Guard Rails

Introduction

In the fast-paced world of software development, ensuring that your project complies with IT security standards while maintaining an efficient workflow can be challenging. That’s where Guard Rails comes in—a modular, maintainable, and customizable security-compliant DevOps strategy designed for use with Travis CI.

Guard Rails offers a robust boilerplate for projects aiming to enhance their compliance with IT security standards while adopting a modular and maintainable DevOps approach. It’s crafted to help teams seamlessly integrate security practices into their CI/CD pipelines without sacrificing productivity or flexibility.

Table of Contents

• Why Guard Rails?
• Leveraging Gitflow with Guard Rails
  • Key Branches:
• Getting Started with Guard Rails
• Guard Rails Features at a Glance
  • Core Features:
  • Technology-Specific Features:
  • Logging & Monitoring:
  • Security with Mend
• Sub-projects and Modular Architecture
• Fine-Tuning Your Travis CI Pipeline
  • Pipeline Stages:
• Conclusion

Why Guard Rails?

One of the key challenges in DevOps is balancing speed with security. Traditional approaches often force teams to choose between moving fast and adhering to strict security protocols. Guard Rails eliminates this dilemma by providing a framework that integrates security compliance directly into your DevOps pipeline, ensuring that your project remains both agile and secure.

Currently, Guard Rails is tailored for projects using a custom image pipeline infrastructure due to its reliance on a specific container registry. However, its flexible architecture allows for easy adaptation to other CI/CD solutions by swapping out the existing registry with one from another cloud provider.

Moreover, Guard Rails is particularly beneficial for teams that cannot leverage centralized CI/CD platforms due to the nature of their projects, especially those unable to support trunk-based development.

Leveraging Gitflow with Guard Rails

The Guard Rails boilerplate is structured around the Gitflow workflow, a branching model that simplifies managing development and release cycles.

Key Branches:

• main or master: The production branch containing the latest stable version.
• development: The branch where ongoing development occurs.
• #.#.#: Release branches for preparing specific versions of the project.

For a deeper dive into Gitflow and how it integrates with Guard Rails, check out the detailed Gitflow presentation.

Getting Started with Guard Rails

To kickstart your journey with Guard Rails, begin by cloning the project:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/dotbrains/guardrails

Next, customize the setup for your organization by running the change_organization_name.py script:

python3 ./scripts/change_organization_name.py <organization_name>

This script updates the organization name across all necessary files, ensuring that your project is uniquely branded and ready for deployment.

Guard Rails Features at a Glance

Guard Rails packs a suite of features designed to bolster your CI/CD pipeline with security, efficiency, and maintainability:

Core Features:

• Custom Image Pipeline Infrastructure
• Travis CI CI/CD integration
• Docker containerization
• AppScan for Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
• Contrast for Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) (optional)
• Detect Secrets for secret detection

Technology-Specific Features:

• Java: Includes Maven for builds, Spring Boot for microservices, and git-code-format-maven-plugin for code formatting.
• JavaScript: Supports Node.js, pnpm, Husky for git hooks, and Prettier for code formatting.

Logging & Monitoring:

• Mezmo: Formerly known as LogDNA, used for logging.
• Dynatrace: For comprehensive monitoring.

To integrate Mezmo and Dynatrace into your project, follow the setup guidelines within your CI/CD platform to securely add the necessary credentials.

Security with Mend

Guard Rails also leverages Mend (formerly WhiteSource) for open-source vulnerability scanning, providing automated checks and updates to keep your project secure.

For integration instructions, follow Mend’s onboarding process here.

Sub-projects and Modular Architecture

Guard Rails is composed of several sub-projects that enhance its modularity and flexibility. These sub-projects can be customized and extended based on your project’s requirements:

• Base Images Blueprint: Provides foundational Docker images for your CI/CD pipeline.
• Boilerplate Technical Documentation: A starting point for creating detailed project documentation.
• AppScan SAST Travis Integration: Integrates AppScan SAST seamlessly with Travis CI.
• Contrast Security SAST Travis Integration: Adds Contrast Security tools to your Travis CI pipeline.
• Create Tagged Releases: Automates the process of tagging and releasing new versions of your project on GitHub.

Fine-Tuning Your Travis CI Pipeline

Guard Rails provides a robust Travis CI pipeline, which requires setting specific environment variables for seamless operation:

• Container Registry: REGISTRY_USER, REGISTRY_PASSWORD, REGISTRY_NAMESPACE
• AppScan: APPSCAN_API_KEY, APPSCAN_API_SECRET, APPSCAN_APP_ID
• Contrast: CONTRAST__API__API_KEY, CONTRAST__API__USER_NAME, CONTRAST__API__ORGANIZATION, CONTRAST__API__SERVICE_KEY

Pipeline Stages:

Guard Rails' Travis CI pipeline is designed to execute different stages based on the event type and branch being built:

1. Prepare Cache: Installs project dependencies.
2. Detect Secrets: Scans the project for any secrets.
3. Static Code Analysis: Runs security checks using AppScan.
4. Build: Ensures that the project builds successfully.
5. Deploy Artifacts: Deploys container images to your specified registry.

Each stage in the pipeline is meticulously crafted to ensure that your project adheres to security standards without compromising on development speed.

Conclusion

Guard Rails is more than just a DevOps strategy—it’s a comprehensive framework designed to enhance your project's compliance with IT security standards while maintaining a high level of flexibility and efficiency. By integrating Guard Rails into your workflow, you can ensure that your project is secure, maintainable, and ready to scale.

Whether you’re starting a new project or looking to refine your existing pipeline, Guard Rails offers the tools and strategies you need to succeed. Dive into the Guard Rails GitHub repository and start enhancing your DevOps strategy today.