Using the GitLab-Spamcheck chart

The spamcheck sub-chart provides a deployment of Spamcheck which is an anti-spam engine developed by GitLab originally to combat the rising amount of spam in GitLab.com, and later made public to be used in self-managed GitLab instances.

Requirements

This chart depends on access to the GitLab API.

Configuration

Enable Spamcheck

spamcheck is disabled by default. To enable it on your GitLab instance, set the Helm property global.spamcheck.enabled to true, for example:

helm upgrade --force --install gitlab . \
--set global.hosts.domain='your.domain.com' \
--set global.hosts.externalIP=XYZ.XYZ.XYZ.XYZ \
--set certmanager-issuer.email='me@example.com' \
--set global.spamcheck.enabled=true

Configure GitLab to use Spamcheck

  1. On the top bar, select Menu > Admin.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Settings > Reporting.
  3. Expand Spam and Anti-bot Protection.
  4. Update the Spam Check settings:
    1. Check the Enable Spam Check via external API endpoint checkbox
    2. For URL of the external Spam Check endpoint use grpc://gitlab-spamcheck.default.svc:8001, where default is replaced with the Kubernetes namespace where GitLab is deployed.
    3. Leave Spam Check API key blank.
  5. Select Save changes.

Installation command line options

The table below contains all the possible charts configurations that can be supplied to the helm install command using the --set flags.

Parameter Default Description
annotations {} Pod annotations
common.labels {} Supplemental labels that are applied to all objects created by this chart.
deployment.livenessProbe.initialDelaySeconds 20 Delay before liveness probe is initiated
deployment.livenessProbe.periodSeconds 60 How often to perform the liveness probe
deployment.livenessProbe.timeoutSeconds 30 When the liveness probe times out
deployment.livenessProbe.successThreshold 1 Minimum consecutive successes for the liveness probe to be considered successful after having failed
deployment.livenessProbe.failureThreshold 3 Minimum consecutive failures for the liveness probe to be considered failed after having succeeded
deployment.readinessProbe.initialDelaySeconds 0 Delay before readiness probe is initiated
deployment.readinessProbe.periodSeconds 10 How often to perform the readiness probe
deployment.readinessProbe.timeoutSeconds 2 When the readiness probe times out
deployment.readinessProbe.successThreshold 1 Minimum consecutive successes for the readiness probe to be considered successful after having failed
deployment.readinessProbe.failureThreshold 3 Minimum consecutive failures for the readiness probe to be considered failed after having succeeded
deployment.strategy {} Allows one to configure the update strategy used by the deployment. When not provided, the cluster default is used.
hpa.behavior {scaleDown: {stabilizationWindowSeconds: 300 }} Behavior contains the specifications for up- and downscaling behavior (requires autoscaling/v2beta2 or higher)
hpa.customMetrics [] Custom metrics contains the specifications for which to use to calculate the desired replica count (overrides the default use of Average CPU Utilization configured in targetAverageUtilization)
hpa.cpu.targetType AverageValue Set the autoscaling CPU target type, must be either Utilization or AverageValue
hpa.cpu.targetAverageValue 100m Set the autoscaling CPU target value
hpa.cpu.targetAverageUtilization   Set the autoscaling CPU target utilization
hpa.memory.targetType   Set the autoscaling memory target type, must be either Utilization or AverageValue
hpa.memory.targetAverageValue   Set the autoscaling memory target value
hpa.memory.targetAverageUtilization   Set the autoscaling memory target utilization
hpa.targetAverageValue   DEPRECATED Set the autoscaling CPU target value
image.repository registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-com/gl-security/engineering-and-research/automation-team/spam/spamcheck Spamcheck image repository
logging.level info Log level
maxReplicas 10 HPA maxReplicas
maxUnavailable 1 HPA maxUnavailable
minReplicas 2 HPA maxReplicas
podLabels {} Supplemental Pod labels. Not used for selectors.
resources.requests.cpu 100m Spamcheck minimum CPU
resources.requests.memory 100M Spamcheck minimum memory
securityContext.fsGroup 1000 Group ID under which the pod should be started
securityContext.runAsUser 1000 User ID under which the pod should be started
serviceLabels {} Supplemental service labels
service.externalPort 8001 Spamcheck external port
service.internalPort 8001 Spamcheck internal port
service.type ClusterIP Spamcheck service type
serviceAccount.enabled Flag for using ServiceAccount false
serviceAccount.create Flag for creating a ServiceAccount false
tolerations [] Toleration labels for pod assignment
extraEnvFrom {} List of extra environment variables from other data sources to expose
priorityClassName   Priority class assigned to pods.

Chart configuration examples

tolerations

tolerations allow you schedule pods on tainted worker nodes

Below is an example use of tolerations:

tolerations:
- key: "node_label"
  operator: "Equal"
  value: "true"
  effect: "NoSchedule"
- key: "node_label"
  operator: "Equal"
  value: "true"
  effect: "NoExecute"

annotations

annotations allows you to add annotations to the Spamcheck pods. For example:

annotations:
  kubernetes.io/example-annotation: annotation-value

resources

resources allows you to configure the minimum and maximum amount of resources (memory and CPU) a Spamcheck pod can consume.

For example:

resources:
  requests:
    memory: 100m
    cpu: 100M

livenessProbe/readinessProbe

deployment.livenessProbe and deployment.readinessProbe provide a mechanism to help control the termination of Spamcheck Pods in certain scenarios, such as, when a container is in a broken state.

For example:

deployment:
  livenessProbe:
    initialDelaySeconds: 10
    periodSeconds: 20
    timeoutSeconds: 3
    successThreshold: 1
    failureThreshold: 10
  readinessProbe:
    initialDelaySeconds: 10
    periodSeconds: 5
    timeoutSeconds: 2
    successThreshold: 1
    failureThreshold: 3

Refer to the official Kubernetes Documentation for additional details regarding this configuration.