \"General Coach,\" a non-reserved, severely overcrowded carriage.\n\nAs one student described it:\n\n*\"You cannot even imagine something like this... there are no seats... people sit on the top of the train. This is what we have endured.\"*\n\nThis hit home. [Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/inclusion/) are core values at GitLab. We realized that for these students, the barrier to entry wasn't intellect or skill, it was access.\n\nIn that moment, we decided to break that barrier. We committed to reimbursing the travel expenses for the participants who struggled to get there. It's a small step, but it underlines a massive truth: **talent is distributed equally, but opportunity is not.**\n\n![hackathon class together](https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1767380252/o5aqmboquz8ehusxvgom.jpg)\n\n### The future is bright (and automated)\n\nWe also saw incredible potential in teams like Prometheus, who attempted to build an autonomous patch remediation tool (DevGuardian), and Team Arrakis, who built a voice-first job portal for blue-collar workers using [GitLab Duo](https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/) to troubleshoot their pipelines.\n\nTo all the students who participated: You are the future. Through [GitLab for Education](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/), we are committed to providing you with the top-tier tools (like GitLab Ultimate) you need to learn, collaborate, and change the world — whether you are coding from a dorm room, a lab, or a train carriage. **Keep shipping.**\n\n> :bulb: Learn more about the [GitLab for Education program](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/).\n",{"slug":731,"featured":12,"template":13},"how-iit-bombay-students-code-future-with-gitlab",{"content":733,"config":741},{"title":734,"description":735,"authors":736,"heroImage":737,"date":738,"category":9,"tags":739,"body":740},"Artois University elevates research and curriculum with GitLab Ultimate for Education","Artois University's CRIL leveraged the GitLab for Education program to gain free access to Ultimate, transforming advanced research and computer science curricula.",[724],"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1750099203/Blog/Hero%20Images/Blog/Hero%20Images/blog-image-template-1800x945%20%2820%29_2bJGC5ZP3WheoqzlLT05C5_1750099203484.png","2025-12-10",[611,259,715],"Leading academic institutions face a critical challenge: how to provide thousands of students and researchers with industry-standard, **full-featured DevSecOps tools** without compromising institutional control. Many start with basic version control, but the modern curriculum demands integrated capabilities for planning, security, and advanced CI/CD.\n\nThe **GitLab for Education program** is designed to solve this by providing access to **GitLab Ultimate** for qualifying institutions, allowing them to scale their operations and elevate their academic offerings. \n\nThis article showcases a powerful success story from the **Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Lens (CRIL)**, a joint laboratory of **Artois University** and CNRS in France. After years of relying solely on GitLab Community Edition (CE), the university's move to GitLab Ultimate through the GitLab for Education program immediately unlocked advanced capabilities, transforming their teaching, research, and contribution workflows virtually overnight. This story demonstrates why GitLab Ultimate is essential for institutions seeking to deliver advanced computer science and research curricula.\n\n## GitLab Ultimate unlocked: Managing scale and driving academic value\n\n**Artois University's** self-managed GitLab instance is a large-scale operation, supporting nearly **3,000 users** across approximately **19,000 projects**, primarily serving computer science students and researchers. While GitLab Community Edition was robust, the upgrade to GitLab Ultimate provided the sophisticated tooling necessary for managing this scale and facilitating advanced university-level work.\n\n***\"We can see the difference,\" says Daniel Le Berre, head of research at CRIL and the instance maintainer. \"It's a completely different product. Each week reveals new features that directly enhance our productivity and teaching.\"***\n\nThe institution joined the GitLab for Education program specifically because it covers both **instructional and non-commercial research use cases** and offers full access to Ultimate's features, removing significant cost barriers.\n\n### Key GitLab Ultimate benefits for students and researchers\n\n* **Advanced project management at scale:** Master's students now benefit from **GitLab Ultimate's project planning features**. This enables them to structure, track, and manage complex, long-term research projects using professional methodologies like portfolio management and advanced issue tracking that seamlessly roll up across their thousands of projects.\n\n* **Enhanced visibility:** Features like improved dashboards and code previews directly in Markdown files dramatically streamline tracking and documentation review, reducing administrative friction for both instructors and students managing large project loads.\n\n## Comprehensive curriculum: From concepts to continuous delivery\n\nGitLab Ultimate is deeply integrated into the computer science curriculum, moving students beyond simple `git` commands to practical **DevSecOps implementation**.\n\n* **Git fundamentals:** Students begin by visualizing concepts using open-source tools to master Git concepts.