# GitLab Kubernetes / OpenShift integration

GitLab can be configured to interact with Kubernetes, or other systems using the
Kubernetes API (such as OpenShift).

Each project can be configured to connect to a different Kubernetes cluster, see
the [configuration](#configuration) section.

If you have a single cluster that you want to use for all your projects,
you can pre-fill the settings page with a default template. To configure the
template, see the [Services Templates](services-templates.md) document.

## Configuration

![Kubernetes configuration settings](img/kubernetes_configuration.png)

The Kubernetes service takes the following arguments:

1. Kubernetes namespace
1. API URL
1. Service token
1. Custom CA bundle

The API URL is the URL that GitLab uses to access the Kubernetes API. Kubernetes
exposes several APIs - we want the "base" URL that is common to all of them,
e.g., `https://kubernetes.example.com` rather than `https://kubernetes.example.com/api/v1`.

GitLab authenticates against Kubernetes using service tokens, which are
scoped to a particular `namespace`. If you don't have a service token yet,
you can follow the
[Kubernetes documentation](http://kubernetes.io/docs/user-guide/service-accounts/)
to create one. You can also view or create service tokens in the
[Kubernetes dashboard](http://kubernetes.io/docs/user-guide/ui/) - visit
`Config -> Secrets`.

Fill in the service token and namespace according to the values you just got.
If the API is using a self-signed TLS certificate, you'll also need to include
the `ca.crt` contents as the `Custom CA bundle`.

## Deployment variables

The Kubernetes service exposes following
[deployment variables](../ci/variables/README.md#deployment-variables) in the
GitLab CI build environment:

- `KUBE_URL` - equal to the API URL
- `KUBE_TOKEN`
- `KUBE_NAMESPACE`
- `KUBE_CA_PEM` - only if a custom CA bundle was specified