gitlab-ce/doc/administration/encrypted_configuration.md

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Encrypted Configuration (FREE SELF)

Introduced in GitLab 13.7.

GitLab can read settings for certain features from encrypted settings files. The supported features are:

• Incoming email user and password.
• LDAP bind_dn and password.
• Service Desk email user and password.
• SMTP user_name and password.

To enable the encrypted configuration settings, a new base key must be generated for encrypted_settings_key_base. The secret can be generated in the following ways:

• For Linux package installations, the new secret is automatically generated for you, but you must ensure your /etc/gitlab/gitlab-secrets.json contains the same values on all nodes.

• For Helm chart installations, the new secret is automatically generated if you have the shared-secrets chart enabled. Otherwise, you need to follow the secrets guide for adding the secret.

• For self-compiled installations, the new secret can be generated by running:

  bundle exec rake gitlab:env:info RAILS_ENV=production GITLAB_GENERATE_ENCRYPTED_SETTINGS_KEY_BASE=true
  

  This prints general information on the GitLab instance and generates the key in <path-to-gitlab-rails>/config/secrets.yml.