A service account is a user account intended for use in automated scripts. These accounts are typically used in CI/CD pipelines and integrations. A service account cannot be used to authenticate via the web interface or to perform actions through impersonation.

Creating a service account

Rails console

To create a service account, use the Rails console provided in the Toolbox utility set. Open the console by running the following command:

gitlab-rails console -e production

Creating an account

  1. In the Rails console, prepare the parameters defining the account to be created. Fill in the name, username, email, and admin fields, and define the rest of the parameters as shown in the example below:

    user_args = {
name: 'kaiten_sa',
username: 'kaiten_sa',
email: 'kaiten_sa@flant.com',
admin: false,
user_type: :service_account,
organization_id: Organizations::Organization.default_organization.id,
password_automatically_set: true,
force_random_password: true,
skip_confirmation: true
}

  2. Select the user on whose behalf the service account will be created and execute the account creation:

    user = User.find_by_username('root')
Users::CreateService.new(user, user_args).execute

Generating an access token

To generate an access token, use GitLab’s Personal access tokens API.