\n\n* **Full CI/CD implementation:** Students use GitLab CI for rigorous **Test-Driven Development (TDD)** in their software projects. They learn to build, test, and perform quality assurance using unit and integration testing pipelines—core competency made seamless by the integrated platform.\n\n* **DevSecOps for research and documentation:** The university teaches students that DevSecOps principles are vital for all collaborative work. Inspired by earlier work in Delft, students manage and produce critical research documentation (PDFs from Markdown files) using GitLab, incorporating quality checks like linters and spell checks directly in the CI pipeline. This ensures high-quality, reproducible research output.\n\n* **Future-proofing security skills:** The GitLab Ultimate platform immediately positions the institution to incorporate advanced DevSecOps features like SAST and DAST scanning as their research and development code projects grow, ensuring students are prepared for industry security standards.\n\n## Accelerating open source contributions with GitLab Duo\n\nAccess to the full GitLab platform, including our AI capabilities, has empowered students to make impactful contributions to the wider open source community faster than ever before.\n\nTwo Master's students recently completed direct contributions to the GitLab product, adding the **ORCID identifier** into user profiles. Working on GitLab.com, they leveraged **GitLab Duo's AI chat and code suggestions** to navigate the codebase efficiently.\n\n***\"This would not have been possible without GitLab Duo,\" Daniel Le Berre notes. \"The AI features helped students, who might have lacked deep codebase knowledge, deliver meaningful contributions in just two weeks.\"***\n\nThis demonstrates how providing students with cutting-edge tools **accelerates their learning and impact**, allowing them to translate classroom knowledge into real-world contributions immediately.\n\n## Empowering open research and institutional control\n\nThe stability of the self-managed instance at Artois University is key to its success. This model guarantees **institutional control and stability** — a critical factor for long-term research preservation.\n\nThe institution's expertise in this area was recently highlighted in a major 2024 study led by CRIL, titled: \"[Higher Education and Research Forges in France - Definition, uses, limitations encountered and needs analysis](https://hal.science/hal-04208924v4)\" ([Project on GitLab](https://gitlab.in2p3.fr/coso-college-codes-sources-et-logiciels/forges-esr-en)). The research found that the vast majority of public forges in French Higher Education and Research relied on **GitLab**. This finding underscores the consensus among academic leaders that self-hosted solutions are essential for **data control and longevity**, especially when compared to relying on external, commercial forges.\n\n## Unlock GitLab Ultimate for your institution today\n\nThe success story of **Artois University's CRIL** proves the transformative power of the GitLab for Education program. By providing **free access to GitLab Ultimate**, we enable large-scale institutions to:\n\n1.  **Deliver a modern, integrated DevSecOps curriculum.**\n\n2.  **Support advanced, collaborative research projects with Ultimate planning features.**\n\n3.  **Empower students to make AI-assisted open source contributions.**\n\n4.  **Maintain institutional control and data longevity.**\n\nIf your academic institution is ready to equip its students and researchers with the complete DevSecOps platform and its most advanced features, we invite you to join the program.\n\nThe program provides **free access to GitLab Ultimate** for qualifying instructional and non-commercial research use cases.\n\n**Apply now [online](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/education/join/).**\n",{"slug":742,"featured":27,"template":13},"artois-university-elevates-curriculum-with-gitlab-ultimate-for-education",{"promotions":744},[745,759,770],{"id":746,"categories":747,"header":749,"text":750,"button":751,"image":756},"ai-modernization",[748],"ai-ml","Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":752,"config":753},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":754,"dataGaName":755,"dataGaLocation":241},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":757},{"src":758},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":760,"categories":761,"header":762,"text":750,"button":763,"image":767},"devops-modernization",[715,557],"Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":764,"config":765},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":766,"dataGaName":755,"dataGaLocation":241},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":768},{"src":769},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":771,"categories":772,"header":774,"text":750,"button":775,"image":779},"security-modernization",[773],"security","Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":776,"config":777},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":778,"dataGaName":755,"dataGaLocation":241},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":780},{"src":781},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"header":783,"blurb":784,"button":785,"secondaryButton":790},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":786,"config":787},"Get your free trial",{"href":788,"dataGaName":48,"dataGaLocation":789},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":493,"config":791},{"href":52,"dataGaName":53,"dataGaLocation":789},1773350825213]