GITLAB CI/CD: BUILD AND PUSH DOCKER TO AWS ECR

After setting up our development tools, the next crucial step is configuring our CI/CD pipeline. In this post, we'll use several AWS services:

Amazon ECR (Elastic Container Registry)

• Fully managed container registry
• Secure storage for Docker images
• Integrates seamlessly with IAM

IAM (Identity and Access Management)

• Manages EC2 permissions to ECR
• Secures registry access
• Follows principle of least privilege

I'll share how to securely manage AWS credentials in GitLab and set up Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) for our Docker images.

Prerequisites

• AWS Account with EC2 instance running
• EC2 instance with AWS CLI installed
• GitLab Runner installed and registered
• Docker installed on EC2
• Basic understanding of Docker, Docker Compose, GitLab CI/CD

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Updating volumes for GitLab Runner

Before we can use Docker commands in our pipeline, we need to update our GitLab Runner configuration:

sudo vi /etc/gitlab-runner/config.toml

Add the volumes configuration:

[[runners]]
  executor = "docker"
  [runners.docker]
    volumes = ["/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock"]

Restart GitLab Runner:

sudo systemctl restart gitlab-runner

2. Creating IAM Role for EC2

• Go to IAM Console > Roles > Create role
• Select AWS service as trusted entity
• Select EC2 as use case
• Add AmazonEC2ContainerRegistryFullAccess as permissions
• Name EC2ECRAccess
• Review and create

3. Attaching IAM Role to EC2

4. 🔐 Setting Up GitLab CI/CD Variables

Required variables: AWS_REGION, DIRECTORY_APP, EC2_HOST, EC2_USER, ECR_REPOSITORY_URL, SSH_PRIVATE_KEY

5. 📦 Creating ECR Repository

6. 🚀 Pipeline in Action

Learning Journey Highlights

IAM Configuration

• Role creation and policies for ECR access
• EC2 role attachment
• Permission management

GitLab CI/CD Setup

• Variable management
• Masking sensitive data
• Environment configuration

ECR Configuration

• Repository creation
• Access management
• Authentication setup

Resources

• GitLab CI/CD Documentation
• Amazon ECR User Guide

Next Steps: Security Improvements

• Replacing SSH keys with IAM roles and AWS Systems Manager
• Using AWS Secrets Manager or Parameter Store for sensitive credentials